National Defence Committee on Dec. 8th, 2009

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

And the equipment that comes back.... Indeed, we have acquired some new capabilities—our heavy-lift helicopters, for example. At some point very soon will we not have to start drafting out where they are going to go, so the infrastructure can be planned? Is that under way already?

[Gen Walter Natynczyk]

I would just say, too, that the commander of the air force has to look at the capability of the helicopters we have currently on the ground, and where they are in terms of their life, because we didn't purchase those aircraft new. They had been used by the U.S. army, and therefore they had a lot of hours on the aircraft. So at what point will they be in another 18 months? And I'll just say to you that the very fact that we can do rotations—and on this last rotation I do not think we took a single casualty—again goes to the importance of the helicopters in enabling a safe rotation of our troops.

But they're being used hard. They are carrying literally tens of thousands of soldiers, sailors, airmen, and civilians around the battlefield safely. So where they will be terms of their full life in 2011, I don't know, but that will have to be another assessment not only involving General McQuillan's organization but also the chief of the air staff in terms of what it will take to get those aircraft back up and reset them and where they will be in their lives when they're reset vis-à-vis the new Chinook Foxtrot helicopters, for which the government has signed a contract, and I believe we'll be receiving them in the 2013 or 2014 timeframe. So all of that will have to be weighed.

At this point in time, I don't have another answer for you.

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

And lastly, now that we're coming to an end of rotating our soldiers in—and what soldiers do all the time is train—when they rotate out of Afghanistan, how, if at all, will the training change?

[Gen Walter Natynczyk]

The training will be significantly enhanced because of the lessons we've learned over the last while. Afghanistan sets a benchmark for what global conflict could look like in the future. We are using lessons learned from the Malayan campaign in the 1950s. That is the counter-insurgency that the British dealt with in Malaya in the 1950s. I would refer you to a wonderful book called Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife. It captures the doctrinal lessons of that event. We're using some of that, along with some of the lessons from Bosnia and Kosovo, to enable us to conduct counter-insurgency operations in Afghanistan.

All of what we're learning now has raised our standards and training capabilities to a point that we are now prepared for any eventuality. Afghanistan has taught us that we have to be ready for classical peacekeeping and stability operations, which is on the low end of the conflict continuum, as well as a high-intensity environment like Operation Medusa. We have to cover the entire spectrum. The Government of Canada can commit the Canadian Forces to any environment, and we can't choose how that environment evolves. The most fundamental lesson learned in Afghanistan is that the enemy has a vote.

When we moved from Kabul down to Kandahar, I didn't envisage the growing insurgency in Kandahar. Nor did our allies. This hit a high point on Labour Day weekend in 2006. Insurgents were conducting themselves like conventional soldiers—they dug in to a position and we had to use conventional tactics to dislodge them. Now you have a generation of soldiers, sailors, and airmen who have been trained in this broad spectrum of conflict from stability and peacekeeping, which is what is happening now in the village approach, to the conventional tactics necessary to dislodge the Taliban from fixed positions. In the future, you will see the Canadian Forces training for the whole spectrum of conflict. This is not confined to the army. We tend to focus on the “troops”, but we also have men and women, on the sea and in the air, who are there along with the soldiers, who are learning these lessons and bringing them back home to their units, so that the navy and the air force will also have enhanced training by virtue of their experience in Afghanistan.

[The Chair, Conservative, Maxime Bernier]

Thank you, General.

Mr. Hawn.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

General, I want to go back to an event that some people seem to be interested in. It is one of the thousands of events that our soldiers face on the ground every day. I mean the event we talked about that took place in June 2006. Was that a Canadian transfer detainee, or was it just one of thousands of events on the battlefield?

[Gen Walter Natynczyk]

According to the information provided to me in 2007 by the platoon commander, and the information I have from the battalion commander, both in 2007 and last night when I spoke to him, these people had been questioned by us but we did not take them as detainees. If we had taken them as detainees, we would have processed them, through our very deliberate process, back to Kandahar. This would have involved a medical assessment and tactical questioning, after which we would have determined whether they were in possession of evidence that would require transferring them to the Afghan detention facilities.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

So this was not a Canadian transfer detainee.

[Gen Walter Natynczyk]

That's my assessment.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

In talking to soldiers, junior officers, and so on, we take pictures of thousands of people. Every time we stop to talk to somebody, if there's a camera we take a picture. So that is not processing per se.

[Gen Walter Natynczyk]

I'm not aware of the photos. That's why I would say it's worth getting clarity on this.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

You talked about what we learned, and the Canadian Forces learned an awful lot in Afghanistan. With respect to the CF, our allies, and our foes, what have we taught other people?

