Thanks very much, Chair.
General Bouchard, I'd just like to reiterate what so many others have said, that for this government, for the Parliament of Canada, and for this committee, it was a matter of great pride for us to see you, a Canadian, commanding this mission so capably.
In light of everything you've said today, having heard this very stimulating discussion cover a lot of ground, I think we all understand much better now why it was a success: it was because of the approach you took and the painstaking efforts you made to knit together a lot of players into a team and to ensure the due diligence that is the sine qua non of any effort to protect civilians by using force. Our hats are very much off to you.
You mentioned that the idea would have been for the regime to stop killing its own people in May and for diplomacy to take over. We all agree with that. You also are very clear that Gadhafi's own decisions, his regime's behaviour, dictated otherwise. So it was not until October 20, I believe, that he was apprehended and killed shortly thereafter, through no fault of NATO's but certainly as a result of the dynamic on the ground.
You mentioned the question of exit strategies, how important that was, and the importance of political will. One of the successes of this mission is that the will to continue the mission held up on all sides throughout, to the end.
Could you give us your thought, because I think it will be instructive for the committee, on what would have happened if the NATO mission had stopped earlier? Say you had lost political will in late September—September 26, for example.