Thank you very much, Mr. Chair and Mr. McGuire.
Thank you, General Leslie, for being here, and gentlemen, and Madame Provencher.
I hope people who are listening know--they can't see it--you're here in a wheelchair, so we thank you very much for going the distance. Again, for what all of your troops are doing in the service of our country, we're profoundly grateful.
General, our overriding goal is to make sure your troops get what they need before they need it. That's why we're setting this. Could you give us a sense on a couple of things? One, you're perched on top, looking at the bottlenecks that you alluded to. Can you give us any advice on what we can offer to be able to remove those bottlenecks to facilitate that overriding goal?
Secondly, are you getting enough funds for your trainers to be able to get the training required for your troops to hone their skills?
Lastly, some of the IEDs coming out from Iraq, particularly ones that are able to shoot molten metal, are deeply concerning to the Americans, and you can see the movement of technology or tactics from Iraq to Afghanistan. Can you give us any advice on what we can offer to be able to ensure that you have the resources to protect your troops, given what you're seeing in Iraq and seeing the flow of nasty tactics that have been employed in Afghanistan?
Thanks.