LONDON (The Guardian) – Further evidence alleging that the UK government seriously mishandled the withdrawal from Afghanistan has been handed to a parliamentary inquiry examining the operation, the Observer has been told.
Details from several government departments and agencies are understood to back damning testimony from a Foreign Office whistleblower, who has claimed that bureaucratic chaos, ministerial intervention, and a lack of planning and resources led to “people being left to die at the hands of the Taliban”, The Guardian reported.
The Observer revealed in August that thousands of emails of urgent cases of Afghans in danger were being left unread for days at the height of the crisis, with the messages of senior MPs among those not to be opened. Even government ministers had emails that had not been addressed.
In an interview with the Observer, Tom Tugendhat, the Conservative chair of the foreign affairs select committee which is examining the claims, said others had been in touch to disclose concerns.
He described evidence from three senior Foreign Office officials last Tuesday, in which its permanent Secretary Philip Barton admitted remaining on holiday for 11 days after Afghanistan fell to the Taliban, as “completely extraordinary”.
He said he was now more convinced about the damning testimony his committee received from Raphael Marshall, a junior official who worked in the Afghan Special Cases team.
“There’s nothing I’ve heard that leads me to believe he is mistaken,” Tugendhat said, adding, “He and many like him deserve more than an apology. They have demonstrated quite clearly the integrity and the ethical standards we should expect from senior government employees, but are finding those standards in the junior ranks, not the senior ones.”
Tugendhat said that his committee was now sifting through further evidence.
“Since the hearing on Tuesday, I’ve been approached by individuals from other government departments and, indeed, other agencies offering their own perspectives on the events in the run-up to August and the aftermath,” he said, adding, “We’re in discussion as to how their evidence may be presented. There is a very wide feeling that this goes to the heart of something that is simply not acceptable.”
He said the committee would be speaking to Defence Secretary Ben Wallace over the military elements of the withdrawal.
He also said that questions remained over the evacuation of nearly 200 dogs and cats from Kabul. Pen Farthing, a former British Royal Marine who operated the Nowzad animal charity, flew with the animals in a chartered aircraft. However, Marshall said that finite resources on the ground had to be deployed to ensure the animals reached the plane.