Danger Close

Colonel Stuart Tootal DSO OBE

John Murray / Hachette 2009

Reviewer: Bob Estreich

Colonel Tootal’s book shows a depth of understanding of the war situation in Afghanistan that is rarely seen in the carefully sanitized news we get on TV. He commanded the British 3 Para Regiment whose task was to police the province of Helmand, an area that was considered “pacified”. That was in 2006.

He soon discovered that the reality was completely different from what he had been led to believe. The pacified area was only that around the capital of Lashkar Gah. The rest of the province was under the control of the local Pushtun tribe who felt no allegiance to the Kabul government. There were also the local drug warlords who exercised a strong control over the opium crop, a subsidiary target the British were tasked to destroy. To the local serf farmers opium was the only crop they could grow – stop the opium trade and they would starve. The Afghanis have already expressed their attitude to this as “we grow opium to feed YOUR addicts. To stop the trade, look to your own cities”.

Mixed through these people were the Taliban, based in Quetta over the border in Pakistan. They were not all religious fanatics or al-Quaeda supporters. Many were in it for a bit of excitement, not unlike young Australian soldiers in both World Wars. Some had political motives, others were out for a share of “tax” on the lucrative drug trade. Others were what the soldiers called the “$10 Taliban”, local farmers paid and “called up” as necessary.

Colonel Tootal soon realised he was in for a whole new style of warfare. Even his experience in Northern Island did not prepare him for how different it would be. He was facing a well-armed and motivated group that was indistinguishable from the locals. Everyone was armed. There was the language problem. The Taliban had recently won the war against the occupying Russians and their officers were trained and skilful. Effectively they controlled the northern part of the province. Always there were cultural problems and the risk of offending the Afghanis, even inadvertently.

Sitting in the pacified zone around Kabul would not solve the problem – they had to retake the northern area where the Taliban and warlords had held control for far too long. This brought up another problem. Command was divided between a Canadian overall commander and two British commanders. No action could be taken without permission of at least two of these. It was a total disaster in the making and Tootal pulls no punches in his comments on these organisational problems.

The timing of his arrival coincided with the end of the opium harvest, so many young Pushtun were now available to get up to mischief. The British could have countered with some good but minor PR jobs like fixing the washing machine in the Gereshk hospital but headquarters refused this. So did the civilian development authorities who apparently “didn’t do bricks and mortar”. They said such work was up to the Non Government Organisations, not the military. This ignored the fact that the NGOs had already moved out sensing that a battle for the province was inevitable.

Tootal describes the battles in full detail so we get a really deep understanding of the combat, the politics and the logistics problems facing his soldiers. A summary of a couple of the battles will give you an idea.

The battles began seriously with an attempt by the Taliban to take the northern town on Musa Qaleh, currently held by elements of the Afghanistan National Army. The ANA was poorly equipped and trained, corrupt, riddled with intertribal factionalism, and regarded as his personal army by Daud, the Afghani Defence Minister. Two days after the attacks on Musa Qaleh started a French convoy sent to the town was attacked and had to fight through seven kilometers of ambushes. Lives were lost and Afghani soldiers were missing. An aerial rescue attempt failed when inadequate maps meant the rescue helicopter couldn’t find them. Then the soldiers’ radio went dead as they were overrun.

The town of Now Zad fell under attack next and the Allied Joint Commander needed a plan to defend the town with just a platoon of men. In fairness, this is all the men he had left. If the town fell the Afghani National Police, a paramilitary body, would be killed by the Taliban. All the town’s schools had recently been burned by the Taliban. The town’s occupation by the troops would be an important gesture. Meanwhile high-ranking U.S. commanders were pushing their own pet projects that placed intolerable demands on the short-staffed British. By juggling troops of different nationalities between jobs and bases, Tootal managed to meet most of the demands.

The intelligence was wildly wrong. Updated information became available as the forces went into battle, but it was not passed on as the phone system was insecure. The British compound was under observation by Taliban spotters with mobile phones. They were able to pass on information on the number of troops and vehicles leaving the compound and the direction they were heading. Other spotters along the road kept the Taliban up to date on their movements. When the convoys reached the village they found a large number of Taliban dug in at ambush sites and what should have been a simple operation turned into a major firefight. Tootal’s blow-by-blow description gives us a good idea of the confusion of battle and the need for a commander to change plans rapidly. In the event all troops were extracted safely, but it was close. There were lessons to be learnt, but only the ground commanders seemed to be paying attention. The lessons were as simple as don’t drive vehicles down a road until it has been cleared; let the local headquarters know what other patrols are operating in the area; and don’t use the same road repeatedly and give the Taliban time to organize an ambush.

