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.