bid to ban soldier's book about Afghanistan: Officials embarrassed by study they asked for

Fury over MoD bid to ban soldier's book about Afghanistan: Officials embarrassed by study they asked for

• By IAN DRURY
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• Author 'forced to resign' from the Army after Ministry of Defence pulled support for controversial book
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• Dr Mike Martin was one of only a handful of soldiers who could speak Pushtu fluently
• Afghan conflict has so far claimed 448 British lives
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• Retired British general said he 'wished' he had this book while commanding in Afghanistan
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.Dr Mike Martin (pictured in fatigues above) speaking to an Afghan villager in Helmand Province. Dr Martin served as a Captain in the Territorial Army when he was commissioned to write his boo

Defence bosses were last night embroiled in a censorship row over a British soldier’s highly critical book about the war in Afghanistan

The MoD was accused of being paranoid as it made a last-ditch attempt to block publication of a damning study of Britain’s military campaign in Helmand.

The 13-year conflict has cost 448 British lives – most of them after Tony Blair ordered troops into the volatile Taliban stronghold in May 2006.

MoD chiefs actually commissioned Oxford-educated Territorial Army captain Dr Mike Martin to write about the mission as part of his PhD.

But his criticism of intelligence blunders and the failure of commanders to understand the conflict is said to have embarrassed officials.

 

Now the MoD has asked for the damning account to be pulped, claiming it breaches the Official Secrets Act and uses classified material uncovered by Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, which Dr Martin and his publisher deny.

As a result, the 31-year-old author has quit the military in disgust after serving for ten years.

He is now pushing ahead with the publication this month of An Intimate War: An Oral History Of The Helmand Conflict 1978-2012. He spent six years researching conflict in the province, starting with the Russian involvement in the Seventies.

The row will fuel speculation that Defence Secretary Philip Hammond is paranoid about criticism of the MoD. But the book has been praised by senior military figures and MPs.

Major General Andrew Kennett, who commanded Dr Martin’s unit, said: ‘I think he has done the Army a great service by writing this.’

Labour defence spokesman Kevan Jones said: ‘Clearly Philip Hammond’s culture of paranoia extends to trying to ban books, which is extraordinary.’

General Sir David Richards, the recently retired head of the Armed Forces, who commanded international forces in Afghanistan between 2006-07, said the book was ‘quite simply, the book on Helmand’, adding: ‘I sincerely wish it had been available to me when I was ISAF Commander in Afghanistan.’ Dr Martin said: ‘I have been forced to resign. I was employed as a constructive critic and I strongly believe that the Army needs reform.’

His MoD-funded doctorate was awarded in February 2013 and he told officials he planned to turn it into a book, with proceeds going to military charities.

But the MoD sat on the manuscript for 14 months, only raising its complaints in February.

Dr Martin said he sent the PhD to the Army and the MoD before it was even awarded, adding: ‘I told them that I was going to be converting this into a book. There’s no difference in the content, just the style.

The book is highly critical of the naivety of British and American commanders about they way they dealt with the local tribes

In total, 448 British lives have been lost in Afghanistan, including (from top row left to right) Sergeant Nigel Coupe, Corporal Jake Hartley and Private Anthony Frampton, with (bottom row left to right) Private Christopher Kershaw, Private Daniel Wade and Private Daniel Wilford. An inquest heard that the six soldiers were killed when a bomb destroyed their vehicle in Helmand

Dr Martin (pictured above left) was one of the only people in the British army who could speak fluently with locals in Helmand

Dr Martin said he was forced to resign from the Army because of the controversy surrounding his book

Dr Martin conducted 150 interviews in Helmand using the local dialect of Pushtu

Retired Chief of the Defence Staff Sir David Richards praised the book claiming 'I wish it had been available to me' while commander in Afghanistan

Dr Martin claimed that military commanders failed to understand that the Afghan conflict was primarily a tribal civil war

‘I heard nothing until February when they said, “You can’t run it”. So I resigned my commission and we have restarted the print run.’

Dr Martin, from East London, accused MoD officials of trying to protect the reputation of Britain and its US allies.

His book argues that Nato’s ISAF troops failed to understand they were getting involved in a tribal civil war, rather than a fight against the Taliban.

