LONDON — The British government today denied a claim that it believes the military campaign in Afghanistan is doomed to failure after a French newspaper published what it said were comments made by London’s ambassador to Kabul.
France’s weekly Le Canard Enchaine, a weekly publication known for its investigative stories, said a leaked French diplomatic cable recounted talks between Britain’s Ambassador Sherard Cowper-Coles and a French official.
Cowper-Coles was quoted as saying that Afghanistan might best be “governed by an acceptable dictator,” the French newspaper reported Wednesday.
It also said Cowper-Coles was quoted as saying that “the American strategy is destined to fail” and that the presence of foreign troops in Afghanistan was “part of the problem, not the solution.” Britain’s Foreign Secretary David Miliband described the report as “garbled,” and insisted Friday on his Web site that the U.K. does not support a move toward a Kabul dictatorship.
Britain’s Foreign Office said today that Cowper-Coles had held a meeting with a French counterpart but insisted that the reported comments did not reflect the government’s views.
The French newspaper published excerpts of the purported cable, including a passage that quoted the British ambassador as criticizing both U.S. presidential candidates over pledges to send more U.S. troops to Afghanistan.
“It is the American presidential candidates who must be dissuaded from getting further bogged down in Afghanistan,” an extract of the cable published by the newspaper quoted Cowper-Coles as saying.
Le Canard Enchaine said the cable was written by France’s deputy ambassador in Afghanistan, Jean-Francois Fitou, following his meeting with Cowper-Coles.
The cable was sent to French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner from Kabul on Sept. 2, the newspaper reported.
French Foreign Ministry spokesman Eric Chevallier declined Saturday to confirm or deny the cable’s existence.
However, Chevallier, speaking by telephone, said the content of the alleged cable, as reported by the media, “doesn’t correspond at all with what we hear from our British counterparts in our discussions on Afghanistan.” Cowper-Coles has previously offered a pessimistic view of worsening violence in Afghanistan and has warned that foreign troops will likely be required there for around 30 years. “It’s a marathon rather than a sprint. We should be thinking in terms of decades,” he told BBC radio in June.
