Raab is accused of ‘Kabul betrayal that may have cost lives’
As Foreign Office condemned for lack of leadership...
DOMINIC Raab was condemned yesterday for his lack of leadership when Kabul fell to Taliban forces.
In a damning report, MPs said a fundamental lack of planning and preparation by Mr Raab and senior officials meant the withdrawal from Afghanistan was ‘a disaster and a betrayal of our allies’. They said the incompetence may have cost lives.
The MPs are demanding the resignation of the Foreign Office’s top mandarin and raised the suggestion that senior figures may not be ‘telling the truth’ about the airlift of animals from a shelter run by former Royal Marine Paul ‘Pen’ Farthing.
The Commons foreign affairs committee said there had been an ‘appalling mismanagement’ of the situation in Afghanistan last summer with ‘systemic failures of intelligence, diplomacy, planning and preparation’.
Ahead of the fall of Kabul, they found the UK Government did ‘too little to lay the groundwork’ with countries surrounding Afghanistan to secure their help for an evacuation effort.
In the eight months leading to the Taliban’s takeover, Mr Raab, who was foreign secretary at the time, made just one call on the subject to a neighbouring country. ‘Though the UK Government saw a rapid collapse in Afghanistan as a plausible scenario, the Foreign Office failed properly to prepare for it,’ the MPs said.
‘As the situation deteriorated, the Foreign Secretary should have taken the lead on contact with third countries, making intensive efforts to put in place evacuation routes. Instead, he delegated meetings to junior ministers, only stepping into action once Kabul had fallen.’
The MPs said that as soon as the US announced in February 2020 it was withdrawing from Afghanistan, ministers should have ‘immediately taken steps’ to develop a ‘clear and coherent policy on who it would prioritise for evacuation’. Both Mr Raab and Sir Philip Barton, the head of the diplomatic service, were away on holiday when the Taliban seized control of Kabul on August 15.
The report said their absence demonstrated ‘a fundamental lack of seriousness, grip or leadership at a time of national emergency’ and was a ‘grave indictment of the attitudes of the Government’.
Mr Raab, who had been at a luxury beach resort in Crete, arrived back in London the next day, but Sir Philip returned to his desk only eleven days later once the civilian evacuation was over. The MPs said his decision not to come back ‘while staff struggled to implement a poorly-planned evacuation process under intense pressure’ was ‘difficult to understand and impossible to excuse’.
The committee said that Afghans who worked for the British Government were put at risk by the failure to destroy sensitive documents held by the embassy.
The MPs also said they had yet to hear a ‘plausible alternative explanation’ for claims that Boris Johnson approved the controversial evacuation for the Nowzad animal charity.
The Prime Minister has repeatedly denied that he intervened to approve the rescue of 170 dogs and cats from the shelter run by Mr Farthing.
The Foreign Office was accused of giving ‘intentionally evasive, and often deliberately misleading’ responses to the committee’s investigations.
Sir Philip ‘displayed a worrying lack of knowledge of the department he leads’ and a determination to avoid unearthing the facts, the MPs said. They also accused him of failing to ensure a record was kept of decisions.
‘This would be a serious failure at any time, but during the withdrawal from Afghanistan may have led to the loss of life,’ the MPs concluded. ‘The committee has lost confidence in the perma
‘Fundamental lack of seriousness’ ‘Grave indictment of attitudes’
nent under-secretary, who should consider his position.’
Mr Raab was ousted from the Foreign Office and shunted to the Ministry of Justice in the wake of the crisis. He faced an extraordinary backlash over his failure to make a crucial phone call to seek urgent help in airlifting translators out of Afghanistan.
Conservative MP Tom Tugendhat, chairman the committee, said: ‘The UK’s part in this tragedy exposes a lack of seriousness in achieving coordination, a lack of clear decision-making, a lack of leadership and a lack of accountability.
‘While junior officials demonstrated courage and integrity, chaotic and arbitrary decision-making runs through this inquiry.
‘Sadly, it may have cost many people the chance to leave Afghanistan, putting lives in danger.’
A Government spokesman said: ‘Our staff worked tirelessly to evacuate over 15,000 people from Afghanistan within a fortnight.
‘This was the biggest UK mission of its kind in generations and followed months of intensive planning and collaboration between UK Government departments.’