National Defence Committee on Sept. 20th, 2006

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, John Cannis]

Ms. Gallant.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

To the witnesses, thank you for your responses thus far.

I was looking at the CDA articles last night. One is entitled “Could Canada Pull Out From Afghanistan? A "What If' Scenario”. There's an estimate of the principal results of a Canadian decision to pull out, and I'd like a commentary on the one scenario. It states that “...in showing such weakness in the face of fanatic terrorism, Canada will have made itself a lucrative target for future attacks. Will we talk some day about New York, London, Madrid, Bali and Vancouver?”

I'd like you to expand on that particular statement.

[Col Brian MacDonald]

I think that if you are looking at any group of states, you are looking for the point of entry that gives you the most leverage. In other words, what is the weakest state that you are faced with? By attacking there, you are attacking at the point of weakness, which allows you then to leverage your effect. I would think then that if Canada were to demonstrate that it was a weak member of the coalition psychologically, shall we say, or in terms of public opinion, we would find much greater attention being directed in our direction by the folks on the other side. That might very well result in some sort of action taking place on Canadian territory, and Lord knows we are vulnerable enough a thousand times over to that sort of activity taking place here.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Dr. Maloney, would you have anything to add?

[Dr. Sean Maloney]

I just want to reiterate the fact that when we're fighting the al-Qaeda movement, we're an enemy of the al-Qaeda movement, we're seen as a soft target already, as the Liberia of immigration--I think that terminology was used by somebody. We have cells operating in Canada. Obviously they can operate more effectively against the United States if we're not too engaged in hunting them down. There is a psychological component of this, and if we do a “Somalia” with Afghanistan we're going to have all sorts of problems later on. The Americans learned this with 9/11. We will be viewed as weak; we will be viewed as much more vulnerable to manipulation, both in the information operations sphere and within our own society.

I could get into the regional implications around Afghanistan as well that relate to the Pakistani nuclear stockpile, people like A.Q. Khan, or what's going on in Iran. Do we really want to be the people who are going to facilitate the entry of a nuclear device onto American soil inadvertently? No, we don't. That's one of the reasons we're dealing with Pakistan. We've got to be very careful. One of the reasons we've been able to uncover some of the networks is through the cooperation of the Pakistanis. There is a link between the takedown of the A.Q. Khan nuclear Wal-Mart, the blocking of operations against airliners this summer, and what goes on in Afghanistan. These things are not delinked.

So this is why I'm talking about a fine line being crossed when we're dealing with this. You are correct in the sense that we are losing people because of part of this, but somebody is going to have to sit down and explain that this is for our greater good.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

How would a failure in Afghanistan affect the future of NATO and therefore the defence of its member countries?

[LGen Richard Evraire]

I think it would be a serious blow to the alliance, quite obviously, and you can be sure that the alliance members aren't hoping that this would happen at all. As has happened in the past for as far back as you want to go in the alliance history, the members of the alliance have not let that sort of thing happen. And given the situation where we're almost there and this thing is going to fall apart, it's a point in the process typically and historically where the alliance members have coughed up, and I fully suspect that the ongoing discussions, the next ministerial meetings, will certainly make that point in spades. I can't quite see any member of the alliance reneging on what would ultimately be necessary for final resolution of the problem, because it is in the interest of every single member of the alliance, not only in Afghanistan but in so many other parts of the world as a consequence of what might happen in Afghanistan, for them to own up to their responsibility and complete that missing 15% of contributions. It would be devastating, there's no doubt.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, John Cannis]

Do you want to take advantage of your flexible time?

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Yes, I have a very short question.

Previous witnesses have stated that the interruption of opium production is detrimental to the farmers. It was stated earlier today that we managed to decrease it by 3%. Could you, just for the record, explain why this is of Canadian interest and how it impacts on the insurgents and thus the threats to the troops?

[Col Brian MacDonald]

Could I perhaps respond to that? I think the text said it was interesting that this reduction took place. That I don't think was really a consequence of the Canadian activities, because in order to eliminate crop production you have to stop the planting, and the planting takes place, actually, at about this time of year and it will be harvested next year somewhere in the April to June timeframe. There certainly, on the other hand, has been more successful poppy eradication in the north.

[Dr. Sean Maloney]

I have two things that I'm going to throw at you on this. There are two things I've noticed.

Remember, in a counter-insurgency war we're dealing with how we're going to get people to side with us, essentially, and there are two things in parts of the rural south that interfere with our ability to gain allegiance from the population. One of them is poppy eradication, and the second is gender equality being pushed on them in the rural areas. They resent both--again, this is from people I've talked to--but the eradication issue in particular is very sensitive.

There's a schizophrenic split. The U.S. State Department, and to a lesser extent the British, have been pushing poppy eradication for a variety of reasons. When I talk to military commanders on the ground, they view this as counterproductive to trying to deal with the people, because we're taking away their livelihood. The alternative livelihood programs are mixed in terms of effect, and it's unclear as to what the best strategy is to deal with this problem, particularly in Helmand province, where the Brits ran into a lot of problems this summer. You wind up with a nexus between the insurgency and poppies. And then you have poppy people who are not part of the insurgency, but will go with whoever is in charge, etc. So you have different variations on the poppy side.

So when we're dealing with the population in the rural areas, if we show up and start doing things and tampering too much, they get annoyed, and then the Taliban show up say, “See, we told you they would do this.”

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, John Cannis]

We'll go to Monsieur Bachand.

[Claude Bachand, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

I'm delighted to have the final question, because I want to discuss an issue that has not yet been raised.

Last May, I travelled to Afghanistan then on to Paris to attend a NATO meeting.

There is one region of the country that we haven't yet discussed this afternoon, namely the East. As far as I know, NATO currently controls the North, South and West. The US has always wanted to maintain control over the East, but I don't know if that is still true.

