Commons Adventure

(c) isafmedia

Venturing off to Portcullis House in Parliament tomorrow to report on the Foreign Affairs Select Committee will be an interesting experience - Foreign Secretary David Miliband will be appearing before the committee for one thing.

Moreover, the official topics are Afghanistan and Pakistan, clearly contentious issues with a large-scale offensive in process in the former and the American use of unmanned drones in the latter.

However, it seems inevitable that the issue of security services involvement in torture allegations concerning Binyam Mohammed is bound to sneak onto the agenda, especially considering Mr. Miliband's determined fight to keep the allegations out of the final court judgement.

The Foreign Secretary's reaction to the alleged Mossad assassination of top Hamas figure Mahmoud al-Mabhouh is also likely to be a touchy subject.

I will report back with my findings as soon as possible.


**Update March 2010:

(c) Foreign and Commonwealth Office

Well, as much I enjoyed my Portcullis House jaunt it did not yield immediate revelations, however there might be one in the offing depending on the results of my Freedom of Information application (see below).

The Committee

The allegations concerning Mossad as well as torture of Binyam Mohammed were firmly off the agenda, instead Afghanistan dominated prcoeedings - the foreign secretary even pressed the committee to move on to Pakistan before they ran out of time.

Former Liberal Democrat Leader Sir Menzies (pronounced 'Ming' just in case you wondered) Campbell was pretty tough in his questioning, particularly on the subject of the Independent Election Commission of Afghanistan. Shortly before the Committee meeting, the press was reporting that President Karzai had announced the installation of three people of his own choosing on the Commission (previously composed of international, independent individuals) raising fears that the President was once again making a mockery of efforts to remove corruption from government by inserting three stooges on the election panel.

Aside: Something which worried me a bit was the fact that the vast majority of questioners were addressing subjects starting by saying 'it has appeared in the press that...', maybe I ask too much but I would prefer if more of the questions, like those of Andrew MacKinlay (Labour) seemed to be chosen as a result of their own research as to what they believe to be important.

Andrew MacKinlay raised perhaps the most intriguing question of the session of the subject of the Kajaki Dam. Mr. Miliband appeared less assured on the subject, asking to be able to write to the committee with details to make sure that he did not miss anything out. When pressed he outlined the mission as follows (parts in brackets are details I have discovered subsequently):

- In Autumn 2008, 2,500+ mainly British troops carried out an intensive mission to transport a giant turbine to Kajaki dam for the purpose of producing more electricity to the surrounding area (which at the time operated rolling black outs due to insufficient electrcity).

- The time consuming operation was successful, but to no avail as the Chinese contractor due to install the turbine pulled out (because of threats made to the lives of its employees by insurgents should they go ahead).

- As a result, in December 2009, the US (who funded the project) announced the abandonment of the mission because the supplies necessary to install the dam could not be brought to the site, and so the turbine was dissassembled.


There was according to MacKinlay an accusation that the military at this point 'took its foot off the accelerator' in the war in Afghanistan, but Mr. Miliband could not say who was responsible for the decisions that led to this unfortunate failure. I believe that there could be more to this story than meets the eye, so I have submitted a Freedom of Information request in the hope of uncovering some more information, who knows I might even get a scoop...