Afghan operations costing £2.3 bn a year

Monday, 15 December 2008 12:00 AM

The Ministry of Defence has revealed it expects the cost of operations in Afghanistan to increase by 54.1 per cent next year.

A Commons report revealed the MoD was forecasting costs of £2.318 billion for 2008/09, up from £1.505 billion in the previous 12 months.

According to the House of Defence Committee, much of the significant increase is attributable to the purchase of 700 armoured vehicles for Afghanistan operations.

In Iraq the MoD said operations would be down in cost by 4.1 per cent, but the committee says this does not tally with the anticipated withdrawal of UK troops in mid-2009.

But committee chairman James Arbuthnot said he was recommending to the House that it accept the MoD's funding requests.

"The investment being made in better facilities and equipment for our troops in Afghanistan is vital and we welcome it wholeheartedly. We applaud the MoD for providing more information about these costs earlier in the financial year than it used to do," he said.

"There has been real progress in this area, and the MoD has promised more improvements in the future. However, the reasons for the increases and the magnitude of costs in general are still not transparent enough. The MoD needs to provide a more coherent picture of what these costs really represent on the ground in future."

This weekend the UK death-toll since operations began in Afghanistan rose to 132 with the deaths of Marine Damian Davies, Sergeant John Manuel, Corporal Marc Birch and Lance Corporal Steven Fellow.

Since the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, 178 UK servicemen and women have been killed in Iraq.

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• middle east