Cables From Kabul

SHERARD COWPER-COLES

For three years, from 2007 until 2010, Sherard Cowper-Coles was on the diplomatic front line in Kabul, as the crisis in Afghanistan deepened. First as the British Ambassador and later as the Foreign Secretary’s Special Representative, he witnessed at first hand the struggle to contain the Taliban in Helmand, which cost the lives of hundreds of British soldiers, and the political negotiations at the highest level of government. In Cables From Kabul he offers a stinging rebuke both to the military and political leaders for the failure to create a coherent strategy in Afghanistan. He accuses the British army of submitting misleadingly optimistic reports on the war, and argues that the American and British governments should have recognised that the only way forward was to involve the Taliban in direct talks.

Cables From Kabul: The Inside Story of the West’s Afghanistan Campaign is published by Harper Press.
CABLES FROM KABUL