National Defence committee  They were all over the place, but there was an austere-sized force down in the south. Their concentration was more in the southeastern provinces, Paktia and Jalalabad area, and those places. For all of our forces, the overhead is high. The tooth-to-tail ratio is not what we had

National Defence committee  Correct.

National Defence committee  That includes the American forces. There are some that were kept under national command, but they're combat forces that--

National Defence committee  There was until stage four was completed, which was last week, I believe. Our policy people, our strategic joint staff, can tell you more.

National Defence committee  Yes, there are still special forces under various national commands, and there are some Americans under American national command. The American focus now is on the security side, on reforming the ANA and the police force. That's where their big focus is.

National Defence committee  It's amazing how communications can spread and how things work there. In fact, now there's a very sophisticated cellphone system throughout the whole country, and I think the third cellphone service provider has arrived to start business there. It's pretty neat to see somebody at

National Defence committee  I'm going to answer this as a fairly long-serving military professional. I'll answer part of the last part first. I don't think we'd be there if we didn't think we could defeat that insurgency or control that insurgency. As I stated before, you're never going to get to Ottawa le

National Defence committee  I'm not sure where I can go with that one. We are a professional armed force and a highly trained professional armed force. In fact a lot of work was done over the late nineties, if you recall all the quality of life stuff that went on and everything else, to bring our allowances

National Defence committee  I don't think it is in the NATO context so much. It maybe is in a UN chapter VI peacekeeping operation, the traditional kind of thing, as I did in Cyprus as part of the 58th Canadian unit that went there. I've heard it discussed in that context, but not in a NATO context. And b

National Defence committee  Yes, there is lots being done. There is a big focus on education in the international development process. I knew the number of orphanages once, but there are thousands of them across the country. Like any post-conflict society, you have this broken aftermath of the conflict. T

National Defence committee  I would say that in 75% of the country we're in a post-conflict situation, and in part of it we're still in the middle of the conflict.

National Defence committee  I'll comment on the context. You see a lot of these historical analogies. You see commentary on the British invasions in the late 1800s. You see commentary on the Soviet invasion of 1979. There's a substantive difference here, in that right now under NATO auspices and a UN mandat

National Defence committee  That's hard to tell. Some can, some can't. There are remote villages—you read about them in Rory Stewart’s book. There are people there who have never ventured outside of their village. And strangers almost never venture in. To them, in those areas, a stranger is a stranger. So

National Defence committee  As of last week or the week before, what was called stage four of NATO transition has occurred. So right now, General Richards, the NATO commander, commands all the troops. He has five regional commands: regional commands north, west, south, east, and Kabul. All those manoeuvre f

National Defence committee  CIDA has the lead on getting development aid to the people, as it should. That's the way it is. CIDA uses the Government of Afghanistan to the maximum extent possible. There's a fund called the Afghanistan Reconstruction Trust Fund, and that's how CIDA's money gets put into the s