National Defence committee  Generally speaking.

National Defence committee  Those red bands actually represent the two principal routes between Syria and into Baghdad. They converge at Baghdad. If you look closely at a map of Iraq, you'll notice that most of the cities and the infrastructure are really centralized on those two bands. Iraq has wide swaths

National Defence committee  Most of northern Syria and those lines of communication are under the complete control of ISIL or ISIL-friendly entities. There is a Kurdish part in northern Syria, and then you would actually end up with regime capabilities south of Aleppo. I don't have it on this map, because I

National Defence committee  Mr. Harris—

National Defence committee  I've said previously, before this committee, that I'm not, in my position, responsible for the costs of the Department of National Defence. It is the CFO—

National Defence committee  Estimates are always provided in general terms when different activities are contemplated, to give a sense of what costs may be. Those differ, often quite greatly, from what we expend on those operations, so we use them just as a touch point, but then they're updated with real co

National Defence committee  Just let me provide some context first. Certainly, there are and continue to be targets to strike, so this notion that there aren't targets for air strikes is not, in fact, correct at this point. With respect to security for humanitarian efforts, I'm going to ask my colleague to

National Defence committee  I would agree wholeheartedly that there are many facets and many instruments of power that can be brought to bear in this campaign. The point that you talk of, which I think we'd call the information campaign, is certainly an area that allies recognize they need to address. They

National Defence committee  There are a number of forces in the area; “peshmerga” is a generalized term. There are Kurdish security forces; there are peshmerga, which would be more akin to, I think, a militia. There are doctors and lawyers in Erbil who take their turn on the front line in a very traditional

National Defence committee  I think in large part the forces are static. I was trying to refer to an entity to give you a sense of the varying levels of capability and experience in terms of the type of mentoring that you could provide. But again, they're a hardened force. They've been at this for some time

National Defence committee  I've only spoken with the commander of special operations force command in a broader, more general sense. I wouldn't have a vignette or a touchstone to bring to you on those lines. I can certainly try to get one for you, though.

National Defence committee  I'm not, Ms. Murray. The chief financial officer of the department is in the process of capturing these, and I understand that these will be reported to Parliament at an appropriate time, likely in some months.

National Defence committee  No, I'm unable to do that.

National Defence committee  We've been focused on the RCAF portion of it, and it's important to remember that we have 69 special operations forces operating out of Erbil, the northern area of Iraq on the map behind you, which are working closely with Kurdish forces. They're in the vicinity of Erbil forward,

National Defence committee  I wouldn't say it's close combat advising, no. Again, certainly in the vicinity of what's recognized as Kurdish front lines...they're not at the front lines, but they have to go where the forces are. It's not risk-free, but it's not close combat. We haven't been involved in sup