Britain is struggling to present a united fro-nt within its coalition Cabinet on Afghanistan after the weekend visit to the war-torn country by foreign secretary William Hague, defe-nce secretary Liam Fox and international development secretary Andrew Mitchell led to contradictory statements. Mr Hague, senior Tory leader, had to intervene to sort out contradictory statements by the defence and international development secretary. Dr Fox described Afghanistan as a “broken 13th-century country” in an interview with the Times.
“We are not in Afghanistan for the sake of the education policy in a broken 13th-century country. We are there so the people of Britain and our global interests are not threatened,” Dr Fox said. On the other hand, Mr Mitchell said that development, including education, was absolutely crucial in Afghanistan. “We need to ensure that we help the Afghan people to build a functioning state,” he said.
“That’s about providing basic education and healthcare facilities, but it’s also about ensuring there are opportunities for promoting livelihoods so that people have jobs. If we are going to prioritise making sure there is a functioning state in Afghanistan, then development, the work we are doing in that respect, is absolutely crucial.”
Mr Hague was forced to clarify after the Afghan visit that there were no differences in the coalition of the Afghanistan strategy.
“We’re here to make our own nation more secure and our allies more secure, we’re here really to try to make sure that Afghans can look after their own affairs and their own security in the future without Afghanistan presenting a danger to the rest of the world. So our objective is security,” Mr Hague told BBC 1’s Politics Show. The Afghan visit by the three senior ministers came just before Britain’s top bomb disposal officer submitted his resignation. Colonel Bob Seddon resigned after he told a BBC documentary that he was worried about the threat from improvised explosive devices in Afghanistan.