National Defence Committee on May 30th, 2006

[Gordon O'Connor, Conservative, Carleton—Mississippi Mills, ON]

No, they haven't.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rick Casson]

Mr. Khan, there are a couple of minutes.

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

Thank you, Minister, and the panel for being here today. I have a couple of questions, but I'll make them very brief so you can get a chance to answer.

The Taliban is becoming more involved with the narcotics trade in the region of Afghanistan. Given the twin mission of ISAF, which is stabilization and counter-narcotics activities, will ISAF attempt to limit the opium trade activity in the south, and will this increase the exposure of Canadian forces to attack?

[Gordon O'Connor, Conservative, Carleton—Mississippi Mills, ON]

If I can answer that as clearly as I can, the Canadian military as such is not involved in the counter-drug operations. In the south the heavy drug production is in the next province over, Helman province, along the Helman River. Primarily the Afghan army and the Afghan police deal with that, but at the NATO and the Afghanistan Compact level, my understanding is that the U.K. and a few other countries have taken on, as a task, to try to deal with the drug trade. We, as Canadians, because we have limited capabilities, are not involved in countering the drug trade, which is certainly a factor in destabilizing the country.

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

I think I have a little bit of time. The ARRC, the initiative of ISAF, moved to create greater synergy between ISAF and the OEF mission. Would you concur that this represents a major step change in the international commitment in Afghanistan?

[Gordon O'Connor, Conservative, Carleton—Mississippi Mills, ON]

It was a major change for NATO to get into Afghanistan and commit to taking over responsibility for the security and also for the development of Afghanistan. As we transit from the Enduring Freedom American command to the NATO command, not much in a practical sense is going to change. We have a responsibility for the province of Kandahar and we will be trying to provide security in the province of Kandahar, along with trying to develop the local forces there, and our aid people and our diplomats will be trying to build governance and all the human sides of the society. As that comes in, it isn't going to change much for us. We'll be concentrated in Kandahar.

Now I can tell you that at this time the British forces are streaming into Helman. The British are pouring in there now and there will be about 3,000 there soon. That's going to cause a real problem for the insurgents in that area because up until now we've had to send forces out into the Helman province and other provinces. The British are pouring in there now and the Dutch now are going to accelerate. The Dutch are going to get their first 200 into a province just north of us. They realize that once they're in there, they're going to have to accelerate, so they're going to ask NATO for assistance to move their forces in quicker. That'll be a better situation for us, when the Dutch and the British are fully in place.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rick Casson]

Thank you, Mr. Minister.

We'll move on to the Bloc, for ten minutes.

[Robert Bouchard, Bloc, Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, QC]

Mr. Chairman, Mr. Minister, we have been in Afghanistan for several years, and the mission will continue for another two years. Our troops are in Afghanistan to help democracy to take root. This mission appears to focus on rebuilding Afghanistan, and if I fully understood your presentation, our troops are involved in tactical operations, and that implies combat operations.

How can we ensure that the activities linked to rebuilding Afghanistan will not be sidelined by activities that are military in nature? The response to this crisis cannot and must not be limited to a military approach. It must focus primarily on democracy and rebuilding Afghanistan.

[Gordon O'Connor, Conservative, Carleton—Mississippi Mills, ON]

I agree. I've said elsewhere that there is no military solution to Afghanistan. The military is merely there to provide as much security as they can so that the country itself can grow and prosper, and people can live some kind of a normal life.

So yes, we and our predecessors are going to carry on and try to emphasize more development effort and more assistance of governments, etc., but we have to conduct security operations so that the Taliban, the drug lords, and the criminal gangs don't take over the country. Right now the country, certainly in the Kandahar province, is in a delicate situation. I would think that we in the south, in the sector we're in, in both Helman and Kandahar provinces, have some of the most difficult challenges to provide security because the Taliban started in the city of Kandahar, where we're located. Their breeding ground came out of the city of Kandahar, so they're particularly strong there. That's why, as I say, we appreciate the arrival of the British and the Dutch, because together we represent a substantial force that can keep the Taliban suppressed.

Lately the Taliban in our area have been coming out in larger numbers to try to...well, recently they tried to attack the city of Kandahar. I assume they watch TV. I don't mind those tactics, because what they're doing is playing into our hands. If they concentrate against our military, then we can defeat them, and lately they've been concentrating against our military in our area. They've been taking very large casualties, and I don't know how long they can keep up the intensity of what they've been trying to do in the last two months.

We have to do this so that cities like Kandahar can grow, and so that people can have their farms, go to school, and so on.

[Robert Bouchard, Bloc, Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, QC]

Mr. Minister, you described the Taliban as the force we must fight and the one that is fighting us. There is obviously a security challenge there, as you mentioned.

I do not know if this opposition force has been assessed. I would like to know what kind of force our troops in Afghanistan are facing. How many men and weapons does it have? How is it organized? Have we studied the enemy that we are facing?