I frequently hear people mention General Jones who commands the US forces. However, I met more often with General Richards in Afghanistan because he commands the NATO forces.

I was concerned about some of what I heard in Paris, namely that the North, West and South would be the theatre of anti-insurrection operations, while the East would be theatre of anti-terrorist operations. That would explain why the Americans want to maintain control over this area. I could foresee problems in terms of different rules of engagement. For example, how would NATO have to proceed to call on the Americans to maintain fighter cover? General Jones and General Richards did not have any ready answers to that question.

Can you tell me if the Americans still control the area in the East and if that could create problems for the entire operation?

[Col Brian MacDonald]

The east is currently still under American control. The plan had been for the south to come under ISAF control in the spring of this year, which in fact it did. The plan had been for the east to come under ISAF control in the fall. I think, in fact, the working plan originally had been to go out just about this date, or one or two days on either side of it. That has not yet taken place. I am not familiar with the reasons why that has not taken place, nor am I able to project a specific date when that will take place.

Even when ISAF has control of all four regions, assuming that will take place, there will still be a requirement for an interface with United States Central Command, which has its headquarters located in the gulf area, as you know, because they control the air assets, the A-10s that accidently strafed our troops, and all the other assets that are not there as part of the NATO inventory. So there will still be a continuing American involvement in that sense.

General Jones is the Supreme Allied Commander for NATO; he's not Commander of Central Command.

[Claude Bachand, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

And Richards?

[LGen Richard Evraire]

And Richards, of course, reports to General Jones as the NATO Commander in Afghanistan, overseeing the three regions, and eventually, one assumes, the fourth region. We should not lose sight of the fact that the NATO nations in Afghanistan, at least the longer-in-the-tooth members of NATO, have had a number of decades of operations with the American forces as members of NATO, quite obviously, so accommodations, in terms of operational requirements and requests and that sort of thing, ought not to be that new, certainly, and not difficult.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, John Cannis]

Thank you.

As we close the meeting, let me just say that it's a great disadvantage being a chair, because you can't participate, but one privilege that the chair does have, in closing, is to add his few comments.

Perhaps I may just ask a brief question. Mr. Maloney, you said, and I'll quote you, that Canadians want success and want it now. I beg to differ with you in these types of situations. I think Canadians are a realistic people, first of all, and quite intelligent. When they go into a theatre like this, or a mission like this, or a conflict like this, they want to deal with facts, and not innuendoes. Maybe the media sometimes doesn't put the proper picture out.

As far as I can recall, I don't think there was ever a mission or a conflict, or any type of military theatre, where a nation, or NATO, or whoever undertook the mission has said, we're going in on such a date and we're coming out on such a date. If somebody can tell me that there was one.... Even though 300 Spartans went in to fight, they didn't know when it was going to start and when it was going to finish. These are the conflicts that are unfolding, I believe, today.

What is puzzling here is this. You refer to three engagements that the Canadian military has engaged in. You used Cyprus, Bosnia, and Afghanistan. Cyprus was a very different mission completely--if you disagree, please let me know. Bosnia, again, was a very different mission in comparison to Afghanistan. Today we're looking at a mission where NATO has an obligation. When we were going into these missions in years past and now under the NATO banner, there was always a plan; it wasn't a plan that unfolded overnight or in a week.

So the question I have is this. We committed our men and women to the Afghanistan mission. We knew, because we were in Brussels with this committee some time ago and spoke to our representatives there.... When the Canadian government committed to this mission, surely NATO had a plan following two years. Please elaborate if you can, because I'd like to know. In our previous missions, we had an obligation under NATO to go in for, let's say, a year or two, or whatever, and then the other NATO members were to come in and fill that slot. Is that not the case here, or has the NATO mandate changed?

[Dr. Sean Maloney]

How much time do we have?

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, John Cannis]

I'm closing. I get five minutes as well. I've taken up two and a half; you have two and a half minutes, and some flexibility. I've accorded the flexibility to everybody.

[Dr. Sean Maloney]

When we're talking about NATO, are we talking about the commitment to ISAF, the original Canadian commitments to OEF? Which Canadian commitments in Afghanistan are we talking about?

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, John Cannis]

Any commitment. I'm just trying to understand better how NATO works.

[Dr. Sean Maloney]

No problem.

Part of the problem with ISAF, as an institution, is that it started off as a non-NATO organization that was neutered deliberately to get buy-in by the UN. Essentially, as far as I understand it, they couldn't get anybody to take control of ISAF, ultimately. So Canada came up with an idea where, okay, we'll take it over, but we want it “NATO-ized” so we can bring a lot more resources to bear.

There were plans at various stages, but the problem was that they had to assess what ISAF is going to do and when it is going to do it, and where does this fit vis-à-vis Operation Enduring Freedom. This split structure has been a problem, which hopefully will be eliminated when we get the RC East. This has been a problem going right back to the creation of the organization.

Under Canadian control there was a plan. The prototype of the ANDS came out of the Canadian period, but the follow-on people who took over six months later dumped it in the bin, saying, well, we don't want to be involved in this. So in the next six months somebody took over and said, well, wait a minute, maybe we should do this. There has been a continuity issue in this particular mission, I would suggest.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, John Cannis]

So NATO's credibility's on the line? Is that what you're also telling me?

[Dr. Sean Maloney]

Yes.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, John Cannis]

I have no further questions. I think I've taken more than the amount of time I'm entitled to. Thank you.

On behalf of all the members here, I want to thank you all for being here and providing us with your expertise, your knowledge, and your insight as we move forward on this most important file, and more so for the support and protection of our men and women in theatre.

Thank you very much. We'll adjourn.