Thank you very much.
And thank you to both of you for appearing before the committee, one via technology and the other in person.
I want to ask a couple of questions. First of all, I have a comment about the death, which Professor Bercuson spoke about earlier, of Safia Ama Jan, who was the department head for women's programs in Kandahar province. She had requested official transportation and bodyguards from her government over and over again, and those were refused. I think there's some responsibility for the local government there to provide the security that their officials ask for. She's not the first provincial person to be assassinated by the insurgent forces. I think it's a sad reflection that she had been asking for protection and had not been given any. She was travelling in a taxi when she was assassinated.
I want to ask about the situation as you see it on the ground in Afghanistan. We know the Americans are also operating in southern Afghanistan, where the Canadians and the British and the Dutch are. I'm wondering about how those two different missions, the Operation Enduring Freedom mission, which the Americans are involved in, and the NATO mission relate to each other, and whether you see any future changes in the two different missions in southern Afghanistan.