SPEAKER Foreign Secretary David Miliband

EVENT Andrew Marr Show

DATE 25/10/2009

Andrew Marr (AM) (Presenter) Let’s turn to the huge issue on your plate which remains the Afghan war at the moment. A lot of people ask this question, a simple question, what do you say to the relatives of British soldiers maimed or killed protecting an electoral process which we now agree, everybody now agrees, was appalling corrupt and which is going to have to be rerun?

David Miliband (DM): I would say first of all that words are not going to provide sufficient comfort for the daily anguish of the families of people who have fallen in Afghanistan, wives and husbands, sons and daughters who’ve been lost. 

Secondly I would say that the Government has committed our troops to Afghanistan not for Afghan democracy, but for our security.  Our analysis is very simple, that the badlands of the Afghan Pakistan border are the incubator of choice for al Qaeda and for international terrorism.  It’s for that reason that our forces and those of forty one other countries are there. 

Now an Afghan Government worthy of its name is essential to progress in Afghanistan and it’s essential to the development of security forces and a political system that allows us eventually to get our troops out and so I think it’s right therefore that because no candidate got fifty per cent of the vote in the Afghan elections there should be a second round. It’s not exactly a rerun to be fair, a second place candidate got a large number of votes and that’s why there is a second round of the ballot.

AM: But we’ve had a senior British general saying that we could be there for thirty to forty years and …

DM: Well no, actually he didn’t say that, Andrew. I’m sorry what a senior British general said was that our development mission, because Afghanistan is the fifth poorest country in the world, could be there for thirty or forty years. That’s a very different point from our military forces being there for thirty or forty years.

AM: But what about the argument that in the end we’re going to have to let the Taliban back in some form? There is going to be some form of Taliban involvement in the Government. We’re going to have to speak to them and there’s going to have to be some agreement that if they allow al Qaeda in, in any way at all, there will be further military reprisals. If that’s going to be the end game isn’t it time to get on with it and not carry on the electoral process involving President Karzai?

DM: Well I’ve advocated this very clearly that for those Taliban who are willing, those insurgents who are willing to live within the constitution of Afghanistan, severing their links with al Qaeda of course they should be inside the political system. But that is not an alternative to an Afghan Government worthy of its name. It’s a vital task of an Afghan Government worthy of its name. 

And so when people say to me should the Afghan Government be engaged in an active process of reintegration of the foot soldiers of the insurgency I say yes. When people say to me should the Afghan Government be, should be reaching out to mid and high level commanders of the insurgency I say yes, with a very simple message. Live within the constitution, come home to your villages and your valleys in the South and East of Afghanistan and there is a place for you and there is a place for you in your community and in the political system.  But be part of a global jihad and you will face the wrath not just of Afghans, but of the international community too.

AM: A big domestic story here which falls in to your plate as well, the Dumfries and Galloway Police reopening the Lockerbie inquiry, looking again at forensic evidence and paper evidence and so on. Have you spoken at all to the Libyans about this?

DM: No, not about this reopening, no, not at all. This is rightly a matter for the Scottish authorities. We’ve always said that this was a terrible crime where justice must be done and every avenue pursued. The investigation was never formally closed and that’s why it’s wholly appropriate that if there are grounds for taking new steps that they should be taken.

AM: The relatives are calling for a full public inquiry and they’re quoting your colleague Jack Straw as telling them at a previous meeting there should have been a full scale inquiry after Lockerbie but it didn’t happen. Isn’t this now the time to let it happen?

DM: Well I think that we’ve always said rightly in my view that this was something that happened over Scottish soil. It was investigated by the Scottish authorities. It’s right that they pursue the investigation on a criminal basis and if there’s any suggestion of an inquiry that should be a matter for the Scots, because that’s the way our system works. But you can see from today’s announcement that the commitment in Scotland remains real in respect of justice in this case and that must be right.

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