National Defence Committee on Sept. 22nd, 2011

[BGen Craig King]

Yes.

[Chris Alexander, Conservative, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

Right.

Do you have figures of the force levels today or recent figures for 2011 for the Afghan National Army and police?

[BGen Craig King]

I can say the Afghan National Police force is at 135,000 right now, and for 2011 we're tracking towards 171,000 members for the army.

[Chris Alexander, Conservative, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

Really?

[BGen Craig King]

Yes.

[Chris Alexander, Conservative, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

So that's not in the future but it's more or less today?

[BGen Craig King]

That's today.

[Chris Alexander, Conservative, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

Do you have any sense of casualty trends in the army or police this year versus in previous years? I know in recent years there have been up to 1,000 police killed annually. Do you have any sense of trend lines?

[BGen Craig King]

We have just come out of another period of violence that occurred across the country. It's still a violent year in Afghanistan, although it's not as bad as 2010 was. Any loss of life in those is regrettable, but as far as the trends we're seeing go, that for casualties is downward.

I don't have the exact figures. I would just say that the police tend to be more at risk than the army does. They're in among the people. They tend to be more static. They're much more vulnerable, so their losses tend to be disproportionate to those of army. When I was there the rate was about five to one or greater.

[Chris Alexander, Conservative, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

If you have those figures for recent years, we'd be grateful to receive them.

Finally, could you say something about the process of certifying a kandak and the numbers that are getting those higher levels of certification, as well as about areas to which the lead for security has already been transferred to the Afghans and those areas slated for transfer this year and next year? How are we doing on that front?

[BGen Craig King]

What was the first part of your question?

[Chris Alexander, Conservative, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

It was on the certification of a kandak.

[BGen Craig King]

Right, it was on certification.

So you will have a unit that will be formed under its commander, say a kandak or a battalion, of about 600 members in all-up strength, organized into companies of about 150 and command and control and support. They will be formed and provided with a series of tactical training environments in which they will be closely assessed, on everything from the low-level skills that are displayed by the soldiers to the manoeuvre decisions in a particular context that are made by a particular commander.

Then they will organize a test exercise in which they will pit this force in a scenario and assess its capability in all the domains. There's a very elaborate process of assessing command and control and manoeuvre and proficiencies and all that kind of thing. Then a report will be made.

Once the kandak is certified as having the necessary people, having the required equipment, and having undergone the necessary training, then it will be confirmed as being good to go into the field force of the Afghan army. At that point it will be assigned to a parent brigade under a parent corps in a particular part of the country according to a very elaborate rollout program for units according to whatever direction the security forces have been given by the government on the security picture in the country.

So that kind of paints a picture of how that's done. The Afghans look after that with mentorship...and it's a comparative and collaborative process. The NATO training mission motto is “shohna ba shohna”, which means “shoulder to shoulder”, and that's the approach taken to confirm these institutions.

With regard to areas of transfer, under the program for transition to Afghan ownership, which was confirmed last year in Kabul, in July, Bamyan in central Afghanistan, formerly under a New Zealand lead, became the first province firmly established as a lead within the Afghan security forces. That process is ongoing and there will be a couple of other sites.

As you can appreciate, the process is complex. It is affected by factors, such as those we were discussing, in all aspects of the picture, not just security force availability and preparedness. This process is under continual review, as you will well appreciate. So we're waiting for the next tranches or slices of that rollout.

All I would say to you, sir, is that it has started, and we're on a path now.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Thank you.

I have a couple of quick questions, General.

When we were going through the rotations of all the personnel going through Kandahar, we had complete Canadian Forces bases that would almost empty right out as everybody transferred with their units and battle groups into theatre. Now everything has changed. How is the deployment working? Where are the military personnel coming from who are doing that training in Kabul and area? How is that impacting upon our training capabilities here in Canada with our own Canadian Forces members?

[BGen Craig King]

That's a really great question.

We have to make sure, just as with the previous question, how we balance the purse tempo, and that the Canadian Forces, despite the demands of the overseas missions, continue to be a viable force to address Government of Canada directed activities and requirements.

Right now, the mission overseas has been drawn largely from the western part of the country. That will rotate over time, just as we did on previous missions. I believe the next one up on the block is in Ontario, so Two Brigade, central area, will probably be up. Don't quote me on that, but I believe that's the trend we're on.

The training that's conducted is still done using the institutions that we have gained success in using and we will continue to exploit. Just as we talked about syllabus and all that, we are adjusting the training syllabus for those folks who are going over to the training mission to account for the things they are going to be doing. There is a lot of emphasis on the culture of what they're doing, there is a lot of emphasis on training, and there is a lot of emphasis on the nature of the security forces with which they will be dealing. I think the training system we have in place is very well adapted.

I will say this about the current mission. It is very leadership heavy because of the kinds of jobs we're doing. You'll find that our senior NCOs, our master warrant officers, or warrant officers, are implicated quite a bit. The same applies to the officers with the major and the lieutenant-colonel ranks. There are a lot of requirements there for operating within the NATO training mission structure and to pair up with our Afghan colleagues. That's something we're managing and we're managing well. We don't see any problems with force generation, as we term it, to provide the forces, that would be any cause for concern, and what the Canadian Forces can do to respond to domestic or other international contingencies.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Great.

