Madeleine Moon
Main Page: Madeleine Moon (Labour - Bridgend)Department Debates - View all Madeleine Moon's debates with the Ministry of Defence
(11 years, 7 months ago)
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Mr Hammond
The Afghans are developing capabilities such as counter-intelligence, but they are still, at this stage, heavily dependent on ISAF support for technical advice and technical enablement. The strategic plan envisages that that support will continue for another two years as we draw down from the combat role.
Mrs Madeleine Moon (Bridgend) (Lab)
The attack on Camp Bastion showed a new level of sophistication and skill on behalf of the Taliban. May we have an assurance that there will be close monitoring of Taliban infiltration of our security forces, so that access to uniforms, for example, is protected in order to prevent this sort of attack from taking place in the future?
Mr Hammond
The attack was a sophisticated one, but I have to say to the hon. Lady that it is not that difficult for someone to cut through a fence and attack what is on the other side of it when they have absolutely no intention of getting out alive. Most of the sophisticated operations that we are involved in are based on protecting our own forces. All these people clearly expected to die; there was clearly no plan for extracting them after the attack.
On the question of uniforms, I believe that the people involved in the attack on Friday night were wearing US army uniforms. It is probably fanciful to suggest that we can create a situation whereby US army uniforms or a passable imitation of them are not fairly freely available.