Afghanistan Committee on May 14th, 2009

[BGen Dennis William Thompson]

I can tell you that during my nine months, there were no reports of abuse. Certainly the story broke about the abuse that allegedly occurred in 2006. That, I believe, is the subject of this NIS report.

Obviously, on even the idea that a Canadian soldier wouldn't report such abuse if he were witness to it, immediately orders went out to make sure people knew that everybody has a duty to report any serious crime they see, regardless of who the perpetrator is. That's just Canadian Forces policy, and that was reinforced.

With respect to the NIS report, all I can tell you is that I have complete confidence in our national investigation service. I certainly used them not only for Canadian Forces disciplinary cases while I was the Commander of Task Force Kandahar, but they also provide the very sad service of looking after the remains of our dead soldiers. I have nothing but absolutely the highest respect for that service.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

But you understand my concern.

[BGen Dennis William Thompson]

Yes, absolutely. That's exactly why the military investigates these things and does so in a thorough manner. I haven't been privy to the precise contents of the NIS report, but if it finds no wrongdoing, I would have no reason to question that finding, because I have nothing but the highest regard for the people who serve in the NIS.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Just on the linguistic issue, though, is that an issue--

[BGen Dennis William Thompson]

It's not an issue for me personally. The Canadian commander has a language and cultural assistant who goes with him everywhere. That language and cultural assistant is an Afghan Canadian with a Canadian security clearance up to level II—not top secret, but secret. So you can have darn near any discussion you want with the guy before you go and meet--

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Do we have enough of them, though? How many do we have, about?

[BGen Dennis William Thompson]

I can't give you a precise number, because I don't have it, but there's enough. Commanders have them. We also have fully engaged civilians who are used as interpreters. Every patrol that goes out has to have an interpreter. Otherwise, you're not going to be able to connect. It was never brought to my attention that there was a deficiency in interpreters. I know it's a challenge to get language and cultural advisers. I make the case for this every time I'm in Toronto, talking to our Consul General there, where 70,000 Afghan Canadians live. This is a great place for them to serve their country, if they wish. The ones who do come are absolutely first-rate.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rick Casson]

Thank you.

Mr. Obhrai.

[Deepak Obhrai, Conservative, Calgary East, AB]

General, first of all, we would like to express our deep appreciation to all the Canadian soldiers out there, including yourself, for the excellent job you are doing. We are just seeking information, but let me assure you that all Canadians stand solidly behind you.

This committee was in the United States, at the Pentagon. We talked about benchmarks. The Americans were actually pretty surprised, but they thought we were doing an excellent job. They were looking at benchmarks to bring into their own operations in Afghanistan. Are these benchmarks achievable by us, or are there a lot of other factors, other countries, that will make us achieve those benchmarks? Is it in Canada's control to achieve our benchmarks, or do we need the cooperation of others?

[BGen Dennis William Thompson]

It's dead simple. This isn't Canada's war; it's NATO's. It's the international community's effort. In everything that's done, we have to take a multinational approach. I know you're representing the Canadian public, and that we're members of the Canadian military. But when we deploy overseas, we go over as members of NATO, and we're executing the NATO plan in direct support of the Afghan government.

So it's a multinational effort, done in partnership with our Afghan counterparts. I have a responsibility as a Canadian officer to report to the Canadian public on benchmarks that we have laid out, but the entire problem is much more complex than that. I used to say that Canada has six priorities—and they're all great ones—but there are probably 30 things that need to be done, not six. Those 30 things are being done by the entire international community, and we're contributing to some of them.

We have a responsibility to answer to the Canadian people on how Canada's effort in Afghanistan is being executed. I get that 100%. That's what we're measuring against, those six benchmarks, because that's government policy. But when you consider the entire international community, the problem is much larger than that. They are moving on a whole host of other issues that we, quite frankly, don't have enough resources to be involved in. Maybe I'm being a bit convoluted, but nation-building is a pretty broad-based project. It's not narrow in focus. If you want to have an effect, you have to narrow your focus when you're a country as small as Canada.

