Foreign Affairs Committee on Feb. 27th, 2007

[Francine Lalonde, Bloc, La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC]

Largely insufficient.

[Christopher Alexander]

That is clear to everyone.

One can't draw too many comparisons between Afghanistan and Bosnia. The situation is different. The international community took the responsibility for the administration of Bosnia, which entailed costs far beyond those related to our responsibilities in Afghanistan.

In my opinion, the process of identifying new resources for Afghanistan is currently accelerating. The United States have more or less doubled their resources for Afghanistan over the past few months. Canada, while adhering to its own principles, is doubling or tripling its efforts in the civilian sector to support development and create new institutions. That will put considerable pressure on our European, Asian and other partners to increase their involvement in Afghanistan.

[Francine Lalonde, Bloc, La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC]

Is there not, however, some urgency? You're describing a process that seems to be slow.

Take, for example, the poppy issue. You said that this has to be dealt with, and then you quoted numbers from 1999. However, from everything we have seen poppy production is not slowing down. On the contrary, it is feeding the Taliban on the one hand, but it is also feeding corruption everywhere, not to mention the effect it is having on all the surrounding "istan" countries.

Rather than attempting to destroy those crops and be unsuccessful in that, as my party proposed, based on what other people said, why not purchase those crops and use them to produce medical drugs?

[Christopher Alexander]

We tried that strategy in 2002. Producers gave us, with open arms, a crop that was double the size of the previous years, while asking twice the previous year's price. Therefore, buying crops does not work.

What has to be done is to implement the existing strategy for eliminating drugs from these Afghan lands. That strategy rests on eight inherent pillars. It's not just about eradication. In those provinces where eradication is being carried out without implementing the seven other pillars, our attempts are doomed to fail.

What have we seen in Afghanistan this year? We've seen a concentration of these crops in two or three Southern provinces, that is, the most insecure provinces.

On the other hand, our strategy has been successful in several provinces in Afghanistan. Nangahar, which, like Pakistan, was the main producer of poppies in Afghanistan, no longer grows them. In Northern and Western Afghanistan, where governance and the rule of law are being established, production is decreasing.

[Francine Lalonde, Bloc, La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC]

But the Taliban in the South.

[Christopher Alexander]

In the South, where the Taliban is present, production continues. We therefore have to deal with the problem of security before implementing our eight-pillar strategy.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you, Mr. Alexander.

Mr. Appathurai, very, very quickly.

[James Appathurai]

I would just like to make one comment. The elected Government of Afghanistan wants nothing to do with this. It is their country, and the President has stated clearly that this is counter to Islam—

[Francine Lalonde, Bloc, La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC]

But everyone knows that they also profit from this. I'm sorry, but—

[James Appathurai]

Yes, but obviously—

[Francine Lalonde, Bloc, La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC]

They all profit from it.

[James Appathurai]

Theirs is an elected government, and we have to respect their right to decide how they are going to eradicate this.

Mr. Chairman, may I respond briefly to Mr. Ignatieff?

[Francine Lalonde, Bloc, La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC]

Don't take any of my time away.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Yes, continue. We'll hear the answer.

[James Appathurai]

I'll take 30 seconds.

I just got back from Afghanistan four days ago, where we had an extensive briefing from the commander of ISAF on the spring offensive. “Spring offensive” is probably not the right term, because it'll be more like the summer, and every year, of course, we have seen an uptick.

That being said, the Taliban spokespeople are notoriously unreliable, so I would take all of their statistics about how many suicide bombers there are, etc., with a grain of salt. These may be true or they may not be, but nobody knows. I think that's the basic point. But they have an endless supply, apparently, of people and of money, and these are hard to choke off.

NATO will be on the front foot—and it will not just be NATO. We have a very clear operational plan. It is called Operation New Year, or Operation Nowruz. Chris is very familiar with it as well, because it's being done, of course, in close conjunction not just with the Afghans—and the Afghans are fully part of this and, indeed, are leading it in many cases—but also with the rest of the international community. And it will be a two-pronged approach. One will be active but targeted military operations throughout the country, in particular to protect and widen development zones into which investment is being provided. It will, for example, include areas of the south like northern Helmand, as we had discussed, an area where a lot has to be done. But it will be part of an overall and integrated approach.

So it will be a spring offensive that is not just a military one. Development and reconstruction will be fully part of an integrated approach, and it will be ours—on offence, both civilian and military.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you very much. It's good to hear it's a balanced approach they're taking.

Mr. Menzies.

[Ted Menzies, Conservative, Macleod, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I was going to pick up on the balanced approach, but you've already provided a segue into that.

Thank you to our witnesses for appearing here today.

First of all, I want to recognize the comments both of you have made about the fact that development is actually working there. And thank you for your support. We're getting a lot of criticism from opposition parties that we shouldn't be spending money on development, that we should walk away.

