National Defence Committee on Sept. 22nd, 2011

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

Are they Canadian movers or are they Pakistani movers?

[BGen Craig King]

These would be locals, Afghan and Pakistani. It would be a locally arranged contract.

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

Really?

[BGen Craig King]

Right.

In terms of our relationship with the Pakistan government, Canadian soldiers don't go where they're not invited, except where we have an international mandate to operate.

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

Is the Pakistani government providing any protection?

[BGen Craig King]

This is all done through a contracted arrangement that is well established in terms of support. This is a well-established process that NATO has been using and what not. We're just leveraging the existing framework for that.

To comment on Pakistan government involvement, they would be aware of what we're doing, certainly, but beyond that I really can't comment.

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

Possibly it's a reflection of my naivety, but I must admit some shock at shipping literally millions of dollars worth of very valuable equipment through semi if not absolutely hostile territory without the protection of our own people.

Presumably you have thought of other alternatives--shipping through India, or possibly shipping through Russia, or some other form. I assume that those options were foreclosed for whatever reason.

How confident do you think these contractors will be in getting this through?

[BGen Craig King]

On the face of things, sir, I can understand your discomfort. Let me try to dispel some of that discomfort if I can.

The first thing is we're not shipping anything very valuable through Pakistan. The things we are shipping through Pakistan, were they to be lost to banditry or whatever you're implying, the effect on the Canadian Forces and our future posture would be minimal. However, they are assets that we own, and we're responsible for bringing them back.

Secondly, as General Lamarre's mission has unfolded, we have tried, and have had some considerable success, in reducing the number of things we're sending on that route, recognizing the things you say, through better approaches to our divestments. We are forecasting right now that we're not going to ship nearly as many sea containers through Pakistan as we estimated at the start because we're getting better success in selling stuff and divesting ourselves of stuff.

I would say that we're very conscious in terms of potential contingencies. If we had to, because the situation in Pakistan became untenable and it did not make good sense to send our stuff through Pakistan, we do have fallback options and we could divert things to air movement or other means. It would be more expensive, but in the cost analysis of doing things, that is a potential option to us, that we would just send it out of Kandahar to our support hub in Kuwait.

These things have all been taken into account. The tremendous expertise that is assembled in Kandahar with our movers, with our logisticians, all the things that are at the command of General Lamarre right now to do this very detailed and huge-scale logistical effort are all tracking well right now. So we are able to mitigate the risk that is presented by Pakistan.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Ms. Sinclair, you wanted to jump in on that?

[Jill Sinclair]

Just very quickly to stress again--and without getting into a debate around the many proclivities and dynamics within Pakistan, which is a very complex place--the very low value of material going through Pakistan. Other allies are also using the route through Pakistan much in the same way. As I say, there are many dynamics in Pakistan. It is also a very vibrant kind of entrepreneurial country. The fact that there are companies that are willing to take on this business and provide protection to the convoys is not surprising. But as the general said, we've looked at all of the contingencies here, and if it doesn't work for us, we'll look at other options.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Thank you.

Ms. Gallant.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

General, how many women have been recruited into the Afghan police?

[BGen Craig King]

I'd have to get a breakout number for you, ma'am. The total number I have is 1,400 between them both, so I'd have to get a subset of that for the police.

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

And is this a relatively new phenomenon? If we go back to the Taliban's rule, were there women enrolled in the police force then?

[BGen Craig King]

I don't know, but under the Taliban rule, I would suspect.... I don't know, but my suspicion is that there were very few, if any.

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

What precautions are being taken to prevent infiltration into the training phases?

[BGen Craig King]

It's an elaborate process that has many layers.

First of all, there is a lot of physical security, as we were discussing, to make sure that physical infiltration is not possible.

The other thing that's done is that when a recruit comes in, there is a very elaborate process of identification using the latest technology. We do the background checks to identify the village and the family—and the Afghans actually are pretty good at that kind of thing. If you go into a village, they know the family; they know whence they come. It's not like, say, North America, where brothers and sisters and families are scattered across the country. So when we say there's a check done, it's actually quite an effective means of establishing that a person is who he says he is.

Then their integration into the force is managed, so they are well established within their groups, let's say.

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

Now if we go back to the training and the progress being made by the ANP and the ANA, but sticking with the army for now, how close is it to becoming a fully functioning force? Is it conducting operations or missions on its own?

[BGen Craig King]

Absolutely. I would say that it varies across the country, because there are a lot of variables in this, but absolutely, the Afghans are taking the lead in their own operations. Absolutely, they're taking the lead in their own security and have been for a while.

It's a question of how far they are on that path of being able to do it in a way that achieves the effect, minimizes their casualties, and safeguards their place with the people. It is a very impressive thing to watch, but it's not monolithic; there are still areas that have to be addressed.

Where we contribute to that overall picture is that the training we impart promotes those skills. So it's not just the execution of missions but also how to plan for a mission. So when we're at one of those training centres, whether at the consolidated fielding centre or the military training centre in Kabul, we impart those skills with exactly that view in mind, that they're going to be able to take over their own responsibility in all its dimensions.

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

Including logistics and personnel management?

[BGen Craig King]

Absolutely. And some of the challenges there are greater, because when you talk about it being a largely illiterate society, one of the difficulties I found--and I was mostly involved with the police--was they had received vehicles that would break down and they didn't know how to do the requisitions to get the vehicles either repaired or replaced.

These are some of the basic challenges the guys are confronted with. How do you deal with that environment where the security forces have an illiterate component? How do you track weapons and uniforms that have been distributed?

Logistics is a real challenge, given the fact that you're dealing with a bunch of complexities. It stresses the fact that we're dealing with a recruitment base that is largely illiterate.

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

In the Afghan National Army, are they all volunteers? There's no conscription there whatsoever?

[BGen Craig King]

Yes, it's a recruited force. That's right.

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

Is there a way to verify the ages of the recruits?

[BGen Craig King]

Yes, that's a really good point, and something that is taken very seriously because of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and its protocol on child soldiers.

When I talked about the identification process, I can tell you from my experience that where something like age is in doubt, a doctor is retained to come in. A lot of times, someone won't know how old they are. A father might even say, “Here's my son. He's of the right age.” That's said to keep them together when they go to a recruitment place; the age span of some of the recruits would impress you.

There are ways of ascertaining age with a reasonable degree of certainty, and where recruits' ages have been determined to be within the range of a child, their training is discontinued and they are sent back. Sometimes that puts a strain on the dynamic in that group, because in some cases you'll have two or three or four from a village who are coming up to join the army or the police.