About ninety men would be left behind for three days to keep the peace until a relief column of ANA from the province’s Military Commander arrived. They would do it hard – no toilets, little chance to wash, intense heat and limited food. When the promised reinforcements failed to arrive the British had to negotiate with the local people who wanted to police their town themselves and did not want the British patrolling in the town. This would leave it open for Taliban penetration and be a major security risk. Sangin was a joining point of a number of feuding local tribes. It was the center of the local opium trade. A number of warlords were fighting for influence and control over it. The Paras had once again been sucked into a long term commitment they did not have the resources to deal with. The town was still under military occupation when 3 Para left six months later and the military compound was under fire daily.

These descriptions of battles are typical of the problems Tootal faced day by day. The supply and transport problems were never resolved. The combination of corrupt officials, tribal feuds, disinterested locals and part-time Taliban was never understood by the Headquarters staff or the politicians. The same problems plagued the allies in the Vietnam war and in Iraq. Time after time the situation was only saved by close air support from A10 aircraft, Apache helicopter gunships and the AC130 Spectre attack aircraft based on the venerable Hercules. The Taliban fighters ran a classical guerilla campaign with ambushes and infiltration being their main techniques. They were quite well armed and motivated and had the advantage of knowing the territory. Faced with superior odds they simply faded away until the next battle.

As the pattern of helicopter resupply of the outposts became known to the Taliban, it was only a matter of time before one of the scarce but essential Chinooks was shot down. The Taliban had learned the futility of close combat with the more powerful British weapons and were now using “standoff” weapons like heavy mortars and 107mm rockets, making the task of guarding a helicopter landing zone more difficult. To counter the longer-range attacks the British turned to their snipers. These skilled men soon made the Taliban think twice about exposing themselves. In spite of this outposts like Sangin soon ran low on ammunition and food. Parachute resupply was tried without success, so the unsatisfactory helicopter deliveries and occasional heavily armed road convoys had to carry the load.

Tootal had a compulsory two weeks leave back in Britain and paid visits to those of his injured men who had been repatriated to Britain. He was horrified at what he found. The military hospitals had been closed down and Army casualties were transferred into the National Health System. He found uncaring administrators, medical staff who couldn’t be bothered to keep the patients informed of their progress, broken down equipment – poor treatment for men who had volunteered to join their country’s military. With a bit a pressure he was able to fix some of the more obvious problems. By enlisting the help of the Families Office of the Battalion he was able to ensure that regular checks on the soldiers would be made but basically the medical operations were hamstrung by the usual lack of funds. Tootal is highly critical of the hospitals administration and the government of the day over this appalling treatment.

Back in Afghanistan business continued as usual. The Taliban fighters had learned from their defeats and had changed tactics, staying engaged in the fight until forced away by heavy firepower. Particularly in Sangin where the choice of routes to patrol the bazaar was limited, every patrol had to be regarded as one that would involve combat. The experienced soldiers learned to notice the signs of an impending ambush. The kids would disappear from the streets. Shopkeepers would close their doors. People would vanish off the streets. At times like this the patrol would start warily eying off the rooftops for signs of an ambush and the heavy guns back at the base would be readied for fire support.

Tootal’s men were now hardened veterans who passed on their knowledge to the new incoming troops. They kept trying new techniques but eventually every battle came down to one man shooting at another. As the casualties started to rise the reporters were removed from the forward battle companies. As a result the news broadcast back home was of the “horror conditions” gained from phone conversations and leaked emails. This in turn caused distress among the families of the soldiers - when a death was reported they would wait tensely until a name was finally released. There was even talk that the soldiers were being too aggressive in their work, which ignored the fact that Helmand was NOT a pacified area no matter what the official line was.

Finally 3 Para reached the end of their tour, but sadly the fighting was not yet over. From Tootal’s point of view a new enemy had emerged – the mindless penny-pinching bureaucracy of the British Civil Service and the politicians. He had to resort to threats of exposure of the conditions of the injured soldiers before anything could be done. Realising he could not do this from inside the Army, he resigned and stated his reasons in detail. The letter was leaked and the public outcry at least forced some improvements but permanently injured veterans still received less than the basic wage.

As a byline, the worn-out Chinooks were still in service when he left. There were still only six of them among the entire battalion. The “development” part of the occupation still hadn’t started and effectively never has, since the area is still a hot spot. The power of the warlords has not been broken and many of the now occupy positions in the Government. The opium trade is as strong as ever.

Tootal’s book is really a treatise on how not to run a war. He spares no one from the highest commanders and government ministers down, but shows respect for the men in the field. If you want background information on why the wars continue in Afghanistan, Iraq, and so many other places around the world, you will find answers in this book.

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