Thank you.
Ladies and gentlemen, I am very pleased to be able to speak to you today. This is my last opportunity to do so.
As Chief of the Defence Staff, the Canadian mission in Afghanistan is one of my main responsibilities. Over the past few years, not a single day has gone by—and that is the truth—without my thinking about various issues related to that mission.
I'll concentrate this evening on the military perspective on our role in Canada's mission in Afghanistan, and that is our responsibility for security, with an increasing focus on building and enabling the Afghan national security forces to, themselves, build and sustain a more secure environment in Kandahar and, therefore, for the country.
In order to assess the current situation in Kandahar, we must remember that the education of units is a long-term enterprise, and that the province of Kandahar is a Taliban stronghold. It is truly the centre of gravity of Afghanistan. So said President Karzaï.
The situation in Kandahar is slowly and painfully changing, but progress is nonetheless occurring. We are far from September 2006 and operation Medusa, when Kandahar was essentially a war zone.
Our operations in Afghanistan are carefully laid out and conducted to help achieve one overall effect, which is, within a Canadian mission, to help Afghans secure and rebuild their country, focusing in particular on Kandahar province, where we are the lead nation for the NATO mission.
Those operations have three focal points or three strategic thrusts, if you will, to get that one effect.
First, we conduct security operations, including combat, in partnership with Afghan and allied forces, to force the Taliban onto their back foot and to allow building, in the most general sense of that word, to continue and accelerate. These operations are the most valuable part of our contribution to development and governance-building and to enabling those efforts to be successful. They are a direct contribution to the building and rebuilding in that country.
Second, we support directly the building of the Afghan National Army and also the Afghan National Police. We have made great strides in the former, with Afghan National Army leadership taking ever-growing responsibility for their own security, particularly over the last months and even more particularly over these last days. There is a complete brigade from the Afghan National Army on the ground in Kandahar province now. And there is a demonstrated ability over these last few days to surge in another Afghan National Army brigade and plan and conduct operations, and conduct them with ever-improving equipment, some of which, like the C7 rifles, came from Canada.
We have made less progress with the police, but we have seen some recent positive implications as a result of the recent massive international investment in building the Afghan police forces.
Third, while working to set conditions for better security in those first two strategic thrust lines, we work directly with and support our Team Canada--CIDA, DFAIT, and the RCMP--to implement, or enable to be implemented, specific initiatives. We know those efforts are essential to long-term stability, and we will do all we can to ensure their success. We all think alike in this regard.
I'll close by saying that there are about five things we should keep in mind in our mission in Afghanistan and in our approach to it.
First of all, containing the Taliban in the south, the centre of gravity, as I mentioned, directly permits the rest of Afghanistan, the majority of the country, to develop without anything but minor interference. Kabul, the northeast provinces, Mazar-e Sharif in Balkh province in the north, and the complete west of the country are all far more stable and have developed or are developing much more quickly than in the south. It is a huge plus, and incredibly positive, and sometimes when you go into a city like Kabul, you actually wonder why there's any focus there now by the international community. That focus now needs to be increasingly in the south.
Second, despite all the progress around the rest of the country and the difficult progress, but still progress, in the south, the enemy has a vote and is completely unconstrained in the tactics they will use. They ignore the laws of war. They ignore the Geneva conventions at all times. And we must always remember that they do have a vote.
Third, there have been and there will be setbacks to the mission. The Taliban is not 10 feet tall, but it is capable and does learn and can both surprise and kill.
Fourth, development is absolutely critical as a visible and tangible sign of positive change and as a sign that there is an alternative to the desperate life guaranteed by the Taliban. And with that development, jobs become all-important. The roads we are helping them build--Route Foster and others--and the Canadian commitment to build schools, to rebuild the Dahla Dam, and to carry out things like a massive inoculation program for the children, who have the highest child mortality rate in the world, are powerful things for that population.
I've just referred to a conversation I had four years ago with President Karzai, when I was the commander of ISAF. We were talking about the desperate need for jobs in that country to keep people away from the Taliban and from being enticed by them and the offer of $10 a day or so to pick up a weapon and shoot at us or the Afghan security forces. There is a desperate need to give them jobs, to give them hope for the future. I had a discussion with him about the program Canada ran way back, immediately following World War I, leading into the Great Depression, when hundreds of thousands of young men came home from the army and were without jobs, without hope. We established a construction program in this country that actually helped, I think, build the country we have today. It gave people hope for the future and a way to survive the present.
The last point I'd make before I sum up here is that governance is perhaps the most critical pillar of a country. This remains a personal concern of mine, and I know the concern is shared: how to help the Afghans build an effective government structure nationally and provincially and then deliver the things their population needs and be able to do it over the longer term.
I constantly remind folks that a lot of building went on in Afghanistan before, but when all the troubles took place in the early nineties, it wasn't the army that fell apart, it wasn't the security forces that fell apart; it was the government that fell apart and that then caused those security forces to break up and go to work for the warlords around the country and that led directly to the situation in which we now find ourselves.
In closing, I'll say just a few words about our young men and women in uniform, whose dedication and courage have been instrumental in bringing the progress we are starting to see show up in Kandahar today, and around the rest of Afghanistan, in great strides. They are incredible young Canadians. They are ordinary young men and women who do extraordinary work because of their great dedication. They are professional, they're highly motivated, they're robust in their approach, and they deliver effectively. They wear our nation's flag on their shoulders, much to our pride, and they represent you, me, and Canada in a massively great way.
I want to publicly say thanks to them and their families for the work they do, the stress they endure, and the sacrifices they make.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I am prepared to take any questions you might want to ask me.