Iraq planning failure not repeated in Afghanistan: UK's Cameron

LONDON (Reuters) - Prime Minister David Cameron said on Wednesday that Britain's military involvement in Afghanistan had not repeated the planning failures of the 2003 Iraq invasion. "I don't accept that all the same failures are apparent in some way when it comes to planning in Afghanistan," he said in parliament. He was responding to criticism after the publication of an inquiry into the Iraq war. "In Afghanistan, there was a very clear connection between a Taliban regime which was playing host to al Qaeda," he said. "The goal of government policy, which I supported at the time and indeed put into place when I became Prime Minister, was to make sure that country couldn't become a safe haven for al Qaeda, and there was some considerable success in pursuing that." Britain was involved in the conflict in Afghanistan between 2001 and 2014. (Reporting by William James; editing by Stephen Addison)