Thank you, Mr. Ross and Mr. Natyczyk.
What I find a little disturbing is that the personnel actually have to, in your own words, make extraordinary efforts, or they have had to in the past. Perhaps at a later point we could take a look again at the system design and what's being done to make sure that we don't put this additional burden on the personnel of having to make extraordinary efforts every time it appears that we're missing equipment.
Is there an actual list? You say things are much better now. I understand that on Kandahar base there's a so-called graveyard of equipment. Some of it's been taken out by IEDs, and some other equipment has had to be cannibalized for parts. Is there an inventory of what's in that particular graveyard or of what's being cannibalized? Or is it just kind of ad hoc?
I'm just wondering if there's a list that you can provide this committee of equipment--especially when it comes to ground transport--that is needed, that we don't have in place for spare parts, that you're critically short of in Kandahar at this time. The worry there is not only the inability to meet field mission objectives; it's also, for our soldiers, the worry of jeopardizing life and limb.
So do you have a list that you can provide to this committee of what we're short of right now? And if you don't have that type of list, why not?
As well, what's in this “reserve” inventory, I guess, that you have in the graveyard in Kandahar?