Afghanistan Committee on May 14th, 2009

[Denis Coderre, Liberal, Bourassa, QC]

What is the army's actual status? You seem to be very optimistic. You say that things are going well, that they are getting better. But, given the status of the non-commissioned officers, the illiteracy problem and the possibility of infiltration, what are you basing your positive comments on?

[BGen Dennis William Thompson]

There are the capability milestones, about which I'm sure General Howard will be happy to talk to you in a broad way. Then there's what happens with the soldiers actually on the ground.

The important thing to remember is that while they're struggling with illiteracy, so are our adversaries. They are drawing from the same manpower pool, in a sense. They are in the same playing field, and what we're trying to do is raise a professional army that has to meet all the international standards. In other words, it's like a kid who has to write an exam while the other kid doesn't. It clearly means the one who doesn't can follow any rules he wants. That's the situation we're in.

We are putting in boundaries—making these folks encadrés—so that they're inside a milieu that respects international norms. At least the mentors whom we have deployed in Kandahar province, who live every day, day in and day out, with these guys in combat outposts where you might find six Canadian soldiers and sixty Afghan soldiers, live exactly the same life. It can't help but rub off on their Afghan counterparts.

I'll just finish by saying that illiteracy doesn't equal stupidity; it's not an equation. These are very smart people.

[Denis Coderre, Liberal, Bourassa, QC]

That's not what we're saying here.

[BGen Dennis William Thompson]

No, no, I know that, sir. I'm just saying--

[Denis Coderre, Liberal, Bourassa, QC]

But if they do not understand the mentoring process after we have left....There is a cultural reality.

[BGen Dennis William Thompson]

The officers are well-trained. For instance, my colleague, Brigadier-General Bashir, commander of the first brigade in Kandahar, received excellent military training during the Soviet army period. It may not be the same training we get here.

He may need to have some minor adjustments made, but the guy is brilliant. He knows the ground.

The officers are quite a bit different from the soldiers. They are educated, for the most part.

The big issue with some of the officers is that they've been deployed for the entire war. They're tired. They need some fresh blood too. We come in and out in six-month or one-year rotations, and we're full of energy, which has been sapped out of them by the duration of this conflict. We need to take a measured approach. So that's part of the answer.

As to how you measure it, a guy like me measures it by watching them on operations and from what I physically see happening on the ground. What I saw physically happening on the ground is what I've already described. But in terms of des données qu'on met sur une fiche, that's something that comes with the capability milestone system.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rick Casson]

The time is up on that spot.

We'll go to Mr. Hawn and then to Mr. Dewar.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Thank you, Chair.

I'd like to go back to the American folks who are coming over, the 17,000 or so, and the infiltration routes. I'm sure we know each infiltration route, or you do, intimately. Is 17,000 going to be enough to choke off those routes, with the other duties they're going to have?

[BGen Dennis William Thompson]

You cannot hermetically seal any border anywhere in the world. That's certainly the case of the Afghan-Pak border. And that number isn't specifically oriented on the border; some of those infiltration lines are internal to the country.

The short answer is that it will help, but you'll never get to a 100% solution. You can't put people shoulder to shoulder on that border and be absolutely certain that things aren't getting through.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Canadians tend to be impatient, understandably. The Americans are going to make a significant difference. I know you can't give me a definitive answer, but do you have any sort of feeling as to when it might be a fair time to start assessing what the difference might have been? Are we talking six months, a year...?

[BGen Dennis William Thompson]

I think we measure these things on a quarterly basis. If you're doing it any more frequently than that, you start chasing your tail. I think a quarterly basis is a good time period for which to measure things. I don't see that there will be any reason to change that.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

In terms of officer development, General Howard, we're talking about providing them with more westernized training, more training such as we get. These are small things, but I think they're significant. Are we looking at getting some Afghans into institutions such as RMC or Staff College—those kinds of officer development programs that we have?

[BGen Alan Howard]

When I was there, we had about 200 Afghan officers undertaking training outside of Afghanistan in a variety of nations, the biggest being the U.S. In fact, we have four Afghan students at RMC in Kingston, and they've completed their first year. I'm not sure how they did, but I met one of them who was back over Christmastime.

