Extra resources may be needed in Afghanistan, says Blair

Prime Minister Tony Blair said on Tuesday that British commanders in Afghanistan, who are facing a worsening security situation, may request more resources.
Blair said the government was ready to send additional troops, equipment or resources to support a British mission in the southern part of the country, where five British soldiers have been killed in the past three weeks.
But he said he had not received any requests for reinforcements as yet, despite a flurry of newspaper reports in past days that extra soldiers could be deployed soon.
"Whenever you do a mission like this, you are constantly and so are they, the commanders on the ground, assessing what more do we need in terms of personnel, equipment, resources," Blair told a committee of parliamentarians. "Anything they need and ask for in order to protect our troops I'll make sure they will get."
"Our obligation to them is to give them what they need to do the job and if they come to us and say - which they haven't so far, but which they may well do - 'This is what we require in addition because now we're there we can see this problem and that problem emerging', of course we will respond to it positively," Blair added.
The commander of British forces in Afghanistan, Brigadier Ed Butler, said on Monday he had requested some more resources, although he did not specify what.
Britain has dispatched a force of 3,300 to the lawless southern Afghan province of Helmand this year to form part of an expanding Nato peacekeeping mission, entering the most dangerous areas of the country for the first time.
Since last month, the British have been taking part in US-led Operation Mountain Thrust, billed by its American commanders as the biggest offensive against the Taleban since they drove them out of Kabul in 2001. Blair said there had never been any doubt that the deployment to the south would be dangerous.
He said the purpose of the mission was to support the reconstruction of Afghanistan and help establish a functioning democracy that does not involve the production of heroin.