National Defence Committee on Oct. 4th, 2006

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

When did they happen?

[MGen Daniel Benjamin]

It started with the integration back in 1968-72, when we consolidated support. We closed a CFE base, which was our foundation to support operations overseas. Closing this was a big hit. In the mid-1990s, we cut about 30% to 50% of the support capabilities on different bases and wings. The overall support structure of the Canadian Forces has been hit due to the force reduction and the cuts in the 1990s, so we are recovering from this.

This is why the Chief of the Defence Staff asked me to look at this and find solutions—and find solutions very rapidly. Those solutions can be more people, more capability, risk management, and dealing with other nations. This is what I'm preparing for him to get out of this dilemma—and very fast, like within the next year. Obviously we've got to sort that out very rapidly.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Are you currently making contingency plans for the possibility of Canada staying beyond February 2009?

[MGen Daniel Benjamin]

I'm just supporting current operations. So these are a much higher level and I'm not involved in any of those plans.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

That's fine.

I understand that you use a lot of local Afghanis for some of the logistical support on the ground. Can you just give me a sense of how many there are of those? What sort of vetting process do you go through to ensure that you're satisfied that you have the security you need in terms of any folks you're bringing in? This is for the obvious reasons; I don't have to explain that.

[MGen Daniel Benjamin]

I would not have the answer to this, because this is in theatre right now, so the commander of Expeditionary Force Command may have those figures. My focus is on the CANCAP people. We have our own Canadian civilians as part of CANCAP, and the support agency CFPSA in there as civilians working with us. I'm not aware of the others; that's local in-theatre, so I don't monitor that. Sorry.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Thank you.

How's my time, Chair?

[The Chair, Conservative, Rick Casson]

Perfect. You have just a little time left if you want to use it, a couple of seconds.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Well, I will. I'll push forward, then.

Let me ask you this. Do you think you can adequately go beyond 2009 without major purchases from where you sit, or is there enough infrastructure to take us there?

[MGen Daniel Benjamin]

That is a very difficult question, because the opponent has a voice in this, and things are changing very rapidly over there.

We're quite agile. I'm very proud of the operations we're doing, and we're modifying. So there will be more purchases, most likely, I would say, to better protect our soldiers and to make sure they have the proper tools. So we are adapting and we'll see how this goes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rick Casson]

Thank you.

Over to the government side: Mr. Hiebert.

[Russ Hiebert, Conservative, South Surrey—White Rock—Cloverdale, BC]

Thank you, sir.

Thank you, General, for joining us today.

As you know, our government has communicated its intentions to the public to purchase medium to heavy-lift helicopters, and I'm wondering if you could explain to the committee the benefit in terms of increased safety and security that these helicopters would provide our soldiers.

[MGen Daniel Benjamin]

From my perspective, these are really fundamental. The construct in theatre has changed. Our forces were very much consolidated into the Kandahar airfield initially, with a few camps here and there, but now that we're going out more with forward-operating bases, then it changes the construct on how you operate in that theatre.

If it's the case, then the support has to change, and what's happening is we have many support convoys that are moving from Kandahar in long areas to resupply those forward-operating bases. You know right now the type of threat that we're facing, so every one of those convoys is a key target. In fact, that's what we are learning from this theatre. It's not only combatants who are targets; everybody is a target in this type of assymetric warfare, especially support trade logisticians and so on who are doing those convoys.

We used to call them resupply convoys, and now we call them combat logistic patrols, because they have to be fully embedded into the operations with the proper force protection. These are very difficult to do, and they are being challenged day in and day out, and being shot at day in and day out. So using the medium- to heavy-lift helicopter would alleviate many of those road moves we are doing to resupply those entities spread over the area.

Obviously, that helicopter would not do it by itself; it has to be a force package. And we can have the help of other nations to make sure this group of helicopters has the proper protection to do the air delivery. Air delivery would really help out in this process.

Bringing back casualties is also fundamental. Now we rely very much on our neighbours' assets, on our allies' assets to do that, but at one point it's our own casualties and it would be good to have our own autonomy. This is why the Chief of the Defence Staff is pressing very much to get those capabilities very fast. We need those to do a much better job and to make our people much safer.

