ANY QUOTES USED MUST BE ATTRIBUTED TO MURNAGHAN, SKY NEWS

DERMOT MURNAGHAN: Now the Defence Secretary, Philip Hammond, has just returned from Afghanistan where he says the Taliban are still a potent force, so is a 2014 withdrawal still realistic? Well in a moment I’ll be speaking to the Defence Secretary. Let’s say a very good morning to the Secretary of State for Defence, good morning to you Mr Hammond. Well Afghanistan, you saw there that the Taliban is, as you admit, still a potent force, presumably then a post-coalition future for Afghanistan includes the Taliban in some way, shape or form?

PHILIP HAMMOND: Well we think so. We’ve always believed that there cannot be a purely military solution to the challenges facing Afghanistan. A sustainable lasting peace requires the reintegration into the mainstream of Afghan political life of those elements of the Taliban willing to renounce violence and engage with the system. It requires the co-operation of the neighbours, this is a difficult region and it requires agreement between the neighbours, particularly Pakistan, and it requires an effective security to be maintained in the country and we’re very confident that the Afghan national security forces, getting ever stronger, ever greater in numbers, will be able to deliver that.

DM: The crucial thing in that is what you identify there, is what elements of the Taliban are willing to talk. You use the word potent, you say they are still a potent force, they’re potent because of some of the arms they’re still toting around.

PH: Yes, they are still a force on the ground and we shouldn’t underestimate them. The Afghan national security forces are also a very potent force, 350,000 strong now, and they are willing to engage and they do engage with the Taliban wherever they show their faces but we shouldn’t assume that this campaign can be concluded with a military victory. Neither side can win this outright as a military victory.

DM: So why not go now then?

PH: There has to be a political compromise. We are in fact in the process of transforming the mission and I’m not sure, having just come back from Afghanistan, that people here have actually grasped the scale of change that’s going on. At the end of 2010 we the Brits had 137 bases in Helmand, by the time the current HERRICK 17 operation ends at the end of March, we’ll be down to around 14 or 15 bases across Helmand. Every week we’re closing bases, our troops are not going out on combat patrols any longer, they are providing assistance and back up support to the Afghans who are now doing the routine security work.

DM: What do you make of the Afghan President, Hamid Karzai, and funnily enough he was in London while you were in Afghanistan, I think you crossed over, but there is an implicit criticism of the coalition mission here when he said that Southern Helmand was actually better before the coalition troops arrived and that they were in the wrong place, more or less saying that they were a target for disaffected elements to shoot at.

PH: No, I don’t think so. Incidentally I met him here in London on Monday before I went to Afghanistan and in fact he was answering a question about a statement that he made some years ago, back in 2008 and I think the observation that Helmand was more peaceful, less violent, before ISAF troops came in to the area is probably true but it was less violent because the Taliban controlled it. They were in control of that part of the country, they were running it and wresting back control of Helmand from the Taliban is a crucial part of sustaining the government of Afghanistan and making sure that it can run …

DM: But do you think that mistakes were made in Helmand? I mean Hamid Karzai is pointing towards that, that civilians have been killed, there are still the drone strikes going on, there are huge issues with the civilian population, so much so that you’ll be aware that some of them say well actually we preferred it when the Taliban were in charge, at least there was peace.

PH: Well that isn’t the picture from surveys of the local population and there are regular surveys done. What’s happening now is a peace under the government of Afghanistan, the legitimate elected government of Afghanistan, is being established, people are able to go about their normal business, economic life is regenerating again, schools and health centres are being opened, roads are being surfaced so that people can get around, life is returning to something much closer to normal in Helmand after a couple of very difficult years.

DM: Okay, but overall, given that you describe the Taliban as a potent force and it’s a bit of holding your finger in the air and hoping that large elements of them do want to talk and come to a peaceful solution, if that doesn’t happen, if two years down the line, 2015, 2016 or beyond, Hamid Karzai, if he’s still in power, says look we’re being overwhelmed here, we’re being overrun, will you come back? Is that completely out of the question?

PH: That’s not the way forward and by the way, Hamid Karzai won’t still be in power because he’s standing down at the election next year. The ANSF is a powerful and potent force, 350,000 strong, getting new and more powerful equipment all the time, better trained, more experienced all the time. They will be able to contain this insurgency but I don't think anybody believes that they will be able to defeat it outright and equally nobody believes that the insurgents will be able to triumph. There has to be a political compromise and the positive thing is that the actors in this game are talking about compromise now.

DM: But just because you say there has to be doesn’t mean to say there will be. Everyone says there has to be a political compromise in the Middle East, we’ve been saying that for forty years.

PH: But I think the players here do recognise that there has to be a political compromise and they are inching to beginning to talk about the shape that compromise might form. The fact that Pakistan is now engaged in a much more positive way with the challenges is extremely positive because Pakistan has very considerable influence over the Taliban.

DM: Just let me move the focus to Mali, to Africa. There are those who are saying what are we doing here, here we are eventually getting out of Afghanistan after all those years, are we recreating an engagement here in of course an even bigger swathe of the planet in North Africa and beyond?