[Gordon O'Connor, Conservative, Carleton—Mississippi Mills, ON]

As I said before, from my simple point of view, there are three different groups. There are criminal gangs, people who are just trying to rob people or convoys, etc., and normally the police can deal with that. We also have the drug lords who have large groups of what we'll call soldiers working for them, and they resist any threat to their drug sources. But the largest group are the Taliban.

They don't have any modern equipment. They have equipment that's left over from the Soviet occupation. That country went through a really sad time for 20 to 30 years. If you go there, you see it. The number of houses destroyed is just incredible. One of the consequences is that all over the country there were guns, artillery shells, and rifles. No matter how many we've cleaned up—NATO, the U.S., and the Afghan forces have been able to takes piles and piles of old Soviet equipment out of that country—there's still enough for them to do their job.

When they make these roadside bombs, they are rather rudimentary. They take an artillery shell—usually a 155-millimetre artillery shell—attach a detonator to it and a wire, bury it in the road, and then they put a plank or something in the road with maybe a saw blade, so that when the vehicle goes over it, it makes contact and explodes. So they're not using sophisticated equipment. Most times their roadside bombs are not radio-controlled, although some of them are radio-controlled. That's the level they're at, which is not sophisticated.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rick Casson]

You have three minutes yet. Go ahead.

[Robert Bouchard, Bloc, Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, QC]

Earlier, my colleague alluded to outcome measures. The day will come when we say mission accomplished, but to assess a mission, there must be criteria. When will we be able to say that we have accomplished our mission in Afghanistan? What criteria have you developed or are you in the process of preparing to determine whether this mission will have been a success, a limited success, or a failure?

[Gordon O'Connor, Conservative, Carleton—Mississippi Mills, ON]

As I said, there are the higher-level criteria. In our own department, we are now also developing criteria for our local tasks. What we have now is a benchmark, which is February 2009. That is our commitment at this moment.

What we will be doing all along internally, in the government, is we will be measuring progress or lack of progress through this to help us make decisions as we move out towards 2009. Because at 2009, depending on what you are observing on the ground, you could increase your commitment, decrease your commitment, keep it the same and stay there, or you could withdraw. You have these choices in February 2009. To make informed decisions we have to measure progress through that period and that's what we intend to do.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rick Casson]

Are you done? You have just a little bit of time left if you wish.

[Robert Bouchard, Bloc, Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, QC]

I have finished.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rick Casson]

Okay.

Ms. Black.

[Dawn Black, NDP, New Westminster—Coquitlam, BC]

Welcome, Minister. I appreciate you being here with us.

The goals you spoke about are laudable, and I think all Canadians would support those goals, but, as you know, we have some serious concerns about the mission itself in southern Afghanistan. I wonder if you could walk us through what happened in Azizi. You said earlier that we have command of southern Afghanistan. I would like to know specifically who made the order to do the bombing.

[Gordon O'Connor, Conservative, Carleton—Mississippi Mills, ON]

You're talking about that recent incident--

[Dawn Black, NDP, New Westminster—Coquitlam, BC]

Azizi, yes, the civilian deaths.

[Gordon O'Connor, Conservative, Carleton—Mississippi Mills, ON]

At the moment, as you know, we're under the American command. We'll be transiting, hopefully within a month or so, to NATO. That decision was not Canadian at all. There are two levels of command above General Fraser. There are six brigades under the American command, and General Fraser has one of the integrated NATO brigades. Above him there is a division level and then a corps level. And that decision was made at American corps and division.

General Fraser, to my knowledge, was merely informed that it was going on. His permission wasn't asked. It was an operation of the United States.

[Dawn Black, NDP, New Westminster—Coquitlam, BC]

I'm just thinking about Canadian Forces. We had the incident in which we lost four Canadian Forces people in friendly fire. It raises concerns around how these decisions are communicated and where our people are.

[Gordon O'Connor, Conservative, Carleton—Mississippi Mills, ON]

There is a command system. As I just described, under the current command system you have the American corps, the division, and down into Brigadier General Fraser's brigade--and there are five other brigades.

They have a coordination system. They have a coordination system for air operations, for artillery--these sorts of things. They also have coordination of where their various forces are.

The challenge you have in friendly fire, so-called friendly fire.... By the way, historically there have always been unfortunate deaths in war caused by allies or your own forces. In many of these cases, the friendly-fire incidents occur at night, in the black, with forces coming together.

For instance, our investigation into one of our casualties to know whether it was friendly fire is still going on, but in that case an American outpost was under attack and in danger of being overrun. Our forces were sent in as part of the reserve ready to go in and protect them. I guess they were arriving in the middle of the night, at the same time that a firefight was going on; sometimes people fire when they're not sure what they're firing at, so this happens--but there is a coordination.

[Dawn Black, NDP, New Westminster—Coquitlam, BC]

I'm more concerned about the bombing.

[Gordon O'Connor, Conservative, Carleton—Mississippi Mills, ON]

We weren't involved in the bombing, but we do call down fire. We've called down aircraft fire through our command system to the Americans. In fact, it's not only the Americans; NATO is moving in. NATO also has air resources, and sometimes we use NATO air resources. As we switch over to NATO in the next month or so, it will be the same arrangement.