National Defence Committee on Sept. 27th, 2006

[Ujjal Dosanjh, Liberal, Vancouver South, BC]

I appreciate that distinction. If one were to then argue that if we were solely there by ourselves we would perhaps follow these more closely, and now, because we're part of a coalition.... If one were to follow that rule of joint civilian control, then one would follow it whether one is there by oneself or as a part of a coalition. I'm not arguing with you, but that just seems logical to me.

The next question I have is with respect to the issue of hearts and minds and the issue of the tanks. I understand that we're all concerned about the safety and security of our troops, and that's job one, for all of us. But I was struck by some comments made by the chief of military history from the U.S. Army, Lieutenant Colonel Matthew Moten, that our forces' sending Leopard tanks to Afghanistan was a mistake both on the intellectual and the operational level; although recognizing their firepower and their protective capacity, he judged them somewhat detrimental or counterproductive in a campaign for the hearts and minds of the locals.

I just want you to comment on that, if you may. If you don't want to, that's fine too.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rick Casson]

Briefly, if you wish to comment; if you don't, that's fine.

[LGen Michael Jeffery]

I can certainly see where one could make an argument in that regard. It is a judgment call, as are all things. Bearing in mind that I don't know the specifics, but what I've read in the media indicates that something like 15 tanks are going, which is, to be frank, a very small number.... They are effectively available to be used as infantry support weapons when the need arises; they're not being used in any sort of mass. And their principal role is to allow them to get into areas because of their protection. It came directly out of the late Panjawai fight, where a number of LAV-3s were hit and destroyed. The thing they lacked was the ability to get in, in an area of fairly intense fire, with adequate protection.

So there is that balance. But you're right, in the sense that it starts to tip the scale. As I said earlier, it's always that balance. The more force you use, the more force you display, the more danger you're in of losing that battle for hearts and minds. There is a strong argument to be made in that regard.

[Ujjal Dosanjh, Liberal, Vancouver South, BC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rick Casson]

Okay, committee, that finishes the second round. That's 11 spots and gives us a question for everyone at the table.

Now we have time to start the third round, but I don't think we have time to get through it. So I'll leave it up to you. Do you want to move in camera and deal with the travel? Could I see a show of hands of who wants to do that? We'll do it.

Committee, just before we go, there are a couple of things I would like to ask as chair, if I may, of the witness.

First of all, let me thank you for being as frank as you were and answering the questions as well as you could, having been out of the active line of fire, so to speak, for a spell.

One issue I really am concerned about is how our folks are treated when they get home. The people who come back, who have served over there and have come back and are healthy and still whole are one thing, and you mentioned post-traumatic stress syndrome. But what happens in the meantime when we have people who are injured, who come back before the deployment is over? Is there a system in place where they are taken care of?

[LGen Michael Jeffery]

Yes. Let me try to put it in some context.

If we go back again to our experiences in the Balkans in the 1990s, and to some extent even in early 2000s, to be very blunt, we failed. We failed our soldiers, sailors, and airmen and air women--our soldiers more than anybody else, because they took the greatest amount of casualties. We had been away from real combat, real action, for so long that the collected memory had failed us and we had not put attention to those things as we should. We learned that lesson.

The support system that the Canadian Forces has in place today for soldiers who are injured, including psychological casualties, and for families of soldiers who are injured or have died, is, in my personal view, second to none. That isn't to say there won't be failures. I'm not suggesting it's perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but it is a very, very carefully thought-out process. It goes into action automatically if anybody is hurt. Based on my experience and everybody I've talked to who has been involved with it, they are very pleased with it.

One of the toughest areas, by far, is the PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder. It's tough not because of a lack of will to deal with it but the reality that everybody--nobody more so than a person in uniform--is very proud about what they do and how they feel about it, and no matter how much education and preparation we give people, they can't help but believe that if they have a psychological casualty, somehow it's a failing on their part and they don't want to bring it forward. My friend Romeo Dallaire has said publicly more than once that he'd have been a lot better off if he'd lost a leg. That's exactly the sentiment, and many feel the same way.

So what I'm saying is that the limitation of the system in that regard is the willingness of people, at some level, to come forward and say, “I have a problem.”

[The Chair, Conservative, Rick Casson]

And the physical problems are easier to see than the others.

[LGen Michael Jeffery]

Right.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rick Casson]

On the issue of caveats and limitations by different forces that are there, if one country has their forces there and they're not allowed to actively engage, can they be, and are they, used as backups to the people who are actually going out in the field? Can that intermingling take place? Where a country is under severe restriction as to how involved they can be in the active fighting, how close do they get to the real front lines?

[LGen Michael Jeffery]

One almost needs to have an example in some detail to be able to answer that question. It's like a jigsaw puzzle. A commander in a coalition environment has to take all these different-shaped pieces of the jigsaw puzzle--those shapes being what each nation has put on in terms of caveats, what the capability of those forces are--and see what kind of picture he can create. In some cases, you don't need to get that complicated. In other cases, you have to be quite imaginative to be able to use the force, and then you have to really run the edges in terms of what those limitations are.

To my understanding--and I'm now perhaps straying a little bit--what's happening in Afghanistan is that the commander has taken British, Canadian, Dutch, and American forces and used them largely together, because their capability and the national caveats allow them pretty much to work together seamlessly. The others are in other areas doing other things where it's much less of a problem. That's a convenient way of doing it. The danger, of course, is that over time you actually do get a significantly disproportionate load on those nations that are doing the tough slogging. The question is, does that become a political issue for those nations?

[The Chair, Conservative, Rick Casson]

Thank you very much.

We'll suspend this meeting and move in camera. It takes a few seconds for our system to switch over, so that gives us an opportunity to thank our presenter.

Sir, thank you very much.

[Proceedings continue in camera]