A Million Bullets: The Story of the British Army in Afghanistan – James Fergusson

This is the first major account on the British operations in Helmand province in southern Afghanistan to be written by a journalist and by large it doesn’t disappoint; providing an excellent description of Operation Herrick 4 that took place in 2006 and the first half of 2007. The title of the book itself is a tongue in cheek jab at John Reid who was Defence Secretary in 2006’s by now infamous quote that he would prefer it if the British army didn’t have to “fire a single bullet” in southern Afghanistan. This unfortunately was not the case and Fergusson reveals that the British army in Helmand did fire over 1 million bullets between October 2006 and March 2007; this figure excludes artillery ordnance and bombs dropped by Coalition air forces or munitions expended by ground attacks carried out by air support. As Fergusson wryly reports, the MoD soon stopped releasing figures on the munitions expended as it didn’t fit well with the “hearts and minds” campaign that was being propounded as approach to defeat the Taliban (the actual figures on munitions expended was only made available by the MoD after Fergusson was able to request an former member of the Army and now an MP Adam Holloway who submitted a written request to the MoD and was given the figures).

The main focus of the book is the fighting that took place at the base of New Zad, which was held by the Gurkhas and the Royal Fusiliers and the capture and then withdrawal from Mus Qala by the Royal Irish. Fergusson has been able to interview officers and men from the regiments involved; as well as senior command figures based both in Kabul and London. He has also interviewed personnel and pilots from the helicopter wings of the RAF and the Army Air Corps who were responsible for piloting the essential Chinook and Apache helicopters during the operations. Also, rarely, Fergusson was able to utilise his Afghan contacts formed from an earlier book published years ago on Afghanistan to clandestinely travel and meet with district Taliban commanders and their men in Kandahar province. This interview gives a rare chance to observe the conflict from the Taliban’s perspective and those who fight with them. While one may be sceptical as to the real nature of who Fergusson exactly met; the account makes for some interesting reading and is one of the few direct versions that is able to access this side of the story since the start of the conflict. In fact, no other journalist working on a project this size has managed to succeed in obtaining such an interview and several attempts like those of Sean Langan, the documentary film-maker, have ended up with the journalists being taken hostage and only released after negotiations and payment of a ransom.

The book is well worth reading itself for the details of the fighting and the nature of the conflict at the ground level. Some facts do emerge though clearly: firstly the Taliban are quite well organised if a disparate insurgency with a committed ideological core (what NATO planners call ‘Tier 1’) and a looser grouping of opportunists, those seeking revenge/on vendettas and disgruntled groups/opium farmers jockeying for position at the provincial level. They are also well equipped, the Gurkhas undertook the single longest defence of a static defence for over 3 months at the compound at New Zad and engaged in nightly fire-fights and duels involving small arms fire, mortars and heavy machine-guns. That the Taliban were able to sustain this level of contact for this period indicates that they are as well supplied and provisioned as the Coalition forces and do have formidable logistical supply lines that can allow them to wage an intense insurgency for a considerable period of time. Short of heavy artillery and anti-aircraft weaponry; they possess almost everything else from recoilless rifles, heavy machine guns, rockets and RPGs – all the legacy of the Pakistani arms bazaar and the availability of cheap Soviet weaponry. They also possess a reasonable degree of training and skills; ‘bracketing’ with mortars was experienced, as were adaptations to evade the night-vision capabilities of the Coalition forces (some of this night-vision equipment was also captured and used by the Taliban themselves). Thirdly, Coalition intelligence is abysmally poor; it is difficult to tell who is the Taliban, who is neutral and who is supportive of the Karzai regime. This is related to the nature of the Coalition allies the Afghan National Police (ANP) and the Afghan National Army (ANA) and the provincial governors that are appointed to the provinces and who by way of having President Karzai’s ear are able to influence the actions of Coalition troops. Hence the suspicion by some officers that many operations are targeting local rivals and opium mafia; as opposed to actual Tier 1 Taliban insurgents – yet politically handicapped by the need to be seen to be supporting the Kabul government, such operations are frequently carried despite their dubious nature and impact on the insurgency.

