Afghanistan committee  No, but I have to say that the lawyers are clear that it was more an agreement in the form of a memorandum of understanding than a binding legal treaty of that nature; it was not intended to be that, and I don't think any of the other agreements that were entered into were done at the level of international law.

Afghanistan committee  It was government to government, as I believe I tried to explain.

Afghanistan committee  Yes, sir, I think that's a fair statement.

Afghanistan committee  That's drawing a very long bow.

Afghanistan committee  Thank you very much.

Afghanistan committee  Do I have any prisoner's rights here?

Afghanistan committee  This is getting a little bit like Chinese water torture.

Afghanistan committee  First of all, when I said there were no detainee transfers, I did not say “never”. Everyone knows about the matter involving Mr. Eggleton and the JTF2 transfer in 2002. It was a cause célèbre. Everyone knows about it. So I am not denying that. I believe there were some other occasional transfers in the interim, but I do not have any first-hand knowledge of specific cases.

Afghanistan committee  I'm very proud of my replacement. He's a great member.

Afghanistan committee  No, no. Sometimes I would receive very sensitive documents--for example, that were classified. Unless I said, “Look, I have to see that”, they would be redacted. So they'd be redacted at the level of the security officials. I don't recall ever challenging it, because I don't think I ever had a case where I had to say “Look, I want to know what the actual circumstances of this are.”

Afghanistan committee  I have no idea what the practice is today.

Afghanistan committee  Yes, I'm assuming that redaction is done by officials in the department and not by ministerial staff acting under the instructions of the minister. If that were done, I would say that would not in any way be in conformity with what was done or practised when we were there. Anything that was redacted was done by the officials.

Afghanistan committee  Well, if I said there were no political considerations in this, I don't think you'd believe me, Mr. Chairman, and I don't think you should. I mean, of course politics are part of what motivates us who are in politics. That's a given. But I think the balance of what we were trying to achieve here, as I said in my opening, was a recognition that we were acting in Afghanistan.

Afghanistan committee  It certainly created an additional pressure, if you like, on the Government of Afghanistan and gave Canadians more of an authority to do it. I don't disagree it was an improvement on the agreement. I said the agreement was not perfect, and I accept the fact that it was capable of improvement.

Afghanistan committee  Well, it's not my concern, because I don't think it goes to the legitimacy of the agreement whatsoever. It's a memorandum of understanding that was entered into in proper and due form between...that has just as much effect by its signature in the way it was signed as if it had been signed by the ambassador.