[Deepak Obhrai, Conservative, Calgary East, AB]

So basically you are saying that our benchmarks are achievable by us, but the larger picture is that we are part of, of course, the NATO alliance. That's all. Nation building—

[BGen Dennis William Thompson]

Right, and there are other things going on. For instance, and I apologize if I've got it wrong, but I'm pretty certain that hydroelectricity is not part of Canada's priorities, nor one of the things we measure, but it's darned important. So it's something that somebody else is doing—in this case, USAID. And for those who follow the reconstruction and development path, it's something that's coordinated at the PRT by Canadian officials because they're responsible for Kandahar province in the NATO rubric.

[Deepak Obhrai, Conservative, Calgary East, AB]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rick Casson]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Wilfert.

[Bryon Wilfert, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Mr. Rae and I are going to split the time.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rick Casson]

Good. Go ahead.

[Bob Rae, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

I don't want to be provocative, but I just wanted to ask you a question.

We've been told a lot over the years that it's impossible to separate training from combat. But I understand, General Howard, from what you were saying about your responsibilities in Kabul, that you had a particular responsibility with CSTC-A to do a training operation and an educational operation. You talked about how you were training up people and then sending them to Kandahar.

Is it possible to imagine a training role that does not involve a combat role for Canada?

[BGen Alan Howard]

Canada has a really good history up in Kabul. You go into the Kabul military training centre, where we used to have a team; I met many Afghan NCOs and officers there who were trained by Canadians when we were up there.

There's a huge role for any nation that wishes to step in. CSTC-A was searching for many partners to assist with the educational schools that we were setting up. There were many schools that we would participate in, or just the general basic training of soldiers. That is a huge task of a command and a huge task within Kabul, and something I spoke to General Natynczyk about during his last visit. There are lots of possibilities and it's an option we could look at. We certainly have before had troops, Canadian forces personnel, in Kabul helping with that higher-level training.

[BGen Dennis William Thompson]

Can I just quickly add one point there?

[Bob Rae, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

Sure.

[BGen Dennis William Thompson]

When we speak about OMLTs, operational mentor and liaison teams, it's that mentoring and liaison that puts you in harm's way. General Howard is absolutely right because he's talking about structures where formal schools exist. But if you want to continue through the whole continuum of looking after building capacity in the army, you need to be part of that OMLT program. And then, once you have agreed to do that, if you're in an OMLT, whether you are in combat or not, it's really not your choice. It's brought to you.

[Bob Rae, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

I understand that completely, and I appreciate your clarification. I was just trying to understand a little better the nature of some of the operation that goes on in the capital.

Thank you.

[Bryon Wilfert, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Gentlemen, I wonder if you could respond to this. Counter-insurgency strategy needs to integrate the population in terms of their security, in terms of building local governance, and obviously in terms of economic development. In Iraq, the United States was, I think, pretty successful in terms of developing a strategic communications strategy to counter the terrorist information that came from the other side.

Where are we on that, and if we're at the point, which is my understanding, where we're not very far down the road, what should we be doing? The U.S. military was very successful in Iraq on this point.

[BGen Dennis William Thompson]

Again, I can only speak to Kandahar province, where we had fairly robust information operations, as the military expression goes.

Here's the problem with information operations; and allow me just to digress here for a second. There was a Confederate general whose name was Nathan Bedford Forrest, a cavalry general, and his expression was, “You need to get to the battle firstest with the mostest”. He wasn't a particularly literate guy, but he said that the guy who gets there first, generally speaking, with the most stuff, generally wins. And that's absolutely the case with information operations.

So if we get beat to the punch by the insurgents, if some untoward event occurs and they get the information out, usually completely erroneous and exaggerated, then we're on the defensive and trying to fight back. The way to get around that is you have to get your information out there quickly.

We made conscious efforts—mind you, I had three different governors—with the governors to program them to call press conferences when bad things happened, for us to pass them as much information as we had and to get it out in the public as quickly as possible, and, as a direct result, avoid some of the backlash that tended to happen in other parts of the country.

That idea is well known in western circles. It's just that sometimes it's difficult to get a press release agreed to in a multinational environment, in a sufficient period of time, to get your information out there first.

[Bryon Wilfert, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

I was going to say it's difficult to do it around here.

But in terms of where we are at this point, are there elements we're not using that we could be? The Taliban seem very successful in terms of getting their message out. Even though it may be exaggerated or false, the fact is that they seem to be good masters of that.