Evidence of meeting #4 for Special Committee on the Canadian Mission in Afghanistan in the 40th Parliament, 3rd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was nds.
A recording is available from Parliament.
5:15 p.m.
BGen Denis William Thompson
Yes, insofar as that the place where they picked the taxi up wasn't a busy bazaar where somebody could intercept them.
5:15 p.m.
Conservative
5:15 p.m.
Liberal
Bob Rae Liberal Toronto Centre, ON
General, I'm trying to put together your testimony and Mr. Anderson's and trying to be absolutely fair to both of you.
As I take it, your relationship with NDS would have been one of them acting as an intelligence agency and intelligence service that would be giving you and others advice with respect to activity of insurgents of various kinds, just general information as to what's going on and what one would expect from an intelligence agency providing you with information. Is that right?
5:15 p.m.
BGen Denis William Thompson
That's fair. I don't know that I would characterize them as an intelligence agency, but more as a federal bureau of investigation. I don't think we have a Canadian equivalent--well, I'm pretty sure we don't.
But yes, you're right. As you know, Mr. Rae, there's a whole number of ways we collect intelligence, but if you want human intelligence, which is actually the most valuable in an insurgency, you have to get it from people like the NDS.
5:15 p.m.
BGen Denis William Thompson
Right.
5:15 p.m.
Liberal
Bob Rae Liberal Toronto Centre, ON
What we're trying to figure out is how they get some of their information. Presumably they get some of the information they get from people who have been detained and who are in their facility.
March 31st, 2010 / 5:15 p.m.
BGen Denis William Thompson
I can't comment on that. I can tell you that there are NDS agents in every district at that level, and they're listening to the jungle drums, as it were, and they're picking up all that stuff, and they're just casually questioning people as any sort of intelligence operative would. They pick up all sorts of stuff, and frankly, because it's their country, they pay people to provide them with information. Money goes a long way in a place like Afghanistan.
5:15 p.m.
Liberal
Bob Rae Liberal Toronto Centre, ON
That's totally understood.
I'm trying to understand something. The detainees you would give to or hand over to NDS would go into the NDS facility?
5:15 p.m.
BGen Denis William Thompson
Yes.
5:15 p.m.
Liberal
Bob Rae Liberal Toronto Centre, ON
The critical question is what would happen to them as well as to other people who would be detained there. There were a lot of other people being picked up and being given over to NDS who didn't come from the Canadian Forces.
5:15 p.m.
BGen Denis William Thompson
Certainly. We can use the same analogy of the county jail. If you go to the county jail, you're going to be interviewed at some point. That's why the police, in one of the capacity-building measures that I can recall, gave instruction to the NDS on techniques for police interviewing, so they could use it in their facility in Kandahar. So, absolutely, I would have expected them to question their detainees in order to help build their case against them and also to gather intelligence. We do the same thing here. There's no way to break down a bike gang unless you interview people you've arrested.
5:15 p.m.
Liberal
Bob Rae Liberal Toronto Centre, ON
That's right, but we also have certain very strict laws and various ways to ensure that certain techniques of interrogation are permitted and others are not, and we draw the line very clearly.
5:15 p.m.
BGen Denis William Thompson
I agree absolutely.
5:15 p.m.
Liberal
Bob Rae Liberal Toronto Centre, ON
What I'm trying to get at is that you wouldn't necessarily have first-hand information and the army wouldn't have first-hand information with respect to what particular techniques were used by NDS to get information from the detainees who were held by them.
5:20 p.m.
BGen Denis William Thompson
No, I wouldn't. As I mentioned, as part of this whole-of-government team, neither I personally nor my soldiers were engaged in that aspect of capacity building. But we mixed with the NDS freely in the field, out in the box, as it were.
5:20 p.m.
Liberal
Bob Rae Liberal Toronto Centre, ON
That's understood. It seems to me that one of the things we're trying to get at--and I know it's difficult--is what took place in those facilities, how prisoners were mistreated, that would lead to such widespread allegations, by a number of agencies and a number of sources, of breaches of the Geneva Convention.
5:20 p.m.
BGen Denis William Thompson
I don't know that I can help you there, other than to say that I relied on the reports of other government departments to form my judgment of what state that transfer facility--and frankly Sarposa, since it was in my patch--was in to form my opinion on whether or not folks were being subjected to torture inside there.
5:20 p.m.
Liberal
5:20 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson
I'm sorry about that, Mr. Rae. Thank you.
We will now come back to Mr. Hawn.
5:20 p.m.
Conservative
Laurie Hawn Conservative Edmonton Centre, AB
I have a couple of quick ones, and then I'll share with Mr. Abbott.
I just want to go back to what we were just talking about. You mentioned earlier that you would be taken away to prison or whatever if you obeyed an order to commit a travesty against a detainee. Is that correct? You would disobey an order to commit a travesty against a detainee.
5:20 p.m.
BGen Denis William Thompson
Well, yes, any Canadian soldier will not obey an unlawful command.
5:20 p.m.
Conservative
Laurie Hawn Conservative Edmonton Centre, AB
Would it be as serious to ignore a travesty if you knowingly--