With this, I would say precision airdrop could also be greatly beneficial from a support perspective for those FOBs. All those aspects have to be looked at, and we have to improve our capabilities based on the type of threat we're facing.

[Russ Hiebert, Conservative, South Surrey—White Rock—Cloverdale, BC]

My next question is more of an open-ended question, and that is, what other equipment do you think would be helpful to this particular mission?

[MGen Daniel Benjamin]

That's a wide-open question. We've been working really hard, since I would say a year ago, in looking at the type of threat we would be facing, the mitigating strategies, the force protection measures, and type of equipment we should purchase. We've been doing a lot.

We have great, great support from all government agencies. We've been bringing a lot of urgent requirements in theatre right now that have proven to be tremendous enablers. In fact other countries envy us, with Nyala RG-31, for example, which is a fundamental piece of kit. I brought it directly from South Africa into the theatre. They did the training, and they're running with it.

There are all sorts of kit that we've been pushing to procure throughout the process in that theatre. It's very much a push system. As we learn more and see that we need better protection here or there, then we adapt to it. If it's a repair to a current piece of kit, or procurement of another one, then we proceed. We have tremendous support in this regard. So it's evolving.

Can I predict where it will be in three to six months? No. But obviously we have the mechanism in place to identify those lessons learned to make sure that our soldiers get the best kit to do the job.

[Russ Hiebert, Conservative, South Surrey—White Rock—Cloverdale, BC]

Chair, I'll share the balance of my time with my colleague.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Thank you.

Thank you, General, and thank you, gentlemen, for joining us.

As we all know, operations is the rose and logistics is the stem upon which it grows.

I just have a comment with regard to strategic airlift and the use of it in North America. You may or may not have been involved with it--probably not--but all the heavy equipment for the ice storm and the floods in Manitoba was moved by U.S. Air Force C-17s. It would be nice to have our own.

We do a lot of contracting with civilian and other military carriers. What are your biggest challenges in that with respect to dealing with the Ukrainians, the U.S. Air Force , the Brits, or whoever? How well is that working, and what challenges are you facing?

[MGen Daniel Benjamin]

In Kandahar?

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

No, in contracting to get equipment from Canada to Kandahar.

[MGen Daniel Benjamin]

That's working really, really well. We have what we call the out-of-Canada network, through the military and defence attachés, embassies, and so on. We optimize this network to really get to the equipment, have the flight clearances and so on, and bring the equipment directly from the manufacturer to the theatre. That is working beautifully.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

What limitations does the use of the Antonov pose in terms of the airfields into which it is operable?

[MGen Daniel Benjamin]

The Antonov cannot land in Kandahar. That is a big, big showstopper from our perspective. The only big one that can land right now is the C-17, and that is fundamental to bring tanks, for example, into the theatre. We have the Il-76, but again, we cannot put the tanks in it, so the C-17 is fundamental to land close to where our troops are in Kandahar. Otherwise, you have go to different locations, such as Kabul. As such, you have a road move from Kabul to Kandahar that in itself is very risky, very lengthy, and difficult to do.

So we always have to find the best route to bring the equipment in. The Antonov cannot get into Kandahar, and that's a showstopper in itself.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

At the risk of revealing what colour my underwear is, what's our capability to support a CF-18 deployment to Afghanistan?

[MGen Daniel Benjamin]

I think you would have to ask the commander of the air force where he sits on that right now. I know we were looking at six-pack. These things are well above my pay grade.

If we were to move them in, then I'll make sure we support them the best we can. I know in Kandahar they needed runway repairs to guarantee that we could use them. I'm not sure if that has been done and whether the CF-18s could operate from there.

The greater the integrated effect of army, navy, and air force assets into a theatre, the three-D approach, having CIDA and DFAIT as part of the team and having a whole-of-government impact into areas is really a key strategic issue. I would say, the more we do of this, the better we are.

We're really getting a voice at the table. Everywhere I go in the world--because I'm the senior support officer in the forces--I'm being asked to link with all those people. We have a voice at the table now, and they are taking us very, very seriously. We are having a strategic impact, which was not necessarily the case in the past.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rick Casson]

Thank you.

That ends the first round. We'll go to the second round, with five minutes to the official opposition and then the government.

Mr. McGuire, for five minutes.