We do have time for a third round.

Mr. Harris for five or six minutes.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

Thank you, Chair.

General, you were asked to describe a number of locations and a number of different activities in the Kabul area. Can you tell me how many different locations throughout Kabul are there Canadian soldiers engaged in training activities? Some of the types are listed in one of your slides, but can you tell me how many locations there are?

[BGen Craig King]

Precisely, sir, no. I'll get back to you. If you want a scale, it would probably be in the neighbourhood of about a dozen locations or so, or thereabouts. Please don't quote me, and we'll get back to you.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

I would like to have some detail because we're a little short of that on some of the questions today.

The reason I ask is because we have 800 soldiers in Kabul itself. We're talking about eight, ten, a dozen, whatever, different locations where they're operating. We were told by the minister when this was discussed that we were talking about “behind the wire” operations. Is there a wire that we're behind? We have 800 people living in Kabul. Where are they living? How secure is their location? We've seen the attack on the embassy. I was in the U.S. embassy in Kabul. It's pretty well fortified, if not the best fortified location in Kabul, and it was clearly vulnerable to attack.

What I want to know is how does this “behind the wire” notion translate when we have up to a dozen locations in Kabul itself and 800 people in these different locations?

[BGen Craig King]

Thanks for the question. It's a good one.

As we're looking at our deployment, there are three big issues that determine whether a mission is viable from a Canadian Forces standpoint. First, can we protect ourselves? It's force protection. Second, can we have assured medical support to deal with casualties if we get them? Third, can we sustain ourselves and provide real life support and what not when we're deployed? Those are our absolute red cards and have to be satisfied.

After the announcement that we would be involved in the training mission, a series of reconnaissances was conducted to provide detail to the plan. We engaged very carefully with our allies on the ground. What we're doing is leveraging already existing infrastructure, which has force protection measures that are of a standard that allows the Chief of the Defence Staff to say that the risk to Canadian Forces is acceptable in this realm.

We're superimposing ourselves on bases, on secured locations, on fortified locations that already existed. All of the life support that you imply is also in place, so in the event that a Canadian soldier becomes a casualty because he is transiting through Kabul and may be subject to an attack—unfortunately, like the one that occurred to a good friend of mine in May 2010, Colonel Geoff Parker, who was killed in Kabul—there are measures in place to mitigate that risk so we're protected.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

I understand how there should be a risk assessment going on, but if you're talking about 800 people in the dozen locations, obviously transport is involved on an ongoing daily basis to carry that out. Is there a base on which the 800 soldiers are living? Are we relying on ourselves or our own forces for force protection or are we relying on the Afghan National Army? You've talked about leveraging existing infrastructure. That's a nice euphemism for “we're relying on whatever's there”.

Are we relying on the Afghan National Army, or do we have our own separate part of the 800 people who are in fact involved in force protection?

[BGen Craig King]

Thanks, sir.

There's no one in the training mission who's manning a gate or standing guard on a bit of infrastructure. In terms of our leveraging of existing infrastructure, it's more than I was perhaps indicating. We are working extremely closely with our allies. The force protection measures that exist in these locations are through an arrangement that has been made, if it's a camp that's run by the Americans, through the American system that's in place.

If we're moving, we move in protected vehicles that have been drawn from Kandahar and repositioned in Kabul so that our people have the greatest degree of protection when they're on the road. We move in convoys. We move with an awareness of who's out of the gate at any one time and who is back inside the gate. It's very carefully tracked.

We have arrangements in place with our allies on the ground that are distinct from the Afghan security apparatus, although we count on the residual security they provide. We have entered into arrangements with our allies on the ground to take even further measures to respond to incidents that occur so that our people have the greatest degree of force protection possible. You'll forgive me if I don't go into the details of any of those, but I can tell you that we work very closely with our allies so that we're as responsible as possible in attending to our requirements.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Thank you.

Mr. McKay.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Thank you again for your testimony here.

You're operating in a pretty rough neighbourhood and you're shipping a fair bit of fairly valuable equipment by land through Pakistan. It's hard to tell, at times, whether Pakistan is friend or foe. Sometimes they're both.

I can only imagine that the Government of Pakistan gets a little jumpy about a significant shipment of men and materiel, if you will, through its sovereign territory. Can you describe to us the arrangement with the Government of Pakistan for both protection and protocols? Because notwithstanding that you're heavily armed and in a fairly vulnerable situation with a convoy, I would imagine that there are those entities that would wish very much to take a real shot at you.

[BGen Craig King]

Thank you for the question; it's a great one as well.

First I'd like to make sure we're absolutely clear: there are no Canadian Forces personnel that are going through Pakistan as part of the redeployment exercise. What we're doing to recover our assets that are going on the ground lines is to rely on contracted movers, who provide their own security to move our items through that part of Pakistan to get it to a sea terminal or the port facility in Karachi.