National Defence Committee on Oct. 23rd, 2006

[Col M.D. Capstick]

I'm not sure where I can go with that one. We are a professional armed force and a highly trained professional armed force. In fact a lot of work was done over the late nineties, if you recall all the quality of life stuff that went on and everything else, to bring our allowances, benefits, etc., up to a reasonable standard.

I wouldn't suggest replacing Canadian soldiers with three soldiers from some less-developed country, but that's just a personal opinion. And there is more to it than that; there are the actual operations and whether they could do them. I don't know the answer to that.

[Lui Temelkovski, Liberal, Oak Ridges—Markham, ON]

Do you see any difference? I mean, is that discussed at all?

[Col M.D. Capstick]

I don't think it is in the NATO context so much. It maybe is in a UN chapter VI peacekeeping operation, the traditional kind of thing, as I did in Cyprus as part of the 58th Canadian unit that went there. I've heard it discussed in that context, but not in a NATO context.

And besides, countries have to volunteer to do these things; it's not as if you can hire them.

[Lui Temelkovski, Liberal, Oak Ridges—Markham, ON]

My second question is that we've seen children there in Afghanistan being born into a war situation, a devastating situation, for over 30 years. Are you aware of anything that's being done for their ability to maintain some sort of a normal lifestyle, going forward?

[Col M.D. Capstick]

Yes, there is lots being done. There is a big focus on education in the international development process. I knew the number of orphanages once, but there are thousands of them across the country.

Like any post-conflict society, you have this broken aftermath of the conflict. They've lost probably three generations' worth of education, and right now the ministry of education is working very hard to get primary education, in particular, and basic literacy back up and running and on the road.

[Lui Temelkovski, Liberal, Oak Ridges—Markham, ON]

And would you say that we're in a post-conflict situation there right now?

[Col M.D. Capstick]

I would say that in 75% of the country we're in a post-conflict situation, and in part of it we're still in the middle of the conflict.

[Lui Temelkovski, Liberal, Oak Ridges—Markham, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rick Casson]

Thank you very much.

Is there anybody from the government side? No? Good.

Is there anyone from the official opposition?

Ms. Black, for five minutes.

[Dawn Black, NDP, New Westminster—Coquitlam, BC]

You've said that you're very proud of the work that Canadian men and women are doing in Afghanistan. I think Canadians are proud of the men and women in the Canadian Armed Forces.

Certainly from my perspective, what I want to know is that we are not putting them in a position of undue risk or a situation that can't be achieved. And that's the basis of many of the questions that I ask. It's not that there's not a sense of pride in the accomplishments of the Canadian men and women of the armed forces; it's more a sense, as a mom, and as a Canadian who is a member of Parliament, that it's very important to ask the kinds of questions that attempt to get to that level.

In listening to everything you've said, Colonel Capstick, it seems to me that the work you've been doing in the unit that you had in Kabul could be described more accurately as capacity-building for the people and civic structures in Afghanistan. Obviously that's been enormously rewarding to you and you've seen real progress there. That's not happening yet where the insurgency is happening; obviously the goal or hope is that security will get to a situation where eventually it will. I think that question is debatable.

But I want to ask you about what has been happening since 9/11 in the south of Afghanistan. I've asked this question before and I've never got a really in-depth answer—and maybe you're not the one who can answer it, but I want to throw it to you anyway. It is that Operation Enduring Freedom has been taking place; the Americans have been in Afghanistan since 9/11 and have been in southern Afghanistan since 9/11, fighting in this counter-insurgency at some level, up and down, over those five years. So why does it keep getting worse?

The Canadians have only been there for a short time, and I wonder about the achievability or chances of success there. If the Americans have been there with all the might of their military and all the resources that are there for them, why has the situation only continued to get worse?

[Col M.D. Capstick]

I'm going to answer this as a fairly long-serving military professional. I'll answer part of the last part first.

