I want to thank the committee for the privilege of speaking to you today about this important issue.
From February to November 2006, I was the guy on the ground. I was the commander of both Task Force Afghanistan and Task Force AEGIS. I wore two hats, in essence: a Canadian commander's hat and a multinational commander's hat.
Task Force Afghanistan was the organization that represented all Canadian military in the Afghanistan theatre. As commander of Task Force Afghanistan, I was responsible for Canadian Forces operations conducted in Afghanistan. I reported to Lieutenant-General Gauthier, Commander of Canadian Expeditionary Force Command in Ottawa.
My multinational command was Task Force AEGIS, also known as Regional Command South. It was comprised of military forces from nine different nations that were spread between Uruzgan, Helmand, Zabul, and Kandahar Provinces. This area of operations covered over 200,000 square kilometres.
As commander of Task Force AEGIS, I was responsible for operations in Regional Command South, and I reported to the United States Commander of Combined Joint Task Force 76 located in Bagram.
The military forces of Regional Command South were part of the U.S.-led coalition mission called Operation Enduring Freedom until July 2006, after which time command was transferred to ISAF, which is the NATO-led coalition headquartered in Kabul.
In my opinion, Afghanistan is the most complex mission that Canada has conducted since perhaps the end of the Second World War. This mission was certainly the most complex mission that I, in my 29 years of experience, have ever commanded and operated.
The mandate given to me was to mount security-related operations in order to establish and maintain stability in order to assist Afghans in building their nation. We worked in support of Afghan authorities.
The objective of the Canadian Forces was to help create the conditions for longer-term reconstruction and development, as laid out in the Afghan Compact. The Canadian contingent in Afghanistan comprised numerous facets, including security forces, a provincial reconstruction team, and trainers for the Afghan Security Forces. The Canadian contingent was composed of military and civilian members.
Given the complexity of this task, I asked and received support in the form of a political adviser from Foreign Affairs--which I did not have, and when I asked, I received--and a development adviser from CIDA, in addition to other such members as the RCMP, who were located as part of the provincial reconstruction team in Kandahar City.
We went there with the idea that we would conduct operations designed to establish security and assist in the development of the Afghan capacity to govern. However, in 2006 we ended up in an armed conflict of a prolonged intensity unseen by Canadian Forces since Korea. We dealt with a level of operations that frequently exceeded 30 major operations and incidents a day. These events included combat in the form of direct or indirect attacks on Canadian and coalition soldiers, accidents, air crashes, and meetings in Kandahar and throughout Afghanistan in a multinational and high-paced environment. I have never, ever seen anything like it in my life.
Despite the complexity of this mission, this was the best-prepared and best-supported operation I have ever been involved in. Operational requirements were identified and satisfied through my time as commander, and when things changed I was able to adjust on the ground, meeting the needs of our soldiers and Afghans alike.
General Hillier, the Chief of the Defence Staff, provided me with his intent prior to my going to Afghanistan. His intent was clearly that Canada would assist Afghans in building their nation. There were three points he emphasized in order to meet Canada's strategic intent: Afghan casualities, Canadian casualties, and detainees. These were issues that he believed could seriously affect the outcome of this mission. We were constantly aware of these issues and we actively considered each of these strategic points in everything we did prior to arriving in Afghanistan, after arriving, and throughout my tour.
Every soldier received proper training on detainees. We developed a theatre standing order on how detainees would be processed. The direction was clear and in full compliance with the Government of Canada policy. Canadian Forces would hand over detainees to Afghan authorities. No detainee would be handed over to another nation, and we would not share information about our detainees with other nations. By way of information, other nations did not share the details of their detainees with us. Detainees were a national responsibility that nations dealt with themselves or with the Afghan authorities. Detainee policy was clearly articulated to our other coalition partners and to both the Operation Enduring Freedom chain of command and the ISAF chain of command. We took great efforts not to lose the support of the Afghan people. We did not arbitrarily detain Afghans.
The theatre standing order I have already mentioned described who could be detained. We detained those individuals who demonstrated either an actual hostile engagement against our soldiers or hostile intent toward Canadian or coalition soldiers. Those people who were involved in either direct or indirect attacks against Canadians or coalition forces could be detained. Afghan citizens not assessed as being involved in an attack on Canadian or coalition forces would not be detained.
The event of capturing a detainee during the course of operations would set into motion a detailed sequence of events, including immediate reporting of the event through the chain of command to my headquarters in Kandahar. Upon being notified of a detainee, my national contingent element headquarters followed my theatre standing order on detainees. This standing order included a direction to report the information to CEFCOM, General Gauthier's headquarters. If I was available, I would make the effort to phone General Gauthier, no matter what time of the day, to inform him that we had a detainee and that the process was being executed for the transfer of that detainee to the Afghan authorities.
As previously mentioned, detainees were a critical issue to my mission, and the direction given to me was to transfer detainees to Afghan authorities. Every day I reviewed documents and received intelligence briefings. Every morning at 7:30 I spoke to my political adviser, my development adviser, my Dutch deputy, my British chief of staff, and my American deputy. At no time did I receive information about torture or abuse of detainees. Had I received that information, I would have done something about it.
I was not made aware of any allegation or abuse, and I continued to transfer detainees to Afghan authorities pursuant to the 2005 transfer arrangement, in accordance with the Government of Canada policy. It was a busy time for Canadians in 2006, climaxing with Operation Medusa. Ongoing operations throughout the region focused our efforts, and throughout my mission I was particularly proud of the work accomplished by Canadians and the standard at which Canadians conducted themselves. We all have something to be proud of.
With that, I look forward to answering your questions, subject to the obligations to protect classified information that is a matter of national security, and national security information.
Thank you very much, sir.