Thank you very much, sir.
Mr. Chair and members of the committee, thank you for this opportunity to provide you with an update on our operations.
As the chair mentioned, I am Brigadier-General Craig King, director general of operations with the strategic joint staff at National Defence headquarters. You'll remember Ms. Jill Sinclair, our assistant deputy minister, policy, and Captain (Navy) Bernatchez, from the Office of the Judge Advocate General, from their appearances before you on Tuesday.
As you know, Operation Athena is Canada's participation in the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan, and Operation Attention is the name of the Canadian Forces' contribution to the NATO Training Mission in Afghanistan.
Before you are seven slides providing a broad update on our Mission Termination Task Force for Operation Athena and on the Canadian contribution to the training mission in Afghanistan under Operation Attention.
I would like to walk you through this quick operational update, after which I would be pleased to answer your questions.
I refer you to slide 1. In accordance with the parliamentary motion of 2008, the Canadian Forces ceased combat operations in July 2011 and will complete the redeployment of personnel and equipment out of Kandahar by December 2011. Under the command of Brigadier-General Chuck Lamarre, the mission transition task force is comprised of more than 1,300 personnel from all elements of the Canadian Forces, with the main task of conducting mission closure of Operation Athena in order to enable the Canadian Forces to transition to subsequent operations as directed by the Government of Canada.
The task force is executing its mission in three broad phases. Phase one was completed in July, with the thinning out or removal of non-essential equipment, the relief in place of our battle space by U.S. forces, and the consolidation of all Canadian Forces elements back to Kandahar airfield.
The mission transition task force is now executing the final phase of its operation in Afghanistan, focusing on actual mission close-out and redeployment. All activities are designed to ensure that our national objectives are being met as we transition out of Kandahar. The final phase, reconstitution, is being undertaken simultaneously back here in Canada under the leadership of the respective environmental commanders.
With respect to slide 2, we cannot underestimate the challenges faced by Brigadier-General Lamarre and his team; in recent reports, this effort has been described as moving a city halfway around the world. The mission transition task force is undoubtedly one of the largest logistical undertakings in the history of the Canadian Forces. As you can see by the numbers involved, our soldiers are writing a new page in the history of Canadian expeditionary operations.
With respect to the next slide, the general concept of operations is the leveraging of multiple staging areas and transportation nodes in order to efficiently repatriate equipment back to Canada while maintaining positive control over our operational equipment at all times. Our process has been greatly facilitated by our operational support hubs, which were located in Cyprus and, as of today, are starting up in Kuwait.
The basic concept and scheme here is that anything that is non-sensitive, such as generators and general stores, was passing through Pakistan to a sea terminal for shipment back to Canada by sea. A small number of CF assets have been flown back to Canada due to the sensitivity of the nature of that equipment--cryptographic equipment and that sort of thing--and the remainder of our CF assets, primarily vehicles and weapons, are being flown out to these intermediate staging terminals to be loaded on ships and repatriated back to Canada on a schedule that is being closely monitored.
Currently, Brigadier-General Lamarre is reporting that all lines of production and repatriation are progressing at or above the predicted level. I refer you to slide 4, where we show a conceptual graph representing our expected progress over time in the disposal of our infrastructure in Kandahar and the return of our equipment back to Canada. I apologize for the simplified version of this slide, but you can understand that actual numbers in such an open forum could give great insight to current and potential adversaries into the actual Canadian Force projection capabilities.
In view of what I have mentioned, I can report to you that we do not foresee any outstanding issues that will affect the mission transition task force's ability to meet the timelines established by the Government of Canada.
The next slide is about Operation Attention. As you know, on November 16, 2010, the Government of Canada announced a new role for the Canadian Forces in Afghanistan that would see our soldiers training, mentoring and building the professional competencies of the Afghan National Security Forces.
Under the current leadership of Major-General Michael Day, the new mission will see up to 950 soldiers deployed to a Kabul-centric training mission until March 2014.
The Canadian Contribution Training Mission–Afghanistan will assist the Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan in developing credible, effective and sustainable national security forces—both army and police.
I would just highlight that Canada is the second-largest contributor to the NATO training mission in Afghanistan, after the United States.
The focus of our efforts is on institutional capacity-building and the professionalization of the Afghan national security forces. By mentoring and developing Afghan trainers, Canada continues to play a vital role in assisting the Government of Afghanistan to achieve self-security by generating security forces that will be self-reliant in the near future.
With the current emphasis on helping the Afghan national security forces with institutional capacity-building, and with the need to create a professional military ethos to face an evolving threat, the provision of high-quality trainers is essential. Canada is stepping up to this task with a mix of professionalism and cultural understanding to support the Government of Afghanistan in developing the required capabilities to generate truly effective Afghan national security forces that will represent all Afghans in the execution of their duties.
As slide 6 indicates, Operation Attention is already providing training in up to 13 different locations, assisting roughly 24 different institutions. The current deployment schedule will see our operation reaching full capacity in numbers in early November, with troops deployed in three locations: Kabul, where the majority of our forces will be located; Mazar-e-Sharif in the north; and Herat in the west.
I would like to highlight two important elements of our institutional capacity-building at the Kabul military training centre and the consolidated fielding centre, also in Kabul.
The Kabul military training centre, or KMTC, is the primary training location for the Afghan National Army training command and the main force provider for Afghanistan's national defence. Canadian Colonel Mike Minor advises the Afghan commander of KMTC. The purpose of this institution is to provide Afghanistan with a skilled army capable of disarming illegal factions, fighting terrorism, and assuring security in Afghanistan. KMTC is run by officers and non-commissioned officers of the Afghan National Army, with advice and assistance provided by staff of the NATO training mission in Afghanistan. The actual training provided starts at the individual soldier level, with courses on weapons, first-aid, the law of armed conflict, and Afghan National Army values and ethos, up to and including courses for newly commissioned officers on leadership and planning. In terms of scale, there are some 13,000 students and staff at KMTC, following up to 40 courses for recruits up to senior NCOs and officers.
On the other hand, the Kabul-based consolidated fielding centre is a collective training facility where battalion-sized formed units of the Afghan National Army, known as kandaks, of roughly 600 soldiers, conduct training and testing designed to confirm their skills before they are assigned and moved to the Afghan National Army corps for service within Afghanistan as part of the operational field force. The centre is run by Afghan forces but is provided with the critical support and guidance of 400 NATO mentors and trainers under the command of Canadian Colonel Rory Radford.
By way of summary, I would point out from the last slide that we are on time and on target with our mission closure efforts. We are also ready to continue our commitment to the people of Afghanistan with our capacity-building efforts under Operation Attention, and I am pleased to highlight the fact that our soldiers are already making a significant impact on the overall effectiveness of the Afghan national security forces. That's been highlighted in theatre through public statements made by such figures as General Petraeus, when we announced our transition to the training mission.
I hope this brief outline has provided you with a sense of what your Canadian soldiers, sailors, and airmen and airwomen are currently accomplishing in Afghanistan. They are performing critical missions in a very difficult environment with professionalism and dedication. Canada has been publically praised by NATO, ISAF and the Afghan National Security Forces for its contribution to this very demanding campaign. All Canadians can be proud of their men and women in uniform.
Thank you for your attention. We are ready to answer any questions you may have.