Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Ladies and gentlemen, I thank you for the opportunity to speak with you about the Canadian Forces contribution to the government's mission in Afghanistan.
Canadian Expeditionary Force Command, or CEFCOM as we call it, has been the national focal point for this mission for the Canadian Forces since the command first came into being on the first of February 2006.
CEFCOM was created as one outcome of a broad transformational process for the Canadian Forces, designed in part to improve the way operations are conceived, led, and supported.
My role and CEFCOM's role is threefold: first of all, to exercise effective command oversight over our operations around the globe; second, to shape and guide the conduct of the mission over time, consistent with stated government objectives and strategic guidance from the Chief of the Defence Staff and working closely with our whole of government partners; and third, to work closely with force generators--the army, the navy, the air force--to do everything I can to set the conditions for our men and women deployed in harm's way to succeed in what Canada is asking them to do.
Essentially my role is to provide clear guidance and then to orchestrate support to the mission, leaving the task force commanders, such as David Fraser, Tim Grant, Guy Laroche, and, more recently, Denis Thompson, the freedom to execute their mission in a flexible manner and in a way most responsive to changing circumstances on the ground.
In broad terms, The Canadian Forces mission in Afghanistan is founded on three pillars or main areas of effort. These are to conduct security operations; to build Afghan security force capacity, which will ultimately allow them to assume full responsibility for their own security; and to enable and support the efforts of our whole of government partners to contribute to reconstruction, development and government capacity-building efforts in support of the Afghan people. Our men and women are engaged in all three of these efforts concurrently, but the relative emphasis and concentration of resources among them has clearly evolved since the early days in the south and will continue to as progress is achieved, geographically and seasonally.
I'll now say a few words about our progress over the past 22 months. Many of you have had the opportunity to hear General Hillier make observations about this in the past month or so, and far more eloquently than I ever could. But I can say that I've personally been involved in and focused on the Afghanistan challenge virtually continuously for the past six and a half years.
I was named to this position almost three years ago. Before this, as chief of defence intelligence for three years, Afghanistan was a major focus for me. Of course, before that, as the chairman mentioned, I commanded the national joint task force that included the 3 PPCLI deployment into Kandahar back in 2002, as well as a number of ships and air units deployed to the region in the aftermath of 9/11.
I've had dozens of opportunities to visit our troops in Afghanistan over this period, particularly in the south, and I can say unequivocally that with the Afghans, the international community, and our whole of government partners, we are making progress, though at times it's slower and more uneven than many would wish or expect.
We're under no illusions about the toughness of this mission. The geography is often inhospitable and challenging for operations. Complicated historical and cultural factors need to be understood and accommodated. We've learned that the annual extremes of climate and harvesting periods lead to cycles of intensity in insurgent activity. When the fighting tempo predictably increases after a winter lull, as we're seeing today in the south, this sometimes creates a perception of a setback or of a mission that's not accomplishing what it should be.
I think you'll understand that Afghanistan is one heck of a complex challenge. In our world of 15-second sound bites, it's far easier to bring attention to what's not going well in the mission, because there simply will not be any instantaneous results readily reportable in that 15-second sound bite.
From a Canadian Forces perspective, as successive rotations of our men and women return to Canada, they bring with them a seasoned understanding of the mission's dynamics and help to set internal expectations at the right level. We also have a very successful lessons-learned framework that ensures that we're able to adapt quickly in this very dynamic environment. I can assure you that every new element deploying is better trained and better equipped than the last to understand mission dynamics and to respond to the conditions they will face at the time of their deployment.
We are making a difference. Recall that in the late summer of 2006, in the Zhari and Panjwai districts west of Kandahar, we were facing a determined, well-organized force numbering upwards of 1,000 insurgents who were determined to cut off the major highway in the south to isolate Kandahar City and, ultimately, to make NATO and the Afghan government look weak and powerless to stop them. Civilians had fled the area, and fighting over the subsequent months devastated this key agricultural area. That was 20 months ago.
Today, in an area where we then had the better part of a battle group holding a ribbon of land protected under millions of sandbags for several months, we now have tens of thousands of civilians who have returned and resumed their farming. We've assisted with their agricultural infrastructure. We're building roads and causeways, and creating employment for hundreds of Afghans.
Beyond these signs of qualified progress, I believe our greatest success story of the past two years has been the advances we've made with the Afghan National Army and, to a lesser extent, the Afghan National Police. It's crystal clear to us that the military end-state in Afghanistan will be founded on the Afghan National Army, the police, and other security forces being able to protect and defend Afghan citizens without outside assistance.