[Some hon. members]

What? No.

[Ted Menzies, Conservative, Macleod, AB]

Comments have been made about that, and it's very important that we do this.

We realize security is an issue, but can you share some of your thoughts about the balance? We've been criticized that we don't have a proper balance between development and defence. Can you share that with us?

I'd also like to offer my colleague Wajid Khan an opportunity to ask a question.

[Wajid Khan, Conservative, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

Thank you very much.

I'll ask a very quick question for you to answer, and my question is in line with that of my colleague Mr. Ignatieff, who probably could ask it better.

I feel that the transnational non-state actors who have utilized the soil of Pakistan and Afghanistan to attack elsewhere are also attacking internally in Pakistan. Examples are the Islamabad Marriott Hotel and airport recently. Also, tremendous pressure has been put by the government, the military, and also the Americans on the Pashtun and local elements in the Taliban, and they have dispersed and joined other organizations. There is also some evidence from Iraq that they're reinvesting in Afghanistan, because the mainstream Sunnis and the Shias and the Americans and others are putting a lot of heat on these guys. They're not that welcome, so they cannot operate with impunity in Iraq.

Is there any evidence that they are now linking up with al-Qaeda and the Taliban and becoming one group?

Also, as evidenced by the bombing in India, it is believed that these groups have dispersed and joined others. How serious is this threat, and is there a plan to react to that also?

Very quickly, the Americans have a 2,400-kilometre border and they can't control the Mexicans from coming into the United States. India had 600,000 troops in Kashmir. They could not stop the local militants. Reasonably speaking, what do you think Pakistan can do, and how can we assist them to achieve their goal?

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you, Mr. Khan.

There are two questions, Mr. Appathurai.

[James Appathurai]

Yes, in two sentences. NATO's view very much is, yes, no development without security--that's true--but also, no long-term security without development. For us this is absolutely primordial. We will not achieve mission success until the civilians manage to do what they have to do, which is why we are very much a team in a way that we never were before.

So the principle is clear. The challenge is getting it right. We have never done, as an international community, something like this. And the provincial reconstruction teams are an example--a unique creation of civilian and military working together. We have to find ways to work with the non-governmental organizations, which have a profound distrust of what we're doing and of us in the security world. It's really learning as we go, but we are miles ahead of where we used to be.

What we need to do is ensure that we do all three things: provide the security; provide immediate reconstruction.... As soon as you break it, fix it, because if you don't, you have made enemies. And that is a very delicate discussion about how much money you give the military or not. Some countries do it with quick impact funds. We have an immediate post-operation humanitarian fund created at NATO into which countries have paid, and the Commander ISAF has money to go in and fix it. Then there is long-term development, and I can say this because I think it's worth saying. I was just there, as I said, and what I heard from many development agencies--not Canadian development agencies--is that CIDA is the textbook example of how to do long-term development. If there are any CIDA people here, they got a lot of compliments from the international community when they were there. But it is very hard.

In terms of the border, you're quite right, the border is a bit of a red herring. It's command and control structure. It's refugee camps. It's getting solutions behind the border to help prevent it, as well as.... And just as a final point, NATO is supporting the Pakistanis and the Afghans in terms of border control in the most technical sense, in terms of observation and joint patrols.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you.

Mr. Alexander, did you want to add to that?

[Christopher Alexander]

Very quickly, the balanced approach, three-D development in concert with security, is not really debated with regard to Afghanistan. It's the consensus view that we need both. And after 2006 and early 2007, which saw impressive increases in the military commitment, everyone came to the conclusion that development and reconstruction also needed to be reinforced, and we've started to see key partners do that.

It's important to understand how significant yesterday's commitment from Canada is. This will vault Canada into the very top ranks of donors to reconstruction development--again, showing leadership, setting an example that other partners will be expected to emulate if they are going to be seen to be the credible members of the team that so many of them have been up until now.

Are we on the right track? Yes. What do we need to do to ensure this development assistance succeeds? We need to continue Afghanizing the process. We need to civilianize the process, as James has mentioned, and we also need to ensure that we manage the regional dimension, recognizing that security is not only a challenge within Afghanistan's borders, but also a challenge for the whole region.

We also need to improve the delivery mechanisms. The constraint in Afghanistan hasn't necessarily been money going into the system; it has been the effectiveness and the number of delivery mechanisms available. I mentioned earlier there are maybe six or seven government ministries out of 25 that are effective, on which you and I would rely to channel $50 million through. That means two-thirds of the ministries are not. Similarly, for civil society, we need more NGOs that have what it takes to implement national programs, and national programs are where Canada, for many years now, has shown leadership. Similarly, the private sector in Afghanistan has an extremely important role to play, and we deserve to help them develop and emerge as an effective player in the country through local procurement.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you, Mr. Alexander.

We'll go to Madam McDonough, please.