National Defence committee  They're doing it very well. I'm really pleased with what I see in terms of the lessons learned when I visit. In my day, when we went to Cyprus, where I did three tours and had extended leave on most of them, you didn't even ask the previous unit for any advice. If you did ask for advice, you normally got it from a document that was written four years earlier by earlier rotations.

National Defence committee  The C-17s are unbelievably valuable. We need more of them. But you don't move a combat unit with heavy equipment by air. You move it by sea. You keep it together. You move your advance parties. You move a company of infantry. Trust me, it's immensely better than it was before. We can move things like the DART, etc.

National Defence committee  Yes. I went to the U.S. Army “War” College. We'd never get away with that in Canada.

National Defence committee  I personally don't see that, because the UN is the sum of its parts. I know that because it has been said over and over. The fact is that there are five permanent members on the Security Council that dictate the employment of resources within the United Nations. Those five members in 1945 were parked in that Security Council to make sure they didn't fight each other, not to make really brilliant, unanimous decisions.

National Defence committee  You key onto a very important handicap. I wrote the rules of engagement for the United Nations when I was in Central America commanding the mission there. It was so boring that I didn't have much else to do. The war was virtually over, and the Contras had been demobilized. I recommended that the mission be shut down.

National Defence committee  It is, but it's a result of democracy in action. When the Canadians moved south over the Christmas period of 2005 to Kandahar--I just happened to be there--from Kabul, the British and the Dutch were to arrive in Kandahar with them shortly thereafter, as were NATO headquarters. With minority governments and democracy in action, the British and the Dutch parliament equivalents debated for six months.

National Defence committee  I'm saying they're not in a position to greatly influence the situation in most of the missions. Let's use the Congo as an example. There are seven foreign armies and 11 factions currently fighting in the Congo. If we were to put a battle group in there of 1,200 or 1,400, they would be a mere drop in the bucket.

National Defence committee  They've done great studies. The Brahimi study came up with all kinds of brilliant recommendations, and not one of them is practical in reality, unfortunately.

National Defence committee  What's happened in Afghanistan proves the folly of a large and expanding alliance having no coherent strategy. By that I mean it is now mature or at least evolved to the point where the Americans are running the show. You've got to have somebody in charge. You can't have a committee in charge, and NATO is a big committee with a requirement for unanimity, not just in Brussels but all the way down the chain of command.

National Defence committee  It's the terminology that gets so abused. People have turned themselves inside out to try to describe what isn't chapter 6 peacekeeping operations--chapter 6 being characterized by three descriptions or criteria. One is that you're invited in by all sides to the conflict. Two, you're lightly armed for self-defence only.

National Defence committee  A key lesson for me is what I addressed at the tail end, and that is the ability to move units, homogeneous units, together to the theatre. An advance party is fine, but flying in bits here, landing the equipment there, trying to marry them up, bring them together, the whole idea is that...

National Defence committee  Well, every time I got into trouble with the UN operation I always said to myself, “God, if only NATO was running this, I could do it right and I'd get the resources.” Now I discover NATO is a bigger debating society than the United Nations. In the United Nations there's just five that count, the permanent five.

National Defence committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I would like to apologize, but I do not speak French very well. Each time I went on a course, I was sent on another UN operation, and got away from Ottawa, which wasn't a bad thing. As this is your last day before returning to your ridings, I actually thank you for being here.

Foreign Affairs committee  When I was there it was $80 a month.

Foreign Affairs committee  No, because the Taliban will give you about $220 to $230, and the police are getting a little bit more. Once again, the problem is that you have to hitchhike home to the family to deliver the money. It might be a long way, and by that time you've been ripped off for about 20% of it, at least.