National Defence committee  Thank you very much, sir. Mr. Chair and members of the committee, thank you for this opportunity to provide you with an update on our operations. As the chair mentioned, I am Brigadier-General Craig King, director general of operations with the strategic joint staff at Nationa

National Defence committee  Yes, sir. Right now, the troops on the ground are dedicated to those two broad thrusts that I outlined: the mission transition task force and the NATO training mission.

National Defence committee  The close-down of Camp Mirage occurred almost a year ago. We responded very quickly as the Canadian Forces to that situation and found an alternate staging site in Germany to compensate for the loss of that facility. This was done very quickly through the outstanding work of a nu

National Defence committee  Yes.

National Defence committee  Right now, one of the helicopters we're bringing out of theatre was leased from the U.S., so that's going back to the Americans. For the rest, we are actively engaged in looking for buyers for these Chinooks. They are being brought back in a condition and in a posture that will a

National Defence committee  Well, I can just say that within the program of the Chinook helicopters we've used, the plan we're looking at is to divest ourselves of them. That program is being undertaken through the assistant deputy minister for materiel, and it's progressing. With regard to other issues co

National Defence committee  I can't confirm that figure. We'd have to get back to you on that, sir.

National Defence committee  I'd have to get back to you on the specifics, but broad recruiting occurs in both the officer domain and the soldier domain, much as you see in most armies around. In terms of the actual numbers, I'd have to get back to you, ma'am.

National Defence committee  I don't think it's a question of having difficulty finding.... It's interesting, dealing in the Afghan culture. I made reference to my own service in Afghanistan, and I can speak with some detail on this because my last job was in Regional Command South, the NATO headquarters, an

National Defence committee  Do you want to take the question on the decision, and I can speak to security?

National Defence committee  With respect to security, sir, you made mention of the events in Kabul. Clearly that was a high-profile attack. We have never said that Kabul was a low-risk environment. Kabul remains high-risk. There is a determined enemy out there that is capable of mounting the kinds of things

National Defence committee  It's a combination of both regular and reserve in all locations, as far as I'm aware.

National Defence committee  We certainly are very conscious of tour numbers and how tours are managed, and that is something that is managed very, very carefully by the chain of command. So we start to hit thresholds. Once a guy has had a couple of tours, or three tours, it's very, very carefully managed. A

National Defence committee  The overall number that we will eventually flow.... As I mentioned, we're sitting right now at just a little over 600 total trainers in theatre. We'll hit our total number, which will be just shy of about 950, by early November. The actual breakdown is heavily weighted right now

National Defence committee  It's a fairly sizeable reduction in terms of our presence in Afghanistan from what we were maintaining before when we were responsible for a battle space in Kandahar Province.