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Costs blamed for limited increase in UK troops in Afghanistan

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

London, Apr 30, IRNA – British army chiefs were reported Thursday to have lost out in wanting to permanently raise the number of UK troops deployed in Afghanistan due to the escalating costs of the war during the current economic crisis.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced on Wednesday that Britain would only temporarily send an extra 700 troops to Helmand this autumn to help provide security for the presidential election, bringing the total to 9,000 before falling back to 8,300.

Brown’s statement “signalled defeat” for army chiefs, who had pressed to deploy an additional 2,000 troops to 10,300 on a permanent basis in order to intensify the UK’s counter-insurgency effort, according to the Financial Times.

He told MPs the cost of operations in Afghanistan had risen from £750m ($1.1 billion) in 2006-07 to the estimated £3bn for 2009-10 spelt out in last week’s budget.

Britain has already spent over £14 bn from Treasury reserves on military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, with the total cost soaring by more than 50 per cent to more than £4.5 bn in the last financial year.

Former chief economist at the World Bank Joseph Stiglitz has already estimated that the budgetary cost to the UK of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan through 2010 will total more than £18 bn and exceed £20 bn including social costs.

Last weekend, the Daily Telegraph reported that the Treasury had blocked Ministry of Defence plans to match a US troop surge in Afghanistan because the government will have to borrow £700 billion over the next five years due to the current financial crisis.