He said: ‘We often made the conflict worse, rather than better. This was usually as a result of the Helmandis manipulating our ignorance.’

Dr Martin, who conducted 150 interviews in Pashtu, the local language he speaks fluently, said: ‘The book demonstrates how outsiders have most often misunderstood the struggle in Helmand and how, in doing so, they have exacerbated the conflict and made it more violent.’

He and publisher Hurst denied including classified intelligence material in the book.

Repeated written requests for clarification on national security breaches were ignored by the MoD, they said.

Hurst managing director Michael Dwyer said: ‘I don’t know why the MoD opposed it. They said it was something to do with Wikileaks and classified material so we stopped the print run but when we asked them to elaborate they refused. I think they’re just embarrassed.’

Yesterday the MoD denied claims it had tried to block the book using the Official Secrets Act.

A statement on the MoD's website said the Army accepted classified documents referred to in the book were from public sources so the final decision not to approve publication was not based on the act.

It said: 'The MoD is not in any way attempting to prevent the book's publication.

'The Army simply decided that it was inappropriate for a serving officer to publish a book that is so heavily critical of the Army, the MoD and our allies.

'The existing policy on publication of books and articles by serving military personnel is clear and exists to ensure that our operational security and the personal security of our people is protected. It is also designed to protect the hard won reputation of the Armed Forces.'

A number of books critical of the campaign have faced MoD censorship. An entire print run of Dead Men Risen, an account of the deployment of the Welsh Guards to Helmand in 2009, was pulped on the ground of national security. The MoD eventually erased 50 words from the manuscript.

In November, Defence Secretary Mr Hammond was branded 'paranoid' over claims he banned his Labour opposite number from sitting next to one of Britain’s top military chiefs at a dinner.

He was accused of ensuring that organisers of an Armed Forces charity dinner tore up their seating plan to separate Shadow Defence Secretary Vernon Coaker from Sir Stuart Peach, the Vice-Chief of the Defence Staff. His aides denied Labour's claim.

But he has also been criticised for blocking off-the-record briefings from senior military officers to MPs.

An MoD spokesman said: 'The MoD has a strong record of learning from previous campaigns and encourages its officers to challenge existing norms and conventional wisdom.

'However the publication of books and articles by serving military personnel is governed by well-established policy and regulations. When these are breached the MoD will withhold approval.'

Former TA captain Dr Mike Martin’s book says Britain failed in Helmand because political and military leaders ‘mischaracterised’ the conflict.

His work argues that the Taliban were not the ‘main drivers of violence’.

Instead, conflict was driven by Helmandi individuals, including local politicians  and tribal chiefs, and their personal motivations.

It is therefore more of a civil war  between clans than a clash between the ‘good’ government of Afghanistan and the ‘bad’ Taliban.

In one example, he says that in 2008, the district governor of Nad-e Ali asked British officers to drive the Taliban from the village of Shin Kalay.

The village elders appeared pleased, and drank tea with the soldiers. 

But the  so-called Taliban were a tribal militia  raised by the elders to keep out the district police, who had been raping young boys and stealing.

Unfortunately, the British had entered the village with 20 Afghan policemen. It later emerged that the district governor was from the same tribe as the police and a different one to the village elders.

Furthermore, the villagers had evicted the district governor in the 1980s when he had then been the chief of police under the communists.

Dr Martin said: ‘The British had a very simplistic understanding of the conflict – an understanding that did not chime with how the Helmandis themselves saw the conflict. The insurgency narrative ... meant we often made the conflict worse, rather  than better.’

Dr Martin insists it is vital to learn lessons from the war, launched in 2001 to topple the Taliban, as Britain prepares to end its involvement at the end of the year.

Critics have accused Nato of becoming bogged down in Afghanistan because Western leaders had only a ‘primitive understanding’ of its population, tribal culture and geography.

Both General Sir Nick Houghton, the Chief of the Defence Staff, and his recently-retired predecessor General Sir David Richards have flagged up British failures when troops were sent to Helmand in May 2006.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2600411/Ministry-Defence-tries-block-book-Helmand-commissioned-claims-contains-secrets-published-Wikileaks.html#ixzz2ynmLogzz
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