The reliability of the ANP and the ANA deserves its own section; desertion is a chronic problem as is drug abuse and a reluctance to engage in aggressive operations. The ANP are regarded as little more than bandits; their checkpoints on the roads widely seen as opportunities to extort bribes from the populace – in one instance the ANP actually do subcontract out the manning of a check-post to some armed militia who do the extracting while the ANP relax in the cool air of their offices! There are also disturbing stories about sexual abuse and rape of both boys and girls by ANP officers and men, on at least one occasion it was apparent that an allegation of sexual abuse led to the removal of a district ANP commander who had upset the local elders and townsfolk by his open habit of seizing young boys and then forcing them to sleep with him. More worryingly, from a security point of view, there are at least several instances where the ANP are revealed to have Taliban sympathies and several are arrested at New Zad after they have been caught giving away firing positions and radioing information to the Taliban forces before an attack. The quality of the allies not only makes the operational conduct of the war much more hazardous but it means that the local population have little confidence in the Kabul govt or love for the face of the Coalition backed regime when it comes in the guise of ANP men who are keen to extort bribes and intimidate civilians but not keen to do much else. This raises serious questions about the viability of any nascent Afghan state apparatus.

Perhaps the most important part of the book is contained in pages 152-164; which deal with the strategy of Operation Herrick 4. Initially meant to follow the ‘inkspot’ strategy that was used in the Malayan campaign; where by secured areas are opened up to development projects and governance to win the trust of the local population thereby undermining popular support for the insurgency; Operation Herrick quickly careers out of control. The reasons for this are complex and Fergusson does an admirable job of representing the main arguments –ranging from interference from the Afghan President’s office, to contrary efforts by American forces on the ground, to the paucity of troops, the inability to establish enough secure areas quickly enough and the nature of the personnel and units selected who were more interested in ‘kinetic’ (read fighting) operations rather than COIN warfare. There is enough blame to go around and Fergusson does a succinct job in distributing it fairly as possible.

The blunt fact is that few secure areas were established, British forces were spread too thinly across too many fixed position which then became besieged by Taliban forces and which had to then be tenaciously held without reinforcement and supplied precariously by air. The interviews with Chinook and Apache pilots are especially interesting to offer an airman’s view on the war. With a small resource base, the RAF and AA effectively were able to meet the demands placed on them only be violating regulations on the amount of airtime that could be safely clocked up and by cannibalising their surplus stock of spares. This resource clearly was also stretched to breaking point. There also was another loss; in terms of the number of pilots leaving the service once their period of enlistment was over and in some cases resigning before then; the personal strains were also apparent in the high rates of divorces and separations by spouses following extended deployment in Afghanistan, frequently in violation of the Air Force’s own rules of procedure. This is a significant loss given that some pilots such as the Apache flyers cost nearly £1 million to train and prepare for combat.

The problem of morale exists for the other soldiers as well; as though there is a strong desire to help the Afghan population and genuine concern shown to make an improvement in the lives of the locals; there is no clear idea as to what the British mission is exactly and why they are there. This compounded with the sense of detachment the rest of British society has viewed much of the conflict and the opposition to it; leads many to question the real reasons why they are risking their lives in the country. As one officer put it the “army is war but the nation is not”. The lack of progress made on the developmental front and the nature of the ANP and ANA allies further serves to cause more alienation from the stated aims of the mission. While professionalism and the esprit de corps ensures that there will be no breakdown in discipline; this is not a war that is very popular amongst the troops and this sentiment will only increase with time and with greater causalities.

