AFGHAN allies and British soldiers were “utterly let down by deep failures of leadership” in the UK Government during the evacuation from Kabul, MPs have said, as they demanded the resignation of the Foreign Office’s top civil servant.
A scathing report published today calls for Sir Philip Barton to consider his position over a “determination to avoid unearthing the facts” during an inquiry by the cross-party Foreign Affairs Committee.
Then-foreign secretary Dominic Raab and Barton’s failures to return from holiday as Kabul fell in August last year marked a “fundamental lack of seriousness, grip or leadership”, the MPs said.
Leaders at the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) were told to be “ashamed” that civil servants had to risk their careers by blowing the whistle to unearth the “appalling mismanagement of the crisis” as the Taliban swept to power.
The MPs also said they are yet to hear a “plausible alternative explanation” to Prime Minister Boris Johnson approving the controversial evacuation of the Nowzad animal charity.
The committee said the withdrawal was a “disaster” and a “betrayal” of British allies that will damage the UK’s interest for years to come.
Ministers were accused of having a “total absence of a plan” for Afghans who supported the British mission, despite knowing for 18 months that the evacuations may be necessary if the US withdrew its troops.
The hasty efforts to select individuals for airlift was “poorly devised, managed and staffed”, with a lack of clarity causing “confusion and false hope among our Afghan partners who were desperate for rescue”.
“They, and the many civil servants and soldiers working hard on the evacuation, were utterly let down by deep failures of leadership in Government,” the committee said.
The FCDO was accused of giving “intentionally evasive, and often deliberately misleading” responses to the committee’s investigations.
Barton “displayed a worrying lack of knowledge of the department he leads” and a determination to avoid unearthing the facts, the MPs said.
Conservative MP Tom Tugendhat, who chairs 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.”
The Government issued a statement defending staff working “tirelessly” to evacuate more than 15,000 people from Afghanistan in 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,” a spokesman said.
“We carried out a thorough review to learn lessons from our withdrawal from Afghanistan and have drawn on many of the findings in our response to the conflict in Ukraine, including introducing new systems for managing correspondence.”
