The reality is that the silos were being dealt with on the ground in Afghanistan before they were being dealt with nationally or internationally. People on the ground do what they have to do to make things work. For example—and I talked about it a bit in my presentation—when I arrived in Kabul, I was joined at the hip to the Canadian ambassador and to the head of aid, the senior CIDA officer in Afghanistan. For the entire year I was there—and the new team is carrying on—I met with the ambassador on an ad hoc basis, when we had to if there was an issue, or on a weekly basis just to keep each other informed. I thought the head of aid was living in our house for a while.
On October 23rd, 2006. See this statement in context.