One of the initiatives I undertook while I was there was to take ten of the best and brightest of their colonels and brigadiers-general, get them some literacy training, and get them out of the country for some advanced training.

You know, a lot of the senior folks I worked with—the deputy ministers, the three- and two-stars within the national headquarters—have had lots of previous training, whether in India or in the U.S. What's missing is in the middle. It's rather like having a hockey team on which only the first line has skates and the rest of the team is in bare feet. What we're trying to do is get the second and third lines on these teams squared away.

It's the middle piece that's been missing for the last 30 years. In fact, a lot of the seniors we've used were in the old army, trained by the Soviets, or they went to India or to the U.S. So there's a good crust of older folks there. It's the middle ones we're working on.

For example, we managed to get the literacy training of three general officers squared away, and they will do a year's worth of education back here in the U.S. That will make a big difference to their army. We need to increase that output, but it's really at the lower end and middle end that we're trying to get some education going.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

You probably know I have to ask about the air force, because you brought it up. Can you tell me a little bit about the development of their air force--obviously it's embryonic--including the types, numbers, levels of capability?

[BGen Alan Howard]

The first graduating class of their military academy had approximately 88 candidates. Out of that were 30 bright young potential candidates for pilot school, and all 30 of them are now in the U.S., undertaking training.

In big-picture terms, the plan for the Afghan National Army Air Corps was to simply use the pilots they had trained during the Soviet time to use older Eastern bloc equipment, the Mi fleets and the Antonovs. So that's who they have as pilots. This first generation of new, young pilots is in the U.S., training, doing rotary and fixed wing. We'll stay with the Mi-17 and Mi-35 fleets. Those will grow in size, but we will introduce what I call half a Herc; the C-27 will be introduced. I believe the first squadron is slated to stand up in December. The first Afghan pilots will be these young 30 who are in the U.S. They're across all four services, taking training as we speak.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

So they're not just taking flying training with the U.S. Army, they're taking training from the U.S. Air Force and the U.S. Army and Marine Corps.

[BGen Alan Howard]

The U.S. Navy is involved in training a number of them as well. They're spread out across.... I don't know if they're with the Marine Corps, but I know they're with the other three services.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Super. Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rick Casson]

Mr. Dewar.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

I want to follow up on the questions I was posing before on human rights. In the report from the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, there was some citation of military conduct. Have you been able to see this report that the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission has written?

[BGen Alan Howard]

I have not.

[BGen Dennis William Thompson]

It's available to us if we want to look at it.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Yes. One of the issues, and I'm going to get to it, is that it's in Dari. It's on the web. It's been on the web for a while.

This is one of the questions I posed to some of the DFAIT people, and RCMP. They had heard of it but hadn't read it. I've had a chance to read it, because I had someone who interpreted it for me. In that there is quite a list of things on police and military conduct and abuse.

Well, here's the question; that's just an outside thing. There are concerns around linguistic capacity, I think, from our end. I mean, we talk about training Afghans in the United States and elsewhere. One of our challenges is our own linguistic capacity.

But we do know that we've had an investigation by the Canadian Forces National Investigation Service on reports that Canadian soldiers had witnessed abuse by Afghan soldiers and interpreters. The outcome of that report was that there was no wrongdoing. That was just two days ago. Yet there were public reports that these soldiers had claimed they had seen this abuse.

I have to ask the question, because it's conflicting, to me. On the one hand, they have Canadian soldiers saying they had seen abuse by the Afghan army. On the other hand, we have the national investigation service saying they hadn't. I'm trying to square that circle.

If we're going to talk about what, General Thompson, you said was very important, that, you know, we don't want to have different standards, obviously, than the other guys, because that can undermine...and it's the rule of law and human rights.

Had you heard of reports of abuse by the Afghan army? And how do you deal with the fact that we've had public reports of soldiers saying they saw abuse, and then we have a report from the national investigation service saying there was none, or at least there was no error in terms of the wrongdoing and the response to the allegations?

[BGen Dennis William Thompson]

I can only speak for the 1st Brigade of the 205th Corps, because that's who I was partnered with.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Fair enough.