Mr. Chairman, I agree that there certainly is disappointment that the minister can't be here, and I think we should ask him again.
The Prime Minister has called this a war, and I think it's incumbent upon the minister to brief the defence committee as soon as possible on what's going on in the war. Not only that, Mr. Chairman, I believe we should also have weekly briefings on the war, as we did in the past with the Gulf War. This committee should be brought up to date on at least a weekly basis, if not more often, and we certainly should have the minister here since he was in Afghanistan not too long ago. He should be here to talk to the House of Commons Standing Committee on National Defence and give us an update on what's going on there.