Government ‘asleep on watch’ over protecting Afghans, ex-British Army head says

A former head of the British Military has accused the federal government of being “asleep on watch” in relation to the safety of Afghans who helped UK troopers and officers.

Normal Lord Richard Dannatt stated the federal government’s method was “unfathomable”, after Boris Johnson expressed remorse that some individuals eligible to be evacuated might be left behind within the hurried evacuation.

British forces accomplished their withdrawal from Afghanistan this weekend, with the final civilian flight leaving on Saturday and the remaining diplomats and army personnel departing by Sunday.

The UK evacuated approximated 15,000 individuals from Afghanistan from Kabul airport beginning on Friday 13 August – together with these eligible below the Afghan Relocation and Help Coverage programme.

However not less than 1,000 Afghans eligible for the scheme are thought to have bene left behind because the Taliban consolidated management over the capital and the 31 August deadline for all international forces to depart neared.

There was criticism over the rushed nature of the evacuation, prompted by the Taliban’s speedy and sudden advance throughout the nation because the US-backed authorities melted away.

“On the actual situation of those that we knew had been in peril, individuals who had labored for us, interpreters, former locally-engaged civilians, this situation has been within the media,” Lord Dannatt instructed Occasions Radio.

“This situation has been on politicians’ desks for 2 to a few years and, definitely, it has been there throughout the course of this 12 months.”

He added: “I imply, you would possibly keep in mind, again in July, 45 senior officers wrote to the Authorities, an open letter to the Authorities, saying there are individuals we’re involved about and if we do not do the proper factor, their blood will probably be on our fingers.

“It’s unfathomable why it could seem that the Authorities was asleep on watch.

“I believe the problem of Afghanistan sat on the backburner. Possibly it began to return ahead. However then, all of the sudden, when the Taliban took over the nation within the precipitate vogue during which they did, it fell off the cooker straight onto the kitchen ground and we have … had this chaotic extraction.

“We must always have completed higher, we might have completed higher. It completely behoves us to search out out why the Authorities did not spark up quicker.”

Lord Dannatt was Chief of the Normal Workers, the pinnacle of the military, from 2006 to 2009.

His remark got here after the Observer newspaper reported that hundreds of emails to the Overseas Workplace from MPs and charities elevating pressing instances of Afghans making an attempt to flee the nation haven’t been learn.

And The Unbiased has revealed that dozens of Afghan interpreters who labored for the British Military have been instructed they won’t be allowed into the UK as a result of they’re a “hazard to [national] safety”.