National Defence Committee on June 8th, 2006

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Well, your chart showed that it was going up $5 billion in two years. I don't believe that, unless you're adding in the cost of equipment. If you're doing that, I could believe it.

Do you include the cost of equipment in those numbers?

[Steven Staples]

Yes, we use real spending estimates, so not just the budget, but we also include any revenues that--

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Well, no wonder you have high numbers.

[Steven Staples]

But that number actually came from General O'Connor himself, now Defence Minister O'Connor, during the election campaign, when he said it would exceed $21 billion by the end of the decade. So I'm going by his numbers in determining where we're going to be at the end of those five years.

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

He's probably using cash numbers, and the way they do it for the accounts is by accrual, so you only count a small fraction of the cost of any equipment, which should make those numbers radically lower than what you've presented.

[Steven Staples]

He said that specific figure, so we're using his numbers.

The problem is that in your budget of 2005, the Liberals' budget, you at least broke out the spending in each of the five years so we knew what the bell curve looked like, but with the Conservatives, we don't have those exact breakdowns—although they have said they're continuing with your increases and topping them up by $5.3 billion. And only in the last budget did we get the number of $1.1 billion, was it, over the next two years on top of that.

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

I would suggest you discount election promises when the purpose is to make the number look big, because they're not comparable with the other numbers you have in your series.

But I'd like to ask a question about the interconnection. This is to probably the other three, or any of you who would like to address this. I'm not suggesting you're saying this, but I'm asking you to try to reconcile a possible problem here. It's all very well to say you want to protect women and you want to build schools—schools for girls—or all of these worthy objectives, and I couldn't agree more with that, but if you do that in a military vacuum and the day after you construct such a school the Taliban raze it to the ground, you're not going to get very far. It's all very nice to have blue helmets in an environment suitable for blue helmets, but an environment in which Taliban are all over the place is not an environment suitable for blue helmets. So you have to have a strong military presence to protect these schools and other projects that you're building—and even to fight the people who try to destroy them. So I'm all in favour of a strong push for development and a strong push for diplomacy, but I cannot understand how you do them without a robust military presence.

I'm not suggesting that you're necessarily disagreeing with me, but I'm asking, how do you reconcile those two objectives, assuming you do agree with the way in which I set out the problem?

[The Chair, Conservative, Rick Casson]

Mr. McCort, go ahead.

[Kevin McCort]

It is a difficult problem. We know, as CARE, that we've built girls' schools, during the time the Taliban controlled the country, with their approval and their support. We did it in a number of communities. We had CIDA funding for programs that helped build schools for girls and put girls in schools.

Those schools were not destroyed. The process we went through was working with communities so that the schools were clearly owned by those communities. I think there's a risk that if the schools are being built and are perceived as not being owned by and not being a priority of that community, then they become a target. When they're clearly integrated into the priorities of that community and the community itself is strong enough on its own terms to keep the Taliban out, then the schools seem to survive.

But those capacities of communities to be able to keep anti-government elements, the Taliban insurgents, out of their communities appear to be weakening. They're weakening for several reasons. Part of it is the lack of economic alternatives. Part of it is just constant and endless pressures on those communities.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rick Casson]

Mr. Barr.

[Gerry Barr]

I would certainly say there's an obvious need for robust military presence, and security of civilians ought to be the paramount consideration of the Canadian Forces.

My comments attempted to track in the direction of unpacking a little some of the contradictions in doing development in a way where the role of the military is conflated with that of non-governmental actors. If Canada is involved in a field of hot conflict, as it is, and if its development initiatives are also identified with military force as an actor in the war, then those communities that are the ostensible beneficiaries of the development work become targets, and quite ready targets.

The government of Kandahar itself said that military forces and the police are unable to protect these communities and are unable to protect the projects that are being contemplated. Well, that being the case, they become pretty obvious soft targets, following a sort of politique du pire to undermine the development value.

Development is vanishingly difficult to do in any event in a field that is a field of hot conflict. If it is done by the military and done in a way that is linked to collaboration of villages and regions with the military, as I say once again, in a field of hot conflict it creates these contradictions.

