Harry home from Afghan deployment

Harry, known in the Army as Second Lieutenant Wales of the Blues and Royals Regiment, has been widely praised for his deployment to Helmand where, as Commander of the Tactical Air Control Party (TACP), he was in charge of the Household Cavalry Regiment Battlegroup's Forward Air Controllers who have responsibility for the logistical re-supply of the Battlegroup by air, surveillance of the area by both manned and unmanned aircraft and protection tasks which include controlling aircraft onto their targets.

Prince Harry was fully involved in operations and ran the same risks as everyone else in his Battlegroup. Throughout his deployment, the risks were constantly reassessed but at no stage was it determined that Prince Harry, or those deployed with him, were any more at risk than any other individual or unit. A key element of this was that the circle of knowledge of his deployment had been kept extremely tight and on a strictly need-to-know basis.

Once the story came into the public domain via a US website on Thursday 28 February 2008, the operational chain of command reassessed the situation and decided to withdraw Prince Harry from Afghanistan immediately.

Explaining this decision to Sky News yesterday, Sunday 2 March 2008, the Professional head of the UK Armed Forces, Chief of the Defence staff Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup said:

"Once it's known that he's there and people had some idea of his whereabouts, then there is a significant risk that more determined attacks would be made against UK and other forces in the region. It's very clear that his presence in theatre would have had a significant effect on what the opposition did and that's what we had to look out for all the time.

"I can understand very well that the people in his unit wanted to keep him with them. That's a perfectly normal reaction. I can understand very well that he would want to stay. That's an absolutely normal reaction. My concern has to be though for the wider operation."

Speaking about the Prince himself Sir Jock said:

"He has performed extremely well, as has everyone who is and has served in Afghanistan. I think that he's done so far a very good job in his Army career. Of course it can never be like some ordinary person's career. He is a member of the royal family. He is in the line of accession to the throne and that is always going to make a difference but so far he's been able to have as close to a normal career as I think anyone in such circumstances ever could have."

And on the wider Afghanistan mission, Sir Jock concluded:

"The mission in Afghanistan is to improve the level of governance throughout the country and it's about governance not just at the national level but at the local level and about joining all of that up.

"It's essentially about getting the ordinary Afghan people to feel that each year is a bit better than the one before.

"It's being won up to now. I hesitate slightly because I do think there's more that we need to do but I do think that we're focusing on some of the wrong issues. I see a lot of reporting about the Taliban. I see headlines that say the Taliban are resurgent. That's plain wrong.

"But the problem is the Taliban do not constitute the key battleground in Afghanistan. The ordinary Afghan people do. It's delivery of effects to them that matter and those are non-military issues that need to be done in a far more coordinated way by the international community."

Meanwhile Prince Harry arrived back at RAF Brize Norton on an RAF Tristar plane from Kandahar on Saturday morning. After routine formalities, including handing his weapon in, he met his father and brother. Speaking to the press about his deployment he said:

"You do what you have to do, what is necessary to save your own guys. If you need to drop a bomb, worst-case scenario, then you will, that's just the way it is. It's not nice to drop bombs but to save lives, that's what happens."

On his deployment being cut short he said:

"It's a shame. Angry would be the wrong word to use but I am slightly disappointed. I thought I could see it through to the end and come back with our guys and the Colonel himself. But I'm back here now and I suppose deep down inside it's quite nice. I'm looking forward to having a bath.

"As far as I'm concerned, it was mission successful because the main crux of it was to lead a troop."