Where the ANA, in particular, is concerned, we've witnessed a progression from having no formed units to work with two years ago, to one infantry battalion, or kandak, as we call them in Afghanistan, 18 months ago, to a full brigade of three infantry battalions, a combat support battalion, and a combat service support battalion.
We've adjusted our own force structure over the course of the past 18 months from having only 15 or so personnel involved in training and mentoring to the roughly 220 Canadian men and women who are now engaged full time in training and mentoring ANA and Afghan National Police elements. Our forces now regularly conduct partnered operations side by side with Afghan units and, increasingly, they are leading and we are enabling and supporting their efforts. By western standards their numbers are still small. They aren't as well equipped as they need to be, and it will clearly be some time before they are a self-sustaining force, but they are growing steadily. They're absolutely committed to the defence of their nation. They are tough—as tough and as fearless as any soldiers we've worked with—and most important they're eager to step up and assume responsibility for security, with our help.
Policing has proven to be a more complex challenge, as a rule of law environment is slower to take hold. It is more difficult to mentor these much more widely dispersed forces, which are also more vulnerable to insurgent targeting. Nevertheless, government of Afghanistan initiatives such as the Focus District Development Program, where police training and administration have been revamped, are showing signs of progress.
Through our own Police Operational Mentoring Liaison Teams CIVPOL efforts, we are working hard to reduce police vulnerabilities and help them along the path to thorough and much needed community policing.
All of this is to say that I'm satisfied that our men and women are accomplishing at least as much, if not much more, than we can reasonably ask of them in Afghanistan, keeping in mind that progress, as we define it, will naturally ebb and flow over time. Just over the past weeks, as the poppy harvest has come to an end, the insurgents have resumed their disruptive terrorizing activities. We aren't seeing hundreds of them in one place, as we did two years ago, but we are certainly seeing them in groups of 5, 10, and 15 or so.
It's not completely safe by any stretch of the imagination, and it won't be any time soon. Some parts of Kandahar province are safer than others, and we have been focused on the key districts where a majority of the population of Kandahar lives. Kandahar City, with its large urban setting, will inevitably be vulnerable to indiscriminate suicide attacks for a long time, but by and large it's a busy, bustling city, where people are getting on with their lives despite what is perhaps an undercurrent of fear.
In outlying districts, such as Zhari and Panjwai, the insurgents have most often resorted to indiscriminate IED attacks, as you well know. From time to time, particularly during this time of the year, they will target our forces more directly, sometimes with the tragic consequences we've seen over the past 24 hours. But the pattern of the past months has much more frequently been for them to focus on softer targets, such as the Afghan National Police, who are less able to defend themselves, and to intimidate and prey on more vulnerable civilians, all of this aimed at undermining confidence in and support for the democratically elected Government of Afghanistan. This, of course, is why we all need to continue to confront this challenge squarely and help consolidate the government's presence, along with our Afghan brothers in arms.
As the M. Manley's Panel has recognized, reconstruction and development both depend on security and contribute to it. Certain initiatives can be progressed in the presence of security threats, while others must await a level of confidence by non-military contributors, particularly international organizations and NGOs, that they can operate within their risk tolerances.
On the other hand, projects that meet the daily needs of Afghans engender their confidence in government and reduce their support for and tolerance of insurgents, and an insurgency without local support is ultimately destined to fail.
The government's decision to extend the mission until 2011 has all of us seized with the need to do everything we can at the strategic, operational, and tactical levels to set the conditions for our whole of government efforts to succeed. The increasing Canadian civilian presence in theatre, the numerous impending capability enhancements for our forces to improve security and force protection, and the declared plan to augment our forces in Kandahar province with allies, together will help shape the mission as we move forward. In a general sense, the Canadian Forces will continue to carefully adjust and adapt our approach to the mission, according to Government of Canada policy priorities and emerging programming plans, and consistent with the conditions on the ground as they evolve.
I returned from my last trip to Afghanistan less than three weeks ago, where I joined the Clerk of Privy Council, and David Mulroney, and Rob Fonberg for a portion of their visit. Increasingly what I am seeing over my many visits is the capacity amongst the civilian military team over there to speak the same language and to have a shared view of what needs to be done and what's achievable where and when. After each visit, I walk away inspired by the resilience, dedication, commitment, and professionalism of all mission participants, whether civilian or military, even in the face of adversity and, occasionally, tragedy.
This is a tough challenge for the military and for Canada, but collectively we're absolutely up to it. I think it's safe to say that we've all taken the Manley panel's very sensible work to heart, and much good work is going on here in Ottawa and overseas to give effect to the government's renewed commitment to this mission.
Thank you.
