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War, War, War See other War, War, War Articles Title: 100,000 children have been saved by Afghan war, says Brown Gordon Brown wears a helmet and body armour as he leaves 'Little Heathrow' at Kandahar airbase yesterday. Photograph: Matt Cardy/Getty Images Gordon Brown claimed today that the lives of 100,000 children had been saved as a result of the intervention of Britain and other Nato countries in Afghanistan. The prime minister made his claim in a Downing Street webchat ahead of an announcement that the Ministry of Defence will make big defence cuts as part of an attempt to shift resources to the frontline in Afghanistan. Ministers will today announce a £150m package to tackle the threat of roadside bombs in Afghanistan, including the establishment of new specialist training facilities in the UK, a senior government official said last night. However, the money will come from a "reprioritisation" of existing MoD spending plans, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. News of the measures came last night as Brown left Afghanistan after becoming the first British prime minister to stay overnight in a war zone since the second world war. Brown slept in simple quarters at the Kandahar air base, the headquarters of Nato troops in the south of the country, before meeting the president, Hamid Karzai. It has become traditional for the British prime minister to visit UK troops in either Afghanistan or Iraq before Christmas. Brown's talks with Karzai included discussions for a wide-ranging international conference on the future of Afghanistan in London on 28 January. Brown also used his Downing Street webchat to champion the work being done by Britain to improve living conditions for people in Afghanistan. "The estimate is that now 100,000 children under five who would have otherwise died are now kept alive by better healthcare," Brown said. "This is because of British and other international countries paying for programmes to immunise children, to pay nurses, midwives and doctors and to make healthcare sustainable." In Helmand, where most British soldiers are based, the provision of health services has doubled and more than 100 schools have opened over the last three years, Brown declared. Downing Street later said that the gap between child mortality figures in Afghanistan now and child mortality figures in 2005 suggests than an extra 100,000 under-fives are being kept alive every year. A spokesman said that Afghanistan used to have the second worst mortality rate for children under 5 in the world, but that the country is now out of the bottom 10. Brown also said in his webchat that eight leading al-Qaida figures had been killed in the last year. And he said that the criticism he had received about letters he has sent to the families of soldiers killed in Afghanistan would not stop him writing to bereaved relatives. Asked why ministers were not present to meet the bodies of dead servicemen when they were being repatriated to the UK, Brown replied: "Everything ministers do is on the advice of our service chiefs and in accordance with the wishes of the families who have lost loved ones." The defence cuts are expected to include the closure of some bases, cuts in civilian staff, and a commitment to improve procurement in line with a report commissioned by the government from Bernard Grey, a defence specialist. The cuts were meant to have been announced in the pre-budget report last week, but talks were not completed in time. The cuts are designed to release extra cash for the troops in Afghanistan, including possibly helicopter equipment. The war in Afghanistan is normally funded by the Treasury from the contingency reserve. But it is understood that the defence secretary, Bob Ainsworth, needs to find savings due to cost overruns simply to retain the MoD's £38.7bn. A previous attempt to find savings in the territorial army training foundered. Ainsworth said yesterday: "I'm being asked to live within my budget and there will be tough decisions that will have to be taken in that regard. I get additional money from the reserve in order to pay for the direct costs of operations, but I want to make shifts within the budget and there is cost growth within the budget. "I want to move money towards the Afghan operation, to see what more we can do to support our troops and that means that there may well be tough decisions to be taken elsewhere." The pre-budget report last week revealed that an extra £2.5bn would be given to the MoD for 2010-11 to cover the cost of the war in Afghanistan. It also showed that Ainsworth is seeking to cut a further 5,000 civilian staff by 2011, taking total numbers down to 81,000, a fall of 51,000 since 1997. A total of £14bn in the contingency reserve funding has been spent so far on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, including £5.2bn on equipment. In a joint press conference with Karzai at the weekend, the prime minister acknowledged that casualty numbers had been high and he paid tribute to soldiers' "bravery, professionalism and dedication". Brown said he felt more confident about the conflict following decisions by the US and Britain to send in more troops. He insisted Afghanistan's border regions "are the location of choice for al-Qaida" and "the epicentre of global terrorism". Both leaders denied suggestions of a rift, even though Karzai last week attacked Brown for suggesting Kabul was a byword for corruption. Karzai offered to send 10,000 extra Afghan troops to be trained in Helmand and Kandahar, where most UK forces were based. There would be 10,000 more Afghan police in Helmand and Kandahar, he said.
Poster Comment: wow, how's this for spin?
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#6. To: christine (#0)
(Edited)
The gear required to protect himself from the gratitude of the Afghan people. Brown is just another mealy mouth lizard people pol. These slugs make me sick.
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