British Election Issues: Frugality and Afghanistan

Has a “penny pinching” approach to defense spending by Prime Minister Gordon Brown kept British troops in Afghanistan disastrously short of the helicopters and other equipment their commanders have long demanded, causing unnecessarily heavy combat losses to the Taliban’s most devastating weapon, roadside bombs?

As the election campaign unfolds, the weightiest issue seems sure to be the economy. But with opinion polls pointing to the closest race in decades, other issues could tip the balance, with none more emotive than the losses in Afghanistan, and the suggestion that some soldiers have been the victims of government penury.

The accusation has beset Mr. Brown from the moment he succeeded Tony Blair nearly three years ago. That was just as Britain’s commitment in Afghanistan, now at 10,000 troops, second largest among allied contingents to an American commitment now building toward 100,000, began to increase and to lead to mounting casualties that have become a political liability for the governing Labour party.

More deaths last week brought the number of British troops who have died in Afghanistan to 281, compared with the 1,026 Americans who have died as part of the Afghan war and related operations. Proportional to the numbers of troops deployed, that makes Britain’s casualty rate higher than the United States’, though lower than the losses suffered by Canada, which has lost 142 troops, according to calculations by defense experts.

Nearly three-quarters of all British combat deaths have been caused by roadside bombs, a figure similar to that for American troops. But what has propelled the issue is the British critics’ insistence that American troops are far better equipped, with hundreds of troop-carrying helicopters, compared with a British fleet that some former field commanders say has sunk at times to fewer than 20 serviceable aircraft.

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