Very well.
If you do not mind, I will answer in English.
Thank you.
To be ready today means reaching certain objectives and benchmarks. Some of them are clearly defined under the Afghanistan Compact, clearly, and some of them are evolving in a dynamic as the situation on the ground changes.
Look at our region. We are sandwiched in quite an interesting, fascinating, yet dangerous region of the world. It's a dynamic region. Things are changing on the ground that are having a direct impact on conditions in Afghanistan.
If you ask Afghans—and I told you about the poll that was recently taken—most Afghans think that insecurity has external roots. Yes, there is a component that's internal, domestic, and we know there is some dissatisfaction by some groups here and there for this reason or that reason. But the core of the armed groups that are facing us and your soldiers today, and the soldiers of many other countries, is fighting there for an ideological reason, a very narrow ideological reason.
Take the person who commits a suicide attack. First of all, in most cases they are non-Afghans. They are trained outside of Afghanistan, they are equipped outside of Afghanistan, and they learn their skills outside of Afghanistan. Then they are exported to Afghanistan. As a result, we suffer. All of us suffer.
This means that you have to look at the larger context. You cannot only look at what happened today in Panjwai district. You have to look at what caused an incident in Panjwai district to happen. How did it happen? How did they reach that region? Who provided the logistics? Where did they get the training, and so on and so forth, including the funding eventually. Where did that come from?
As you can see—and I tried to put this in my presentation to you—that is what makes Afghanistan strategic, or it's one of the reasons. It goes beyond simply one district, one province, or even one country. That's why, as we are building up the national army....
The latest news I have received is that the acceleration that we have put into this effort has actually yielded some very positive results in the sense that we now think that the army that is targeted to be at 70,000 trained men and women will be formed sooner than we expected, hopefully before 2009. At the same time, our government is of the opinion that 70,000 is not enough for Afghanistan security, given, again, the changing dynamics on the ground. We may be now thinking about engaging everyone on adding to this number, because Afghanistan needs to go beyond having an army of only 70,000 men.
The same with the police. As you know, for a while attempts were made to create a new police force. It did not result in satisfactory forces. There were all types of issues. But right now, as we are speaking, there are hundreds of millions of dollars from various countries and donors, including Canada, that are being allocated and spent on the reform of the police, including increased salaries, which was a huge problem, and improving the quality and the quantity of training and equipment.
Once we reach some of these benchmarks...and again, the sooner the better. I want to emphasize that. The sooner Afghans can be fully in charge of these issues, the better, so that, not only for Afghanistan's sake but also for the regional complexities, we can handle the situation. Then we can talk about other options that exist.