MPs condemn tactical mistakes that ruled out victory in Helmand

A British patrol returns to camp in Nad-e Ali district of Helmand province last year. Photograph: Sean Smith for the Guardian

The five-year British military campaign in southern Afghanistan has been woefully under-resourced and hampered by inadequate equipment, according to a damning report by MPs.

The Commons defence select committee, which has been analysing UK operations in Helmand province since 2006, says that it was "unacceptable" British forces were handicapped by insufficient numbers, poor equipment and low-quality intelligence when the deployment began.

For the first three years of the operation – during which 132 British personnel died and more than 2,000 were hospitalised in Helmand – victory was more or less unattainable given the levels of manpower, military vehicles available and knowledge of the enemy.

The initial deployment of 3,500 solders into Helmand, of whom around 1,000 were infantry, was "not fully thought through", the report says.

James Arbuthnot, a former Conservative defence minister and chairman of the committee, said: "The force levels deployed throughout 2006, 2007 and 2008 were never going to achieve what was being demanded."

The report questions how the Ministry of Defence failed to anticipate that the presence of foreign troops in Helmand "might stir up a hornets' nest". The then defence secretary, John Reid, was famously reported as saying that he would have been happy if British forces had left Helmand "without a shot being fired". By the end of 2008, however, British forces were expending almost four million bullets a year against an increasingly strident insurgency.

The report also raises concerns that UK troops were in effect sent to tackle an enemy of which virtually nothing was known because available intelligence "was contradictory". By the summer of 2006, military tactics dictated that individual platoons of about 30 soldiers were cornered in isolated towns, provoking an aggressive response from the surrounding Taliban. During August and September of that year, 27 soldiers were killed as the enemy launched repeated attacks against remote outposts.

The committee's first report on Afghanistan for more than a year also criticises the military's failure to make clear the need for more resources. Representations to government are described as "inadequate at best".

As the conflict progressed, the MoD was criticised for failing to keep up with the evolving tactics of the Taliban, who switched from conventional warfare to guerrilla tactics involving suicide attacks and improvised explosive devices. In particular, a failure to provide bomb-proof vehicles and counter-IED support was a serious flaw that almost certainly cost British lives. The flimsy armoured vehicles first sent to Helmand – the Snatch Land Rover and armoured personnel carriers dating from the 1960s – offered minimal protection.

"It took some time to get a suitably capable vehicle fleet into theatre. The MoD should prioritise the protection of personnel when considering the funding of such needs that emerge in the future," the report says. Even now, it adds, British forces still lack sufficient helicopter numbers. A dispute in Whitehall over supplying 12 more Chinook helicopters to Helmand has yet to be settled.

Looking ahead to Britain's withdrawal from the province, MPs warn that the government's room for manoeuvre is limited. Earlier this month David Cameron confirmed a "modest reduction" in British troops next year, probably by around 500. A further 400 are due to return home this year, leaving a core of 9,500 service personnel.

Arbuthnot said: "The government's clear determination to withdraw combat forces should not undermine the military strategy by causing the Afghan population to fear that the international coalition might abandon them or by allowing the Taliban and others to think that all they have to do is bide their time."

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