National Defence committee  Okay, thank you. All that being said, I do believe it is worth considering for a moment where nations have come since we started the overall operation in Afghanistan. There is now a democratically elected government, and many of you have met some of those members of government.

National Defence committee  Thank you very much for the warm welcome and thank you very much to the committee for having invited me to make a presentation today and to present NATO's perspective. With me today is Lieutenant-Colonel Anthony White, a member of my staff in Brussels. Tony will be here this morning to give me a hand if there are any additional comments or follow-up questions you might need to have answered in writing.