So our forces might be running against the part of their mandate that requires them to protect civilians by effectively setting up communities, through development initiatives that are badly considered, as targets for insurgents.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rick Casson]

Thank you.

Mr. Bachand, it is your turn.

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

I'd like to start by thanking you. It's reassuring to hear different points of view on Canada's presence in Afghanistan. I was probably there at the same time as you, Mr. McCort. I was there from May 14 to May 18, at the time of the bombings in Azizi. I admit that I was a little shaken by what I observed there, despite having been to trouble spots such as Eritrea, Ethiopia and Bosnia in the past. However, the situation in Afghanistan is the worst that I've seen so far. It was extremely demoralizing and frustrating for us not to be able to reach out and help the children who were in such dire straits. Security was so tight that we were not allowed to get out of our armoured vehicles. We could only watch the scene unfolding outside. The experience gave us much food for thought. Is the Canadian forces mission in Afghanistan being properly conducted? While we were there, however, we did receive some excellent briefings from NATO officials.

I was in Afghanistan at NATO's invitation. I was surprised to learn that General Richards, the Commander in Chief of NATO forces in Afghanistan, had said that since the next phase of operations would be in the south, that is where Canadian forces are located, perhaps it was time to refocus the Canadian mission, to focus less on hunting down the Taliban and more on ensuring the safety of persons involved in reconstruction efforts.

I imagine these words are music to your ears. In my opinion, Canadians are very critical of our participation in Operation Enduring Freedom. I'm a friend of the Americans, but not every Canadian shares my sentiments right now. When people hear that Canadian forces are being deployed as part of Operating Enduring Freedom, they aren't too happy. I'm in favour of rapid intervention by NATO. Plans are being drawn up to ensure that this intervention takes place as quickly as possible.

I'd like to hear your views on Canada's changing mission. I would imagine that you back NATO's position 100% and that, rather than see our troops hunt down the Taliban, which merely has a provocative effect on people, you would prefer to see them focus on security and on winning the hearts and minds of the Afghan people. Some of these village residents probably have family members who belong to the Taliban. Displaying bodies of dead Taliban that have been hunted down is not a very popular thing to do. I think revising our mission would be a good idea.

Would you care to comment on General Richards' position? Do you think it's a good idea, and the only direction in which we should be moving at this point in time?

[Kevin McCort]

If I may respond in English, I certainly agree that less hunting and more protection is essential. It's important for us as an organization that we not seek protection for ourselves from the military. We advocate for protection of communities. If they're safe, then our staff is safe.

Our point of departure on protection is that the communities themselves are the first point. Our staff, being Afghan, blend in perfectly. In dangerous areas they actually don't even travel with pens and paper to complete their integration. It's dangerous for me to go, and risky for them, but they're not targeted or picked out.

We believe that shift has to happen as quickly as possible, but it shouldn't be taken to assume that we're seeking protection for ourselves and our staff. They're going to continue operating independently, adopting security measures that they choose--including travelling penless and paperless--but they do need the communities themselves to feel that they're not going to be targeted and that they'll be protected.

[Erin Simpson, Policy Officer (Peace and Conflict), Peace, Security and Development, Canadian Council for International Cooperation]

As well, one of the things we've been hearing from our human rights colleagues is that for many Afghans, and for women in particular, the Taliban are not the only or even the principal security threat, so the focus of the international forces in Operation Enduring Freedom on chasing the Taliban is actually not answering their security needs. For a woman in a community, the local police could be her principal security threat. It could be drug lords or criminal activity. It is a general climate of insecurity that needs to be addressed, and that approach isn't helpful, so I echo and support what you were saying.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rick Casson]

Mr. Bachand, you have a minute.

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

Another concern of mine is what happens when we assume complete control of Afghanistan. General Richards and General Jones, the Commander of Operation Enduring Freedom, have informed us that NATO will maintain responsibility for anti-insurrection activities, while Operation Enduring Freedom will continue to be responsible for anti-terrorism operations.

This presents a problem, as far as I'm concerned, because it's not clear who has command and control duties. On looking at the events in Azizi, it's not clear whether the US notified NATO that it planned to bomb the area.

