LONDON, June 10 (UPI) -- The British government has privately conceded troops are likely to remain in Afghanistan for many years fighting a stubborn Taliban insurgency, documents show.
Secret documents obtained by The Telegraph and published Tuesday revealed that British Foreign Secretary David Miliband compared the fight against the Taliban to Britain's defense against the Nazis in World War II in an appeal to fellow ministers to be honest with British taxpayers that the Afghanistan struggle will be a long one.
"Why we are there is straightforward," Miliband reportedly said. "Sixty or 70 years ago, the armed forces defended Britain on the White Cliffs of Dover. Now to defend Britain, we have got to be in the toughest areas of the world like Afghanistan."
The documents revealed the government has conceded that the Taliban's control of the country's lucrative opium trade and local disenchantment with rampant corruption in Afghan President Hamid Karzai's elected government in Kabul will likely mean many more years in Afghanistan for British troops.
"Growing links between the drug trade and the insurgency in the south will provide longevity to the Taliban," the newspaper quoted the documents as saying.
