A spokesperson for British Prime Minister Andy Burnham challenged U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s account of NATO’s Afghanistan campaign, saying “it is wrong to diminish their role,” The Guardian and The Independent reported.
The U.S. Department of War said Hegseth addressed military recruits and Reserve Officers’ Training Corps cadets at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville on Oct. 17. The Guardian and The Independent reported that he recalled seeing about 50 national flags at coalition headquarters in Kabul, then suggested perhaps five countries had contributed and only “one or two” carried out combat operations near the campaign’s end.
By July 2021, the UK Ministry of Defence had recorded 457 deaths among UK Armed Forces members in Afghanistan since 2001. It said more than 150,000 UK personnel had served there. The death figure includes causes other than combat.
Burnham’s spokesperson responded on Oct. 19, saying the war had imposed a heavy cost on thousands of families in Britain and other allied countries. The spokesperson separately cited sacrifices made by British personnel and other NATO forces, The Guardian and The Independent reported.
NATO’s records document allied participation in earlier fighting. A briefing on a 2006 offensive in southern Afghanistan named Canada, Denmark, the Netherlands and Britain as contributors, with roles spanning ground combat, reconnaissance, artillery and air support. That account establishes their involvement in the operation, though it does not measure each country’s share of fighting across the campaign.
The dispute follows an earlier exchange: Then-Prime Minister Keir Starmer rebuked President Donald Trump in January over a claim about NATO troops’ frontline role, The Guardian reported.
NATO Allies invoked Article 5, the alliance’s collective defense clause, after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States. NATO began leading the International Security Assistance Force in August 2003, and that mission ended in December 2014. Its successor, Resolute Support, began in January 2015 as a noncombat mission to train, advise and assist Afghan forces.
