Afghanistan committee  Thank you very much for this opportunity.

Afghanistan committee  I will answer candidly, like a friend, but I hope you won't mind if I express myself in English, since I am more comfortable in that language. On these three questions, President Karzai started out as an interim leader. He oversaw the holding of two loya jirgas in Afghanistan,

Afghanistan committee  Thank you. Look at the map of Afghanistan today. It's obviously a shifting delineation of what is happening from different perspectives. But the belt that separates us from the tribal regions of Pakistan is the most insecure, unstable region. This is a fact. The rest of Afghanis

Afghanistan committee  It is a gigantic responsibility and task for us, and for the humanitarian organizations involved, including the UN organizations, UNHCR, and so on. For the past 30 years, Afghanistan has produced the largest refugee population in the world, and today, even though five million Afg

Afghanistan committee  Thank you. You're absolutely right that the police are a central core component of the overall security institutions and rebuilding efforts we have undertaken. Unfortunately, for the first three to four years of this effort we relied on weak means of doing the job and a half-coo

Afghanistan committee  I just want to say that I think I answered your question to some extent by saying that we have no control over most of the money that flows in. We have control--alongside the World Bank and all of the prestigious international financial institutions you are all part of--over that

Afghanistan committee  The first International Conference on Reconstruction Assistance to Afghanistan was held in Tokyo in 2002. The second conference was held in Berlin in 2004, the third in London in 2006, and the fourth conference will be held in Paris next June. The aim is for us to work together w

Afghanistan committee  There are several sources of insecurity in Afghanistan. I mentioned one: all of those people affiliated with the drug business. We see that there is a strong correlation between the drug business and the armed conflict, the insurgency, which is made up of various components. You

Afghanistan committee  Do you mean the Oxfam study?

Afghanistan committee  Yes, I have read the summary of it.

Afghanistan committee  No, I have not read that one.

Afghanistan committee  Not having read this new report yet--I am familiar with all the other reports that have come out in the past few months, and there have been several--I would like to stress that we do fully recognize that we have a problem with providing the poorest Afghans with the basics they n

Afghanistan committee  Thank you very much. You are quite correct: the Afghan people, both the poor and not so poor, are at the heart of our plans for the future and the work that we are doing. Everything that is being done, whether by the Afghan government or by the international community, is part o

Afghanistan committee  Let me start with the first questions, which touch upon corruption, accountability, the Afghan channels, and the political process, if I'm not mistaken. We do have a problem, as I said, with corruption, as many countries around the world do. Afghanistan, of course, is no except

Afghanistan committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Honourable members of the Special Committee on the Canadian Mission in Afghanistan, please allow me first of all to thank you for inviting me here today. I would also like to wish you good luck; I hope that a great deal of information and a wide range of