The retreat from Mus Qala done initially because supplies of essential munitions were running low and the brigade force already stretched to breaking point was finding it difficult to hold all the towns under attack is an important example of what kind of problems exist at the ground level. A truce offered and then accepted by the town’s elders; to protect the town from further destructive fighting persuaded both the British and the Taliban to agree to a ceasefire whereby the British would withdraw from the town and a police force made of the sons of the town elders would maintains security with the Taliban agreeing to halt operations in the area as well. Almost with relief the offer is accepted by the British as they are unsure as to whether they could hold on any longer; and the Taliban too accept – yet the actual act of withdrawal is hard to portray in any other light except as a tactical setback; despite Fergusson’s best efforts to put a spin on it. Especially when the truce is broken as the Taliban reoccupy the town – leading to a subsequent operation months down the line when it has to be recaptured by Coalition forces. The causes of the breakdown are not made clear; though it is surmised that the Americans unhappy at what they saw as British unwillingness to fight the Taliban engineering a breakdown by bombing and killing the local Taliban commander. This indicates the tensions of operating in a Coalition and the different agendas of the Americans and the British as much as anything else. Indeed, complaints about the heavy-handedness of American SF operations, which are outside formal Coalition command and which frequently lead to significant civilian causalities – the fallout of which fall on the local Coalition forces to deal with, is a running complaint throughout the book by British officers and soldiers. This led to a subsequent operation by coalition forces to recapture the town in December 2007 – the subject of another excellent book “Operation Snakebite” by Stephen Grey.

The last chapter where Fergusson travels and meets a group of Taliban commanders, is worth reading directly; while they are committed Tier 1 fighters; it is clear that they view the struggle as much as a nationalist one as a religious duty. Fergusson had considerable difficulty in arranging the meeting, which he was able to do through his relationship with Mir, an Afghan refugee on whose life story he had written an earlier book ‘Kandahar Cockney’ who puts him in touch with a chain of fixers leading to a sojourn in Quetta; where after numerous delays due to the difficulty in vetting whether he can be trusted or not and the pressures being put on the insurgency by Operation Achilles; he is eventually granted the opportunity to travel to Wardak province to meet with the commander of Taliban forces in the province and his main lieutenants. The encounter makes fascinating reading, though Fergusson can perhaps be accused with some justification of dramatising aspects of it for greater impact; however the episode does show the determination and their own peculiar code of honour and malmastia – which ensures that Fergusson not only is guaranteed safe conduct as a guest but will be defended to the death from any attackers including the Americans – shows to Fergusson the depth of belief and the unwillingness to yield amongst the core of the resistance. Defeating such a group, if they have adequate numbers and all indications is that they do, will be extremely hard if not near impossible. It is worth recounting part of this remarkable interview:

“Tell me,” said one of the lieutenants, leaning forward and shyly clearing his throat. ‘Please don’t take this as an insult or anything, but…..supposing thousands of Afghans had invaded your country, and bombed your villages, and killed your wives and children, what would you do?”

“I’d fight,” I found myself saying. “Of course I’d fight.”

The throat-clearer paused, considering this. “And tell me, in such a situation, do you think it would be possible for an Afghan journalist to come as you have come to us now, to meet and talk and eat with fighters from the British resistance?”

His question had an edge to it. It was, of course, inconceivable that this surreal meeting could have ever happened the other way around.
“Probably not,” I said.

“So why aren’t you scared now?”

“Because I understand that you are good Pashtuns. I have faith in your respect for Pashtun Wali, for malmastia.”
“Yes,” he nodded equitably.”Without malmastia;, we would certainly kill you.”

It was hard to imagine these people ever being defeated. I recall reading an interview with a Para whose patrol had been ambushed by a single gunman, who popped up with an AK at close quarters with no earthly possibility of survival. “You do wonder what goes through their little minds sometimes, don’t you?” the Para told the reporter.

The only absence was that of more detailed data on troop deployments and dates of the operations concerned; providing maps, especially of the towns where the bulk of the fighting occurred would also have been useful. These minor quibbles I think this is an extremely important book for anybody who wants to understand the nature and problems of the initial British deployment in southern Afghanistan and the kind of challenges that face current British strategy in the region. Needless to say Fergusson is quite pessimistic of both British intentions and the appropriateness of the strategy and the chances of success that