Minister, thank you.
Mr. Hawn, I would say that the Afghan National Army commencement and development is a story that we now want to repeat with the Afghan National Police commencement and development.
I know how difficult it is simply to change a small thing in an army or the Canadian Forces, let alone build something from a basic white paper. In three and a half, almost four years, they have accomplished a miracle.
The United States has been the lead on that. Nobody else could have done it. We are engaged now in the southern part ourselves specifically with several kandaks that have just arrived in Kandahar province, and what we want to do is to help train and develop and support them so that they become the most capable kandaks or battalions in Afghanistan itself.
At the four-year mark, they have accomplished miracles with about 30,000 soldiers. The challenges that they have are immense.
One, there's a 60% illiteracy rate in the country, and so taking a young man and training him to be a soldier in a complex operation when he is illiterate is a difficult thing to do.
Two, they want that army to reflect Afghanistan, so they're recruiting from all the tribes and bringing them into multi-ethnic or multi-tribal battalions. When they move those battalions around the country, that now becomes a challenge for those whose families are in another part of Afghanistan. Given that their mass transportation system is essentially non-existent and their ability to get pay to those families is non-existent, you get an attrition from that.
Thirdly, they've been in constant operations for three years, ever since they've been built, the first battalions, and of course that has caused an attrition in numbers, as people are tired of being away from their families. Some of the wounded and killed and the losses that they've taken have been significant, and so they have now, in the short term, reached a small plateau where they really need to rebuild the present units they have and then carry on upwards in the development of the army.
But despite all the challenges, including the equipment one that the minister mentioned, this is an incredible story. Hats off to the United States of America on how they've done it, and hats off to the Afghans for the way they're doing it.
As to the Afghan National Police, in my view, right now we are in development with the police across Afghanistan where we were two and a half years ago with the Afghan National Army. Now I think the recognition is clearly there that all of us have to pull together to make the Afghan National Police the kind of sustainable security force that a country needs as part of a long-term development.
Huge money is being invested by the United States. In this last month, I think $1.2 billion was committed. We have a significant role in the southern part ourselves in helping train the police in Kandahar province for all the great reasons we need to do this, helping equip the police and helping mentor the police. We expect, actually, to take more action in that area as they bring more police in.
The last part I would say, going back to the Afghan National Army, is that we had this last year a small but important contribution that has had a great effect. We have a training team of 15 of our officers and NCOs and young soldiers who run the national training centre for the Afghan National Army. After the various countries have helped them bring together a battalion of trained individuals--officers, NCOs and soldiers--our team takes them for about three or four weeks and runs them through a complete battalion exercise, starting at section level of 10 men, live fire, all the way through to battalion exercise, and validates them before they go out into the field anywhere in Afghanistan. That effect has been incredible, and we have received nothing but praise for the great work of some young majors, sergeant-majors, and NCOs and officers who have been doing it for us.