Afghan Pull-Out a ‘Dark Chapter in UK Military History’: Defence Committee Chair

Members of the British armed forces 16 Air Assault Brigade who returned from helping in operations to evacuate people from Kabul airport in Afghanistan walk to the air terminal after disembarking a RAF Voyager aircraft at RAF Brize Norton, Oxfordshire, England, on Aug. 28, 2021. Alastair Grant/PA

Britain’s chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021 was a “dark chapter in UK military history,” a senior Conservative MP has said.

The UK’s involvement in Afghanistan began as part of a U.S.-led coalition in 2001, following the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Some 457 UK military personnel lost their lives during the 20-year war, which cost British taxpayers more than £27 billion ($33 billion).

NATO forces were forced to withdraw in August 2021 after the Taliban took over the country. The evacuation, codenamed Operation Pitting, resulted in 15,000 Afghans who had worked with British authorities being brought to the UK but left many behind.

Captain Muraal at Kabul airport as she boards a British military plane to be evacuated to the UK from Afghanistan, in an undated handout photo. Ministry of Defence/PA

Tobias Ellwood, chairman of the Defence Committee of the House of Commons, said the government should carry out a review of the UK’s 20-year Afghan mission “to take an unflinching look at where we went wrong.”

“It is only through this that we can learn the necessary lessons and prevent this from ever happening again,” he said.

In a 30-page report published on Feb. 10, the cross-party Defence Committee said an “open, honest, and detailed review” is of “critical importance.”

They said the review would be helpful to the ongoing effort to update the government’s Integrated Review of its security, defence, and foreign policies.

‘Serious Strategic Blow’

The report said the withdrawal, which followed the U.S. decision to pull out of Afghanistan, revealed the limits of NATO’s military capability without U.S. involvement.

“Although the defence secretary assured us that he had attempted to find a way to retain a military presence in Afghanistan without the U.S., we recognise how difficult this would have been in practice,” said the MPs.

The report also criticised Western intelligence operations in Afghanistan. It said: “Optimism bias and failures in intelligence and analysis meant that the rapid collapse of the Afghan Government was a greater surprise to the military establishment than it might have been.”

Tobias Ellwood MP speaking during the Veterans' Mental Health Conference at King's College London on Mar. 14, 2019. Gareth Fuller/WPA Pool/Getty Images

The committee said the fall of the Afghan government “represented a serious strategic blow to NATO and its allies.”

“Technically, NATO forces were not defeated in Afghanistan. However, this must not prevent the recognition that the end of the NATO mission has been severely detrimental both to the people of Afghanistan and to the security of the region, as well as to Alliance and UK military credibility,” said the report.

Ellwood, the committee chair, said: “The rapid fall of Kabul will have been painful to many of the British troops and veterans who served in Afghanistan. We welcome the additional funding that has been provided to veterans’ mental health charities since and the medals awarded to those who contributed to Operation Pitting. The bravery of those on the ground was never in doubt.

“The fallout from the withdrawal from Afghanistan will continue for generations to come. We need to get to grips with the factors that led to the Taliban’s swift return to power and the wider impact on global security.”

Safe Passage

The committee of MPs also calls on the government to set out what action it is taking to ensure safe passage to the UK for several thousand Afghans still eligible for evacuation under the government’s Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy scheme.

While the report praised armed forces personnel who served in Operation Pitting, it criticised officials involved in the UK government’s civilian operations in support of the evacuation.

“While it was never going to be possible to evacuate everyone who met the eligibility criteria as part of the operation, there was an obvious lack of effective coordination across government, with real and painful human consequences for those who reasonably expected to be evacuated but were not,” the report said.

Ellwood added: “Well over a year since the end of Operation Pitting, thousands of Afghans eligible for evacuation remain in Afghanistan.

“They are at risk of harm as a direct result of assisting the UK mission. We can’t change the events that unfolded in August 2021, but we owe it to those Afghans, who placed their lives in danger to help us, to get them and their families to safety.”

A Ministry of Defence spokesperson said: “We owe a debt of gratitude to Afghan citizens who worked for, or with, the UK armed forces in Afghanistan and to date we have relocated over 12,100 individuals under the scheme.

“During Operation Pitting we worked tirelessly to safely evacuate as many people out of Afghanistan as possible, airlifting more than 15,000 people from Kabul and their dependents.

“We estimate there are approximately 300 eligible principals to identify and our priority is finding them and bringing them and their families to the UK. In doing this, we are prioritising minimising risk to life, maximising the pace of relocations out of Afghanistan and ensuring when individuals arrive here in the UK, they are set up for a successful life.”

The spokesperson also said: “We acknowledge the report and its recommendations and will be providing a response in due course.”

PA Media contributed to this report.