Hegseth ‘wrong’ to diminish NATO role in Afghanistan: UK prime minister’s office

The British and Polish governments have condemned Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth for downplaying the involvement of NATO allies in the war in Afghanistan.

During a speech at the University of Tennessee on Saturday, Hegseth, who served as a Minnesota Army National Guard instructor in Afghanistan, suggested only a handful of NATO countries had actively participated in combat during the nearly 20-year war.

“I was a captain in Afghanistan and we would go to the headquarters in Kabul and there would be 50 flags at the headquarters,” he recalled. “It was a beautiful thing to see, 50 different countries contributing to the NATO alliance and the ISAF [International Security Assistance Force] mission there.”

“Except there were maybe five that contributed. It was actually closer to one or two that by the end were actually involved in kinetic operations,” he added, describing the lack of burden-sharing as demoralizing for U.S. troops.

Hegseth said American troops even joked that ISAF, the acronym for the International Security Assistance Force, stood for “I Saw Americans Fighting.”

Asked about the comments Monday, a spokesperson for U.K Prime Minister Andy Burnham pointed to the sacrifices made by British and other allied forces.

“Frankly, the facts speak for themselves when it comes to the UK’s and Nato’s contribution to Afghanistan,” the spokesperson said in a statement to the Guardian.

“Thousands of British and allied families made huge sacrifices to play their significant part in that war and uphold our values, and more than 450 British personnel never returned.”

The spokesperson added that Britain was proud of its troops and that “it is wrong to diminish their role.”

Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski also criticized Hegseth, writing on the social platform X that he should repeat his comments “to the families of 44 Polish soldiers who died securing the tough Ghazni province.”

NATO joined the U.S. led mission in Afghanistan after invoking Article 5, its collective defense provision, following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. To this day, it is the only time the alliance has invoked the provision.