The Ministry of Defence is no stranger to catastrophically costly blunders – but even by its own standards, the leak of personal data on Afghans who had applied for sanctuary in the UK is astonishing in its scale.
These were ex-soldiers and their families who had helped the British and Americans during the war. In all, some 100,000 names, email addresses and phone numbers were inadvertently released and made their way, at least partially, onto social media.
The largest ever secret evacuation scheme was then launched, bringing 16,000 Afghans to the UK from Afghanistan and Pakistan. The total cost of the covert exercise is estimated at around £7bn. The leak also triggered one of the most extraordinary – and counterproductive – superinjunctions ever entertained by a British court, with wide-reaching ramifications for the freedom of the press.
It meant that, until its lifting, the media could neither investigate nor report on the scandal – or even the existence of the injunction itself.
The MoD lurched from one extreme to another, first releasing a huge quantity of sensitive life-and-death data – and then, as it turned out, an unsustainable attempt to cover up a scandal.
At its base, the whole story stems from an original failure to do the right thing by those brave Afghan troops, particularly in the special forces, who fought alongside allied forces in the war on terror.
This newspaper has campaigned fiercely on behalf of those troops, including the Triples – hundreds of former Afghan special forces who fought on behalf of the West – and the hero Afghan pilot cruelly denied asylum despite fighting alongside British soldiers. He was threatened with deportation to Rwanda but, after a five-month-long campaign by The Independent, was finally granted asylum in the UK in August 2023.
It is entirely unconscionable that in the face of an implacable and cruel enemy – the Taliban – and with a high risk of torture and death, their blood mingled with that of British and American service personnel in the dust of Helmand, yet they were so cruelly disregarded.
After the fall of Kabul – and the near-certainty of their capture and execution – the correct course of action for the UK should have been to make every effort to get Afghan allies out of danger as soon as possible. Some were taken on the chaotic flights out, and some were later resettled under the various refugee schemes – but too many were left behind.
They either had to try to live their lives in secret or end up in Pakistan, under constant threat of being deported into the hands of the Taliban authorities, who have never been noted for their adherence to the Geneva Conventions.
Even where their cases for sanctuary were unassailable, as with the ex-Afghan air force pilot championed by The Independent, and since rescued, the process was slow and arduous.
Had those who should have been evacuated immediately been helped to get out of harm’s way, there would have been no spreadsheet to leak – and no scramble, secret or otherwise, to contain the damage. The delays and reluctance on the part of the British authorities to grant asylum in the UK were well entrenched, long before the leak and the superinjunction.
Indeed, there would have been no need for the superinjunction to be extended, time and again, had the MoD and other agencies behaved with more urgency in rescuing those Afghans.
The leak itself placed all those named in jeopardy and therefore eligible to settle in the UK, whatever the merits of their initial application.
The superinjunction threatened to make the leak even worse by giving the impression that all of those included were, in the eyes of the Taliban, traitors – and by raising awareness of the existence of a spreadsheet in certain circles. The Afghans in danger had to be warned, while others took legal action. Such were the numbers involved that trying to keep it all secret was futile in a free society.
It was a British official who caused the mess, and the British government should have cleared it up, not covered it up. While there may have been some justification for seeking the original superinjunction, on the grounds of protecting lives, the MoD plainly wanted it to be made permanent simply because of embarrassment.
That is a natural enough reaction in any bureaucracy. However, it is also the very reason why there should never have been a cover-up, because those affected and the public need to know when something appalling is going on and why. This is why press freedom is so vital – because democracy itself is at stake.
Superinjunctions are the nuclear weapons of the legal system – and should be used, if at all, only where there is a clear and significant danger to national security. The process has been abused by celebrities and other people of influence for far too long.
That this one was extended over two years is itself another scandal – and one that the present and former defence secretaries will have to answer for in parliament.
Meanwhile, there are still Afghan men and women in Afghanistan, Pakistan, the UK and elsewhere who live in fear of the Taliban seeking revenge upon them. The British have let them down continually.
Perhaps defeat for the allies in that long, merciless war in such difficult terrain was inevitable, but the shameful behaviour that followed it was not.
