Afghanistan commander calls for staying the course

London: Bringing stability to Afghanistan is worth the sacrifice, a senior UK military chief there said yesterday.

Lieutenant-General Jim Dutton said the consequences of the war going wrong would be "far greater".

He made his comments on the day that two more British troops died in explosions and Sir Jock Stirrup, the head of the armed forces, admitted British soldiers could be in Afghanistan for another five years.

The servicemen, one from 2nd Battalion The Rifles and the other from 4th Battalion The Rifles, died in separate explosions near the town of Sangin, in the restive Helmand province.

The British death toll is now 232 — with 201 killed in action since the conflict began in 2001.

In an interview with BBC1's The Politics Show, Lt Gen Dutton, the International Security Assistance Force's deputy commander, said: "There is much more to the provision of stability in this area of the world, which is a project for which I have to say, yes, it is worth some soldiers having to die for because the consequences of it going wrong are far greater."

Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock, the chief of the defence staff, warned US commander General Stanley McChrystal's prediction of a withdrawal in 2013 was "a little optimistic".

"I'd say about 2014," he told the BBC's Andrew Marr Show. "It is another four or five years but it will be a gradual process."

He denied reports the Army had drawn up detailed plans to pull out of the town of Musa Qala in Afghanistan's Helmand Province but admitted some outlying troops would now concentrate on urban areas.

As Britain fell silent on Remembrance Sunday, defence secretary Bob Ainsworth openly expressed frustration at US President Barack Obama's indecision over whether to "surge" 40,000 more troops to Afghanistan. He said: "I don't criticise the American authorities for wanting to go into it in great detail, but yes, we do need a decision. If you asked me a month or so ago, I would have thought we would have had more clarity before now."

In his interview, Lt-Gen Dutton said the situation in Afghanistan was "serious and deteriorating". But he said Nato allies would succeed. He insisted that British soldiers were not making the ultimate sacrifice simply to prop up the tainted regime of Afghan leader President Hamid Karzai.

He also predicted that last week's massacre of five British soldiers by a "rogue" Afghan police officer would not be the "last atrocity" of its kind.

But he added: "I think the British people will put up with the cost of this sort of operation, and I mean the cost in human and financial terms, if they believe two things: one, that we're right, and two, that we can win."

Aides deny disrespect

Aides of Prime Minister Gordon Brown were swift to stress that absolutely no disrespect was intended to the fallen.

Yet, Brown found himself accused of yet another gaffe yesterday for neglecting to bow after he laid his wreath at the Cenotaph.

Brown might have been disoriented after almost losing his footing as he knelt to lay the wreath. But not everyone was forgiving. A posting on the Army Rumour Service website, a chatroom for current and former servicemen, asked: "Everyone else managed to do it, why couldn't he?"

A spokesman yesterday said: "The Prime Minister has the greatest respect for those who have given their lives in the service of his country. He was honoured to lay a wreath, as he has done in previous years, in memory of the all the British servicemen and women who have died to keep this country safe. Any suggestion that he did not show appropriate respect is completely without foundation."