Whitehall sources have conceded for the first time that extra British troops could be deployed to Afghanistan but would only do so if other members of the NATO alliance fail to supply the reinforcements of troops and materiel demanded by its military chief, Whitehall sources indicate.
Despite concerns that the army is already stretched too far, British defense officials have identified additional troops and equipment available for deployment to southern Afghanistan.
But senior defense officials insist it remains too early to discuss potential numbers.
General James Jones, the US head of NATO in Europe, has said he wants at least 2,000 more soldiers to quash the Taliban before winter.
The failure of key members of the 26-nation alliance to provide the required reinforcements has caused consternation among London defense strategists who are keenly aware that sending more troops to Helmand risks increased political damage.
London is understood to have volunteered more troops during talks in Warsaw on Saturday between NATO defense chiefs, but only on condition that other countries remain reluctant to send service personnel to Helmand.
"If they [NATO partners] don't send, then we will. We have soldiers and helicopters we can send to Afghanistan," said a senior defense source.
Talks on Saturday attempted to persuade NATO members such as Germany and Spain to send their troops to Helmand.
Both countries presently operate only in the relatively safe northern and western regions and so far have been reluctant to send soldiers into the riskiest areas of Afghanistan.
Although NATO commanders have criticized the reluctance of some countries to send combat soldiers to what was originally billed as a reconstruction mission, British officials have resisted condemning fellow NATO members.
Privately, however, British commanders share concerns that their country is carrying too great a burden over NATO's Afghanistan operation.
They nevertheless believe that the deployment of an extra mobile fighting force is required to help accelerate the tempo of operations and avoid becoming bogged down in a bloody foreign conflict.
Defense Secretary Des Brown is believed to have raised his concerns over troop numbers in Helmand with NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Sheffer on a number of occasions.
Not only is the future stability of Afghanistan at stake, but Ministry of Defense officials admit that the credibility of NATO itself rests with the success of the mission.
The cost of the intervention remains a pressing concern for Britain as fresh questions over the mission are being raised following the deaths of 19 British servicemen in the past nine days, 14 of whom died when a Royal Air Force Nimrod reconnaissance plane crashed earlier this month.
Britain currently has 4,500 service personnel deployed in Afghanistan, mainly in Helmand Province.
Meanwhile, an officer has resigned from the British army in protest for its "grotesquely clumsy" campaign against the Taliban, a newspaper reported yesterday.
Captain Leo Docherty, an aide-de-camp to a senior commander in the British task force operating in southern Afghanistan, quit last month after becoming disillusioned with its strategy in Helmand Province, The Sunday Times reported.
The approach is "a textbook case of how to screw up a counter-insurgency," Docherty was quoted as saying.
"All those people whose homes have been destroyed and sons killed are going to turn against the British," he said.
"We've been grotesquely clumsy. We've said we'll be different [from] the [US] who were bombing and strafing villages, then behaved exactly like them," he said. "We've deviated spectacularly from the original plan."
According to Docherty, the plan had been to secure the provincial capital of Lashkar Gah and initiate development and governance projects there.
The entire plan "fell by the wayside," Docherty said.
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