A devastating report into the Afghanistan war has concluded that the British task force sent into Helmand in 2006 was ill-equipped, under-resourced and too weak to defeat the Taliban.In Operations in Afghanistan -- which is deeply critical of both senior commanders and government ministers -- the Defence Select Committee states that the Helmand mission was undermined by bad planning and poor intelligence, and the task force was capped at 3,150 troops for financial rather than operational reasons.
Much of the blame for the failings is levelled at senior officers for claiming that field commanders were content with the support they were receiving, when the reverse was true.
The report reveals that the high levels of British casualties was not predicted. Since 2006 more than 370 British troops have been killed and almost 2,000 wounded