[Gen Walter Natynczyk]

What have we taught other people?

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Yes.

[Gen Walter Natynczyk]

My goodness, we have taught quite a lot. Every time the Canadian Forces chief and I visit other nations I normally talk to the chief of their defence staff, my counterpart, and the Canadian Forces chief talks to the senior enlisted advisor, and it's interesting, because we get back together afterwards and compare notes. We're being held up as a gold standard in so many ways because of the credibility of the men and women who are serving: their professionalism, their level of training, their discipline. Other countries are now using our professional development curriculum for the development of NCOs. We have more countries who want to sign up to our staff colleges. Because of the product we produce, those individuals can go into harm's way.

In the same way, our Afghan counterparts working alongside us see a culture where we are inclusive, where we can partner very easily, where we are cooperative, where we listen. I'll always remember visiting Forward Operating Base Masum Ghar and meeting the commanding officer of the kandak, which is the Afghan battalion, and the rapport the commanding officer had with a Canadian who turned out to be a master corporal because they were able to train together so well. That master corporal was constantly there assisting the RSM and the commanding officer of the kandak. It's that personal touch.

So it's on top of all the professionalism and the level of training, skill competencies, and indeed our discipline, but it's just the fact that we can integrate and cooperate so well with not only our allies but with an Afghan police, Afghan army, who appreciate our mentorship.

Did you want to add anything there, Mark?

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Maxime Bernier]

Thank you very much.

I will give the floor to Mr. Dosanjh.

[Ujjal Dosanjh, Liberal, Vancouver South, BC]

General, after the incident Mr. Hawn just talked to you about, forgive me if I seem to be pressing, but the unfortunate part is that we tend to get documents through the press, so we have to rely on what is said in the press to inform ourselves and then ask the questions. In the Globe and Mail article it says:

However, the soldier's contemporaneous field notes–-written on the day of the incident but not released until months after the DND's media statement-–offer a version that matches the sworn affidavit and provides compelling detail of a sequence of capture, transfer, rescue and medical treatment. “Local ANP [Afghan National Police] elements were in possession of a PUC [person in custody] detained by CDA troops and subsequently transferred to ANP custody,” the detailed written notes say.

These are notes written by the soldier on the ground. You didn't see these notes when you made the statement in May 2007, and I understand that. You've spoken to the battalion commander and the platoon commander, and I understand that. I'm not asking you to comment. The picture was taken before the detainee was allegedly transferred.

Why would a soldier on the ground pay such detailed attention to an individual who wasn't a detainee?

[Gen Walter Natynczyk]

The military policeman who took the note--and these are military police notes, Mr. Chair--was the military policeman who was called in after another soldier had removed the Afghan from the beating with the shoes. So this is again the military police coming in and following through with their detailed process as we were removing that individual from.... One of my staff was able to contact the individual, who confirmed that he was not at the event as it occurred at the checkpoint. But this is the military police coming in after the event and going through their process.

[Ujjal Dosanjh, Liberal, Vancouver South, BC]

The article also refers to two other soldiers who testified to the fact that this was an individual detained by us and the individual was abused by the Afghan National Police. That's part of the same body of documents.

[Gen Walter Natynczyk]

Right.

[Ujjal Dosanjh, Liberal, Vancouver South, BC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Maxime Bernier]

I will give the floor to Mr. Harris for five minutes.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

We've gone from what I call clarity to a little bit of confusion over the exit strategy, and this is of great importance, first of all, because when we saw the American surge in Iraq, for example, it was into a much more dangerous territory. Casualty rates went up significantly. First of all, are you anticipating that will happen in the next 18 months? Are we in more dangerous territory with respect to casualties or not?

Very much related to that--and this goes back to General Lessard--we talked about at the end going through the ribbon on July 31, and now we're hearing, well, either we'll be home in Canada by the end of 2011 or on the way home. This is six months. It's a very big window in a dangerous territory.

What I want to ask General Lessard is a follow-up to the first question. Is this a flexible time period, or are we saying we're finished on July 1? There may be some saying, “We can't get someone else in place until August 10, so we have to have some flexibility here”, or our allies are saying, “We have the Canadians on the hook till the end of 2011, so if we can keep an additional 2,500 troops for four or five months, we'll do that.”

How firm is your position in saying we are out of here? Do our allies understand that on August 1 someone needs to replace us? Is it your job to negotiate and to ensure that there's someone in place on August 1, 2, 3, or 10 to be there?

[Gen Walter Natynczyk]

First of all, I can just talk about the casualties. One casualty is too many.