I'm worried, given the presence of troops representing the international community, that lives will be lost as a result of friendly fire incidents. Some confusion may reign as to who is in command. Two types of intervention can have harmful implications. I'd just like to know where you stand on this issue.

If we're short on time, Mr. Chairman, perhaps the witness could respond in writing to my question.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rick Casson]

Mr. Staples, go ahead. There's half a minute.

[Steven Staples]

According to the New York Times, the Americans are concerned about whether NATO is going to be able to handle the increased military activity and the fighting that's going on there. According to that report, it's looking at delaying stage 4, which is ultimately having NATO take over the east part from Operation Enduring Freedom.

The Americans are leery of NATO's ability and fortitude to conduct what they see as the counter-insurgency role. They're beginning to hedge. When Brigadier-General Fraser took over in February, we remember the last American commander exhorting Canadian troops to get out there and...kill them. In fact, I would argue that Canada has muddied the waters between the two missions. For the longest time it was difficult for Canadians to even understand that we were under Operation Enduring Freedom. Government officials, the media, and Canadian military officials fudged it. They tried to say we were under NATO; now it was clear in everyone's mind, with the bombing of Azizi, that we were under Operation Enduring Freedom, so even when we do transition under NATO, maybe sometime this summer, there is still the problem of Operation Enduring Freedom going on in the country.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rick Casson]

That's enough. That's all the time Mr. Bachand has.

We're going to move on to Mr. Christopherson for seven minutes.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you for your presentation. I'm not our defence critic. It's Dawn Black, but Dawn had another commitment, so I'm here to fill in as well as I can. Thank you very much for providing some light where a lot is needed.

I just want to make sure I've got this right. Operation Archer is the Canadian mission attached to Operation Enduring Freedom, which of course is U.S.-led and is dealing with counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency, for the most part. The UN-mandated NATO ISAF mission is more of a traditional peace and support mission. Is that correct? It is.

I'll ask a few questions about that. For the sake of argument, let's say that today they're still under Enduring Freedom and tomorrow they're instantly under NATO. After that shift takes place, what day-to-day activities for our troops will be different tomorrow from what they are today? I'll open it up to any or all of you.

[Steven Staples]

That's a very good question, and one I didn't see a good answer for at the last meeting, when that question was raised at this committee.

There seemed to be a sense that there was going to be a continuation: the mission would just be simply a continuation, and there would be very little difference. That's why I pointed out that it would be news to NATO, because NATO sees these missions very differently. As Mr. Bachand just pointed out, the head of NATO does see a change for Canadians when we come under NATO, but I think the government needs to explain that. It was one of the fundamental questions that needed to be explained before we voted to extend the mission for another two years.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rick Casson]

Do you have anything to add, Ms. Simpson?

[Erin Simpson]

Just to echo Steve's comments about the real need for clarity on that, Minister O'Connor stated in the recent debate in the House that nothing would change in the transition, which would really be news to a lot of people, as Steve said. I think there's a need to really clarify those things.

As Steve said earlier, the two missions are different in their purpose, their structure, and even in their endorsement by the international community. The NATO mission is a peace support operation, as you said. It is designed to support the implementation of the Afghanistan Compact, which is essentially a peace agreement that was signed, one in which Canada played a role in trying to push and create. It involves a whole series of supporting actions for reconciliation; it does involve security, with a robust security force, but it is UN authorized. It is quite a different mission from Operation Enduring Freedom.

The most recent UN Security Council resolutions that make reference to both Operation Enduring Freedom and the ISAF mission also make it very clear that these are two quite distinct missions, and that though they do expect communication, they are distinct and involve different types of activity.

So I think this is definitely a matter for the committee to take forward.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

If I could, I just want to add something.

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but my understanding is that NATO has been engaged in an internal debate about whether they are going to do this at all, and if so, what exactly they are going to be undertaking and take responsibility for, and that it was this debate that was preventing them from assuming their role, which they were supposed to have already done by now. Is that correct? Is there still debate within NATO about how they feel about what they've been asked to do? Help me with that a bit.