National Defence Committee on April 24th, 2007

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you for coming again, General Howard. I also appreciate your follow-up to the specific questions I asked the last time you were here. Further to that, in terms of the contractors who were hired through the U.S.-led police training program, who are the U.S. contractors?

[BGen A. J. Howard]

The name of the company—I have that written down—is DynCorp. That is the name of that particular contractor. There might be others, but that one I'm familiar with.

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

Okay.

My next concern is on the detainee transfer issue that's been front and centre the last few days in the media and the allegations of routine torture by Afghan authorities once we've handed prisoners over.

I'm very frustrated about this. It was the first question I asked of our government the first day this Parliament sat in the House of Commons. It was around the detainee transfer agreement and why we didn't follow the Dutch and British model that provided for follow-up by Canadians. I'm really frustrated about it.

I've looked at what Afghans and people in positions of authority in Afghanistan have said. They have said that torture and abuse are routine. In fact, a direct quote from the man who's in the position, incredibly, of being the ombudsman for the NDS in Afghanistan was that sometimes they need to get rough with these suspects—that in these cases “people need some torture”.

I'm somewhat comforted to hear that the Department of National Defence—the military—is looking at this very seriously and following up, but until we stop transferring detainees into this system wherein torture and abuse are admittedly deemed to be normal, I have a lot of serious concerns—and serious concerns, in fact, for the men and women in the Canadian Forces who are in the position of being told to transfer people knowing this may be the case.

Would you agree that we should immediately stop transferring detainees until we can really ensure they will not be tortured and abused?

[BGen A. J. Howard]

As I've indicated before, I share your sentiments. My own position, the position of any soldier, and the position of the Canadian government is that we want to see detainees handled humanely; it is not my decision to make on the policy the Canadian government will follow. The Prime Minister has indicated we will investigate this fully, and I'm just not at liberty to stray out of that lane from there.

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

Fair enough. I accept that from you.

However, I hear the minister again say—He told us for months and months that the International Red Cross would provide that oversight. Clearly they don't, and that's not the mandate. Now we hear from the minister yesterday, and from the Prime Minister, that the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission can provide that oversight; they say they cannot do that, so—

I understand you can't change this, but my frustration increases.

Thank you very much for your—

[The Chair, Conservative, Rick Casson]

Thank you.

Mr. Hiebert is next.

[Russ Hiebert, Conservative, South Surrey—White Rock—Cloverdale, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you again for being here.

During the early part of your presentation you talked about the attacks that were occurring in April. You mentioned that in some instances the Afghans themselves have been not just casualties but perhaps the focus of their attention. Can you elaborate for the committee? Do the Taliban at all differentiate between their foreign targets and targets of their own people, the Afghan people?

[BGen A. J. Howard]

Certainly the international community has faced a huge security challenge in going into Afghanistan. Certainly before our arrival I think it's well documented how the Taliban treated local Afghans. You simply need to read any report to see some of the absolutely excruciating activities that were occurring under that regime. Our own soldiers have been targeted by the Taliban. Trying to explain to some families back here why their sons have been murdered in trying to help Afghans is certainly a difficult proposition.

The Taliban continue to try to terrorize and coerce everybody within Afghanistan. The attack that we saw on the UN convoy I find absolutely unacceptable, as these were simply aid workers trying to come in and help local Afghans, but it does show that without a secure environment the development cannot take hold.

So I think we're on the right track when it comes to trying to provide secure environments. We do need to show Afghans that there is a better way and they need to rise up and take responsibility for their security, to work with their own fledgling Afghan national security forces. Capacity building is required through all segments of Afghan government, and we do need to find a way to neutralize the Taliban. You do that by showing the Afghans a better way.

[Russ Hiebert, Conservative, South Surrey—White Rock—Cloverdale, BC]

Are you saying, then, that the Afghan casualties are inadvertent, or are they often their own targets? My question is this. Are they trying to disperse the casualties among the Afghan people to undermine the foreign efforts, or does it just happen to be that sometimes that happens?

[BGen A. J. Howard]

I have to be careful of how much I can say on this particular issue. It is very evident to our soldiers that the Taliban will target the local population, especially if they see them cooperating with us. There is the delivery of what's called night letters that say, if you continue to assist with ISAF forces—whether you're an interpreter or whether you're providing information—then you can expect us to come and deal with you. So the Taliban do target Afghan nationals; they do target NGOs and IOs, and they do target ISAF forces.

[Russ Hiebert, Conservative, South Surrey—White Rock—Cloverdale, BC]

Mr. Chair, I'll share the balance of my time with my colleague.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rick Casson]

You have about a minute and a half.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Earlier you were asked about escalation. Upon the announcement of the tank purchase and leasing, there was the allegation that we were in fact escalating the conflict in Afghanistan. Would you please explain, for the committee, the role that the tanks are filling in Afghanistan as opposed to the LAVs, in some situations?

[BGen A. J. Howard]

Certainly. Maybe I could just start a little further back. You'll recall last fall there was a request from the joint task force itself. There were three serious pieces of enhancement they required. First off was an infantry company to help better protect the PRT. That, in my opinion, has been a great success because they've been able to double their output—double the number of patrols, double the number of secure meetings that have occurred.

The second was a request to deploy Leopard tanks to better protect the troops and to allow us to better establish secure conditions so that reconstruction and the like could continue. And the third enhancement was to bring in a number of experts, engineers, to help with quick impact projects and the like.

I'm sorry I didn't get to the tank issue per se.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rick Casson]

Thank you. I just have a question. There was some indication after the LAV explosion, which claimed six of our soldiers, that there was better technology, that the Taliban were using different explosives and different techniques. Was that the case, that you're aware of, or was it just bad luck?

[BGen A. J. Howard]

At the end of every serious incident we conduct a very rapid analysis of what's occurred. I call it the “96-hour report”. In this particular case, the Vice Chief of the Defence Staff, Lieutenant-General Walt Natynczyk, personally asked for the 96-hour report in order to huddle with the Chief of the Land Staff, expeditionary commander, and ADM Materiel and actually go through our analysis and pictures to see what actually occurred here.

That analysis is under way. At this point it would be premature to speculate on exactly what occurred. The analysis is still going on.

The output of all of this is that, having realized what's occurred, are there any other further equipment improvements we could make? What do we need to change through our procedures?

My own personal view at this point is that we had some bad luck in that one particular location. We've had many IEDs go off in the last several weeks. Our equipment and our procedures have saved many Canadian and Afghan lives. The equipment we have is first-rate. But we need to look closely at this one. It was catastrophic, the result, and none of us want to see that occur again.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rick Casson]

Thank you very much for that, and thank you for being here today. We certainly look forward to your next visit.

The committee will switch to in camera to discuss the report.

[Proceedings continue in camera]