Pete Hegseth has sparked an outcry with his comments.Pete Hegseth has been given a reality check after he attacked the contributionNato troops made to the war in Afghanistan.
The US defence secretary suggested that “maybe five” countries other than America contributed to the mission, with just “one or two” actually fighting.
The war began in 2001 in response to the attack on the World Trade Centre in New York on September 11 that year.
More than 1,100 non-US service personnel lost their lives in the conflict, including 457 from the UK.
In a speech to US army cadets at the weekend, Hegseth said: “I was a captain in Afghanistan and we would go to the headquarters in Kabul and there would be 50 flags at the headquarters.
“It was a beautiful thing to see, 50 different countries contributing to the Nato alliance and the [International Security Assistance Force] mission there. Except there were maybe five that contributed, it was actually closer to one or two that by the end were actually involved in kinetic operations.
“In fact the patch ‘ISAF’ we joked it meant ‘I Saw Americans Fighting’.”
But appearing in front of the US Senate committee on ethics on Monday, Hegseth was reminded of how many troops from Nato countries also died in Afghanistan.
Senator Chris Coons asked him: “You don’t doubt out question that about a third of all the combat casualties in our war in Afghanistan were our Nato partners and allies?”
Hegseth replied: “I would have to go back and check that number, but I take your word for it.”
Coons said: “Let me just assert that hundreds and hundreds of service members from Australia, the United Kingdom, as well as many other of our allies served, fought and died alongside us.”
He added: “At a moment when Russia and China and North Korea and Iran are coming closer together and delivering a bedevilling lethality in this ongoing war in Iran, for which we don’t have a clear strategy or clear answers, our better strategy would be to partner more closely with Ukraine, dig in deeper with our treaty allies in the western Pacific and in Europe ... rather than berating them and bullying them.”
Coons: "Our president said we neither asked for nor received anything from our NATO allies. Was that your experience in Afghanistan?"
Hegseth: "I've written extensively about that. The vast majority of my experience was frustration with the limits of what those forces could do…
Hegseth’s comments also provoked an angry slapdown from Andy Burnham’s official spokesman, who said: “Thousands of British and allied families made huge sacrifices to play their significant part in that war and uphold our values.
“More than 450 British personnel never returned, and their sacrifice and that of other Nato forces, was made in the service if collective security and in response to an attack on our ally.
“We are incredibly proud of our armed forces and their service and sacrifice will never be forgotten. It is wrong to diminish their role.”
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