Thank you very much.
Thank you, General Henault, for coming to the defence committee and making your presentation.
Both my colleagues on the committee have talked about civilian deaths. I know that the Karzai government and also the Afghan Senate have been very concerned about this. They have made statements and had votes in the Senate, I believe, about asking NATO to take this under advisement.
I want to ask how NATO is dealing with that. How will the air strikes be handled to try to prevent civilian deaths? Along with that question, many of us at this committee have asked a number of people how Operation Enduring Freedom works alongside NATO. Are the Americans who are outside of NATO and Operation Enduring Freedom also doing air strikes?
You mentioned, and our own Minister of National Defence has mentioned, that this conflict will not be solved only by military means. I think everybody understands that and agrees with that. I wonder what other means you consider to be useful. Does that include negotiations? By negotiating, I mean specifically with different factions in Afghanistan, and negotiations that are more than an offer of amnesty.
The third part of my question is to deal with the flow of illegal arms into counter-insurgeny hands in Afghanistan. I'm very concerned about this, and I'm sure that NATO must be looking at this issue. I believe you said there were 80,000 Pakistani troops on the border. I find that quite disheartening. If there are 80,000 border guards or Pakistani military officials there who are meant to prevent the counter-insurgents from going back and forth across the border, I would presume it's meant to prevent the flow of illegal arms coming into Afghanistan. I find that figure disheartening, not encouraging. We know that the insurgents are coming back and forth and that illegal arms are coming in, not only from Pakistan; there are reports that these kinds of arms are coming in from Iran.
Yesterday, when the Chinook helicopter went down, the reports in the press seemed to indicate this was by a surface-to-air missile. I find that very alarming when another seven NATO personnel, one Canadian, were killed in that attack.
That's the start of my questions. I hope I get time for more, but I want to give you some opportunity to respond.