National Defence committee  I would just add that from my experience working with the Afghan national security forces, it starts with the leadership. That's the essential element. The Libyans are also going to face other challenges as they develop their security forces. It's a tribal mosaic there, as I kn

National Defence committee  That's a question we've asked specifically in light of recent allegations regarding the nature of that death. It is too early to tell right now, but clearly it exacerbates a circumstance in the country, as we've already discussed in terms of the way ahead. I would say there is

National Defence committee  Thanks, sir. Concern for our families is a very high priority, one of the highest for us. I can answer your question briefly, as Barbara did the last one. It will be as soon as possible. But yes, we've already started planning, reconnaissance has been done on the ground to see

National Defence committee  There are certain advantages, in terms of the redeployment now. Clearly, air elements can self-deploy and redeploy, unlike army units that are dependent on strategic airlift. It's much the same sort of thing that we're doing to recover our assets from Afghanistan, as you were bri

National Defence committee  Could I just add to that? We're not seeing any specific threat right now to western folks in Libya that would cause us to have any concerns at this stage.

National Defence committee  Sir, there are a lot of munitions in Libya. General Bouchard in his statement over the weekend alluded to the scope of the problem, and it is large. Colonel Gadhafi, before his demise, did a very good job of amassing quite an arsenal, and through a series of steps and processes t

National Defence committee  Are you asking me, sir?

National Defence committee  I'll speak to that generally, ma'am, if that's all right. We have a very elaborate process, which we refer to as targeting. That takes into account the definition of a legitimate military target and it does a very thorough assessment of collateral damage. I don't mean to dehuman

National Defence committee  I can certainly address that. Ma'am, I've got to tell you, I haven't heard any criticisms of the Canadian participation in the operation, or any suggestion that our contribution to the mission was insufficient in comparison to others. The first point I'd like to make is that as

National Defence committee  I've been called a lot of things....

National Defence committee  Right. Thanks, sir; that's a good question. I appreciate your invitation to provide my personal reflections. I'm always sort of careful when I do so, because I've fulfilled a number of jobs over the years. When I was in Croatia, for example, as part of the United Nations force w

National Defence committee  You raise a good point, sir. The Canadian Forces has a lot of capacity. But the last time I was in front of the committee I was talking about some of my experiences in Afghanistan, just as we were talking about the security force development. My own personal experience is that if

National Defence committee  It's difficult to respond, because there's quite a lot of speculation. I guess, sir, I could probably respond best in terms of the principles. Clearly we are in a situation, if we go back to the genesis of Unified Protector and Operation Mobile, of an external agency—NATO, in th

National Defence committee  Thank you, sir. It's good to see you again. With respect to your first question, on resources, I would just refer back to my opening statement. In the Royal Canadian Navy, HMCS Vancouver, there were about 275 personnel deployed on that vessel. In the air operations, the fighter

National Defence committee  Again it's a good question and one we're carefully monitoring. I think this is the substance of the debate we were referring to earlier, in terms of where the discussions are going. What we've said and General Bouchard has said in his comments over the past weekend is that there