A training centre is in the process of being completed at Camp Nathan Smith by the provincial reconstruction team in Kandahar, which will go a long way to doing a number of things. It will provide us with the opportunity.... One of the challenges we have in Afghanistan is the situation of security and being able to get outside the wire, if you will, to provide the training and to return. Having our trainees on site will go a long way to allowing us to provide them with the training.
It becomes very important, because one of the first questions that were asked was with respect to the progress we're making in training and in being able to provide a semi-autonomous capability that has the components to plan an operation, staff an operation, and be able to carry out an operation. This is essentially one of the later goals. You provide the basic training and the basic skills, which then allow an individual, a commander, to identify and select staff--the right people in the right job--to be able to carry out an operation. So you plan an operation, you find the right people to staff it--and they have to have the basic skills--and then you carry out the operation.
This comes with a lot of challenges, because we are trying to professionalize a police force where, in a great number of instances, its members cannot read or write a report, so literacy becomes very important. Yves mentioned earlier the challenges with literacy, and I mentioned in my opening comments our efforts to get us there.
Ethics become very important. Integrity becomes very important. All these things are part of the training provided to the Afghan National Police, along with the basic combat first aid, survival methods, being able to search and seize, and being able to identify IEDs. All these components become very important because they are the pieces of the puzzle that together allow a commander to be able to plan, staff, and carry out an operation.