PH: Emphatically not but what we are doing is addressing the threat that Al Qaeda poses to the west and to our own domestic security wherever it arises and in the Sahel we have seen militant Islamists linked to Al Qaeda, organising, using what is effectively ungoverned space to train and to prepare for attacks like the one we saw in Algeria just a couple of weeks ago, which can attack our interests and ultimately our own homelands and we have to be vigilant and we have to be prepared to act whenever we see those threats arising.

DM: That’s the point, act how? If necessary by putting in substantial boots on the ground or is this going to be different?

PH: No, not at all, I think this is much more like Somalia than it is like Afghanistan, where we have used money, we have used technical skills, we’ve used trainers to equip local forces, African Union forces …

DM: Can I just ask you on Somalia, are more forces going in there as well? More British forces?

PH: No, that’s not the plan. No, I think there was a misreading of a report earlier this week about our defence engagement strategy. We will be putting a defence attaché into the British Diplomatic Mission in Somalia in order to build and sustain our defence relationships with the Somali government, that’s part of our broader strategy for trying to engage upstream, trying to prevent conflict before it happens and solve it with local …

DM: But no more military personnel deployed in any way in Somalia?

PH: That’s not our plan at all in Somalia. We’re sustaining and supporting the African Union Mission which is making good progress in consolidating the government’s control over Somalia but in Mali, the other side of the continent, a very similar plan of operation. The French went in in order to stabilise the situation quite rapidly, which they appear to have done. They are now deploying and helping, assisting the deployment of African troops into Mali to support the Malian government and consolidate those gains. We will provide training to English speaking African troops preparing to go into Mali, we’re providing air transport and we’re providing some sophisticated surveillance assets but it’s the French that have done the heavy lift and the Africans that will be doing the follow up work.

DM: Okay but how does it all fit into the prevailing economic environment that there seems to be no lack of ambition in terms of Britain’s global reach yet we know that resources are being trimmed and will continue to be trimmed for the foreseeable future. How can the defence forces continue to carry out these burdens?

PH: Well let’s be clear, these operations around Mali, Somalia, Afghanistan are responding to direct threats to Britain’s national security. We all remember what happened in 9/11, we must act wherever we see a threat to our national security arising.

DM: And if necessary then adjust budgets to cope with that, the national interest overrides the desire to cut the budget?

PH: Well we are facing tremendous fiscal pressure because of the inheritance that we had from the last government and because of the continued instability in the eurozone which is undermining economic growth. Of course we have to address the need for fiscal consolidation but I’m very clear that we’ve got to do it in a way that does not diminish our military capabilities beyond the ambition that we’ve set out in the 2010 Strategic Defence Review.

DM: I just want to ask you a domestic question, everyone talking about it, of course the Eastleigh by-election, the two coalition – different coalition of course – partners coming up against each other to try to win this. How hard are the Conservatives going to fight this, are you going to be campaigning on the streets yourself Mr Hammond?

PH: Absolutely, we’re going to fight to win, I and all my colleagues will be down there supporting our candidate who is a good local candidate that people will be able to trust. We’ll be defending the coalition’s record, as indeed the Liberal Democrats must do, but we will also be emphasising those areas of differences that we have with the Lib Dems, for example on their desire to introduce a homes tax which we strongly oppose.

DM: Okay but you go into the campaign as a party with all your divisions writ large from last weeks vote on gay marriage and as we know voters don’t like a divided party, we’re seeing it in the polls today.

PH: We go into the campaign as a party fighting our corner, fighting against the Liberal Democrats, and both parties are quite used to doing that. Since the coalition has been formed we’ve fought each other hard, head to head, in local elections across the country and as for a divided party, the single sex marriage issue was a free vote in parliament, David Cameron always made clear that he recognised that people had strong opinions on this and it is the kind of issue that is always traditionally a free vote in parliament. That will not undermine the unity of the party and …

DM: But it is division isn’t it? You yourself, a Cabinet Minister, couldn’t find a way to vote for it.

PH: The achievement that David Cameron scored on Friday in Brussels in at last turning the tide on the ever growing European Union budget, I think will remind people across the party of the areas that we have in common, where we feel very strongly that we have to change Britain’s relationship with Europe.

DM: So are you confident that whatever the result, and of course we can’t foresee the outcome in Eastleigh, that will leave no lasting rancour between the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats? I spoke to Nick Clegg earlier and he’s going in with the studs up, you’re going to fight as hard as you can, we remember the AV campaign, House of Lords reform, boundary issues, these things are still issues particularly amongst the back benchers. Do you think Eastleigh, you can fight it and then move on?

PH: Yes we can. We have a very pragmatic relationship at the top in running this coalition, we don’t agree on everything but we do agree on some very important things, particularly around the need to sort out the public finances and get the economy growing again and we’ve developed over the years of coalition a system if you like, a technique for engaging in battle when we need to, in by-elections, in local elections and then resetting and going back to the day to day task of managing the country in coalition.

DM: Okay, Secretary of State, very nice to see you, thank you very much for coming in. Philip Hammond there.