I don't think we'd be there if we didn't think we could defeat that insurgency or control that insurgency. As I stated before, you're never going to get to Ottawa levels of security. That's just not that part of the world. We have well-led, well-trained troops down there. We have a plan. The Government of Afghanistan has a plan, but it takes time. Any counter-insurgency operation in military history takes time. The Malaysian emergency--and they kept calling it an emergency--I think started in 1948 and ended in the mid-1960s. It resulted in the establishment of the State of Malaysia. That was a very different world at that time. Counter-insurgency takes time and patience.

What has changed? I guess the four-word answer is “boots on the ground”. Unfortunately, in this kind of operation there's no white flag hoisted. There's no instrument or surrender sign. There's no big ceremony on a rail car to sign up. You're dealing with groups that aren't really under any hierarchical military control as we know it. When you really analyze it--and it was probably later into 2002, after the operations at Tora Bora and those places were over with--there were probably fewer than 1,000 American boots out on the ground, in the streets, in south and southeast Afghanistan.

They showed up--and I talked about our equipment and forces before--and they were operating on the ground in armoured HUMVEEs with machine guns or 40-millimetre grenade launchers on the top. With part of the NATO transition plan, all of a sudden now in those main provinces, in the six provinces that are under Brigadier-General Fraser's command, there are around 8,000 troops. We essentially found ourselves standing in what had been a security vacuum. They had their run down there. They weren't being chased on a day-to-day basis. They weren't running up against American troops on a day-to-day basis.

[Dawn Black, NDP, New Westminster—Coquitlam, BC]

Where were the 18,000 Americans?

[Col M.D. Capstick]

They were all over the place, but there was an austere-sized force down in the south. Their concentration was more in the southeastern provinces, Paktia and Jalalabad area, and those places.

For all of our forces, the overhead is high. The tooth-to-tail ratio is not what we had in World War II, that's for sure. There's a lot of tail, and it takes a lot to keep this stuff going in those kinds of conditions.

[Dawn Black, NDP, New Westminster—Coquitlam, BC]

I think you said a few minutes ago that all of the forces are now under the ISAF command.

[Col M.D. Capstick]

Correct.

[Dawn Black, NDP, New Westminster—Coquitlam, BC]

So that's all of the American forces as well?

[Col M.D. Capstick]

That includes the American forces. There are some that were kept under national command, but they're combat forces that--

[Dawn Black, NDP, New Westminster—Coquitlam, BC]

We were told that there was still a significant number of Americans operating in a parallel way under OEF.

[Col M.D. Capstick]

There was until stage four was completed, which was last week, I believe. Our policy people, our strategic joint staff, can tell you more.

[Dawn Black, NDP, New Westminster—Coquitlam, BC]

All of those troops would then be under...?

[Col M.D. Capstick]

Yes, there are still special forces under various national commands, and there are some Americans under American national command. The American focus now is on the security side, on reforming the ANA and the police force. That's where their big focus is.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rick Casson]

That got us through the third round, and I've one short question, sir, if you wouldn't mind.

Earlier you said the insurgency in the south is threatening the security of the rest of the country. Over here with our instant communications, BlackBerries, and all other kinds pestilence that we have to pack around with us, we seem to be up to speed on everything. What's it like over there? If something happens in the south, we know about it pretty quickly. Does it spread through that country that quickly? Can it? Are there communications capable of doing that? Are they on the nightly news? How does that work?

[Col M.D. Capstick]

It's amazing how communications can spread and how things work there. In fact, now there's a very sophisticated cellphone system throughout the whole country, and I think the third cellphone service provider has arrived to start business there. It's pretty neat to see somebody at a big shura in Kandahar, wearing clothes he would have worn in the 14th century, talking on a cellphone. You see it all the time. And there is the jungle telegraph. It spreads, and it spreads fast. People travel.

Take the Kabul bubble, for example. On the day that unfortunate accident happened, May 29, there was so much communication going on that the cellphone system jammed up by lunch time because there was so much traffic. The local guys that worked with us taught us how to do it. You couldn't get voice through, but you could get text messages through. So yes, there is a huge jungle telegraph.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rick Casson]

Yes, there are ways to do it.

Well, thank you very much. We appreciate your expertise. It was good to have you here--somebody who was there doing the deal--and your straightforward answers are appreciated by the committee. It will help us with our report.

The committee is now adjourned until our regular meeting on Wednesday.