Afghanistan Committee on May 12th, 2010

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

I would suggest that has been the continuing pattern of governments, regardless of which stripe they are. Would you tend to agree with that?

[William Graham]

Yes, sir.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

One of the things that I've found concerning, if I can make a statement here, is that we in Canada tend to put a Canadian context onto Afghanistan, and a Canadian perspective--i.e., that we expect people to operate to a level that we operate to in Canada. But as you said yourself, every prison system has its problems, including ours, so it's a matter of degree.

I'm going to make a statement and see if you agree or not. In my view, nobody is guilty of anything, whether it's the previous Liberal government or this government, and certainly not the Canadian Forces. Nobody is guilty of anything other than doing the very best they could under incredibly difficult circumstances, in an incredibly difficult situation, working with incredibly difficult people.

[William Graham]

I totally agree that, as Canadians, everybody is trying to do their best in Afghanistan in a very difficult situation; absolutely. They're doing their best for Afghanistan, for the international community, and in what we're trying to do as Canadians.

Whether there may be one or two circumstances where an offence was committed of some kind, I would suggest we have a system in place, in the form of a military justice system and a civilian justice system, that will ensure that if the facts ever point to such a circumstance, it will be dealt with appropriately by the judicial authorities.

Up until now I haven't heard of anybody being prosecuted for anything, so in my view of the facts, I think that is exactly where we are.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

We talk a lot about hindsight. Obviously it's always 20:20.

Do you think anybody could have predicted, your government or our government, the ferocity of the war or the conflict or the combat that was going to break out in Kandahar in 2006, with the level of casualties and so on?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you, Mr. Hawn.

[William Graham]

I think it's fair to say that we did not. Look at the nature of the equipment we took when we went. We took LAV IIIs and we ended up getting tanks. There was a whole host of assumptions made when we first went to Kandahar in terms of equipment and other things. We had to get helicopters that we originally didn't have. We perceived of a campaign that would be much more active in going into villages and dealing with people, whereas we found that subsequently the security element, which was determined largely by the use of IEDs and other forms of explosive devices, made it impossible for us to conduct the type of campaign that was envisaged at the beginning.

I think that's a perfectly accurate description of what happened. It evolved, and the enemy evolved, largely from lessons they had picked up in Iraq and other places.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you very much, Mr. Graham and Mr. Hawn.

I will now move to Mr. Dewar, please, for seven minutes.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Graham, for being here today and providing us with your testimony.

I just want to clarify a couple of things with a couple of very straightforward questions.

Did you okay the agreement, in the end?

[William Graham]

Well, I didn't.... Yes, we had agreed on the terms that were in the agreement that was subsequently signed by Mr. Hillier, terms that had been--

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

I want to be very precise here. The agreement that was signed off at the end of the day--you okayed that final copy of that agreement.

[William Graham]

We would have okayed the final copy before General Hillier--

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

But did you okay the agreement?

It's important, because I'm not sure from your testimony if you okayed the agreement or if it was someone else. I would take it that if it wasn't you, it would be General Hillier.

[William Graham]

Well, I don't believe General Hillier just went off and signed something.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

No, I'm not saying that. I'm asking if you, at the end of the day, okayed the final copy of the final agreement.

[William Graham]

I don't recall at any point someone saying, “Here, Minister, initial this”, but that is the agreement that we had discussed with our officials, and our officials had discussed with Foreign Affairs, and everybody had agreed that that was the agreement we were going to put to the Afghan authorities. And it had been discussed with the Afghan authorities.

So in that sense, yes, I certainly agreed with that agreement; I would have, based on the letter that I'd sent to the Prime Minister, and getting the authority I did, if I'd had authority, I would have signed it myself.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

I'm hearing from you that you're not entirely sure if you okayed the final agreement, but the spirit of it and the general thrust of it you okayed.

[William Graham]

Absolutely.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Did you talk to General Hillier before the agreement was signed off?

[William Graham]

No, I was talking to my constituents.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

I appreciate that, but you also had two roles, and you were still the minister--

[William Graham]

No, I appreciate that. I'm not trying to avoid my responsibility, but General Hillier was in Afghanistan. He had the opportunity to sign it and he signed it. He didn't phone up and say, “Can I sign it?”

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

So at no point did you have a conversation with him to say, “Here is the agreement, you're okay with it?”, and he gave you feedback. There was no feedback from him.

[William Graham]

That agreement was approved before he left.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

By you.