Minister, thank you.
Mr. Chair, I appreciate the apology for handling General Atkinson with slight difficulty, but let me just say that we brought General Atkinson here at your request, on the direction of the minister, to provide a briefing to you. If he shows up and is told he's wrong, we're wasting his time, my time, and your time in having him come here. That is all I would say on that one.
Sir, I would say the best thing to do is ask the Afghans whether we're making progress there or not. We have asked them that question in a variety of ways in recent weeks and months, and their response has been pretty clear. But I don't do polls myself. I base it upon what I see my soldiers, sailors, airmen, and airwomen do, and what I see myself.
Let me just give you a summary of what I have seen so you can judge for yourselves. One is the initiative on the security operations. The Taliban are slightly on a back foot. I don't over-emphasize that, but they have been knocked off their tactical approach of trying to encircle Kandahar city and Kandahar province. They have not been able to control the districts and they have not had the initiative.
With those security operations we have opened a developmental space. We have done that to allow us to build routes like Route Summit, where I stood a couple of weeks ago; to build a causeway across the Arghandab River, where I stood a couple of weeks ago; and to actually rebuild a school in Masum Gar, where I was several weeks ago to see the three shifts of children going to that school. We have also conducted those operations to allow building the security forces.
Monsieur Bachand, a year ago when I was there, we had no Afghan National Army soldiers whatsoever with us in Kandahar. As of this moment we have three battalions. Yes, they are at various levels of training and readiness, but two of those battalions are with us in the provincial districts conducting operations to enhance their own security.
A year ago we had no police whatsoever. Now we have five police substations and we hope a sixth police substation in the Panjwai area. There are all kinds of problems with the police there with not enough equipment, not enough training, and not enough pay. But it is a delight to have those problems, because last year they were not even present.
While we're doing that to allow the development in Kandahar, in the rest of Afghanistan there is acceleration in economic development and governance development, and people are getting on with their normal lives because the Taliban have been put on the back foot in the south by us, the British, and our other allies working there.
So you can judge for yourself, from what I say, what my assessment of the mission in Afghanistan is.