Mr. Speaker, if I understood my colleague correctly, as a scenario, he sees the possibility, without investing huge amounts of money, of giving more responsibilities to NORAD for the protection of airspace, which could free up American personnel to take on more of the duties of NMD.
My question then has to be this. Can we afford to do indirectly what we do not want to do directly? This is the fundamental issue. Would the Americans agree to say, “In exchange for your participation, we will give more responsibilities to NORAD for the protection of airspace, and we will pull back on missile defence to control all of its technology”?
I wonder if this approach is not similar to the one used in the case of Iraq. We told the Americans that we would not go to Iraq, but that we could take over from the Americans in Afghanistan.
I think that we are doing indirectly what we do not want to do directly. Could we have further explanations on this?