Afghanistan committee  Yes, of course.

Afghanistan committee  At the time, Mr. Bachand, you and I and all the other members of the committee were trying to obtain a mandate from the Canadian people. We were in the midst of an election. That mandate changed the behaviour of the government. All I can say is that that is what I understand about the circumstances around the signing.

Afghanistan committee  I would say rather that it was primarily the Department of National Defence, with the agreement and support of the Department of Foreign Affairs, that negotiated the agreement, because General Wardak was in charge on the Afghan side. General Wardak was not just the defence minister; he had responsibilities regarding the Afghan army, which we considered our partner.

Afghanistan committee  Yes. My problem is that my time as minister ended on January 15. Everything, all the discussions about what was happening and all the finger-pointing, if you will, all that happened after I left, so I do not know what was the real problem and what was not. I was not there for that.

Afghanistan committee  Well, I think that's very much, if I may suggest, the benefit of hindsight. It was not at that time evident to us that there was such a substantial risk. In the first place, at that point we had not, to my knowledge, taken any prisoners, so we didn't have experience with prisoners.

Afghanistan committee  That certainly is a criticism, and that's something that was subsequently rectified in the subsequent agreement that was drafted. It is a question of what we call the monitoring issue, of how were we to monitor. In this agreement, we believed the monitoring by the Red Cross was going to be sufficient.

Afghanistan committee  That was certainly part of the problem, because it was clear that while it was the role of the military to turn the prisoners over to the system, it was going to have to be the civilian arm that would have to do the monitoring. From reading what has been taking place before this committee, obviously evidence has said that this was one of the problems that subsequently arose.

Afghanistan committee  I certainly wasn't party to those. I was advised that discussions had been held, but you'll recall that we had the PRT, which was fully occupied in dealing with its issues. We had the number of troops who were on a combat mission. Certainly, from the defence department's point of view, at that point the department was very stretched in the number of soldiers we were sending to Afghanistan and what they were doing.

Afghanistan committee  Yes, we do actually have a record. It was with Amnesty International. I have spoken both to the Department of Foreign Affairs note taker and to someone from my own department who was there, whose records are clear that we were in total agreement that there was no way that, under the circumstances at that time, it would be appropriate to turn detainees over to the United States.

Afghanistan committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and thanks to the committee for inviting me to speak to you this afternoon about this important issue. I just want to say at the outset that I wish the committee well in dealing with an issue that I think is very important, not only for the future of the Canadian Forces but for the way in which we will be able to deploy them in future actions that I'm sure they'll be called upon to serve for Canada, as they have so well in the past.