Part 1: Why is Canada in Afghanistan?

Since Canada first deployed troops to Afghanistan in 2002 many Canadians have teetered back and forth as to whether the mission makes sense. There are some Canadians who vigorously defend it. And there are some, throughout the country, who vocally oppose the mission. While these firm and divided convictions certainly exist, conversations with Canadians suggest that the majority probably have mixed feelings about whether the Afghanistan mission represents a worthy investment of Canadian lives and money. Similarly, many members of our Committee have been ambivalent about the mission in recent years.

Canadians have generally recognized the need to be willing to send troops abroad to defend Canada’s interests and values, as well as play the kind of role that any mature country must play in promoting international stability. But for some Canadians, Afghanistan has sometimes seemed like a puzzling place for Canada to be sending our military.

First, Afghanistan has never been an area of particular interest for Canadians. Second, while this might not have seemed like a risky mission in the early days, that soon proved to be an illusion. So why are we there?

In those early days the Committee saw two good reasons for Canada to play a role in Afghanistan. One was supporting our long-time American ally in a time of need. The second was that any initiative that our Government could take to counter international terrorism, as called upon by the United Nations, had merit. In was only in 2003 that a feeling developed among some Canadians that Canada re-deployed troops back to Afghanistan to appease the Americans, after former Prime Minister Jean Chrétien refused to join forces with them in Iraq.

Mission Impossible?

The report the Committee issued after its second visit to Afghanistan in December 2006 was the first Parliamentary report to summarize the formidable barriers to Canadian “success” in Afghanistan. The long list of hurdles confronting Canada surprised some journalists and other observers at the time. These challenges have since become depressingly familiar to Canadians pondering the Afghan condition: all attempts at reconstruction are confronted by debilitating poverty, a history of violence, a weak central government, powerful warlords, endemic corruption, a feudal mindset, a paucity of education, a legacy of distrusting foreigners . . . and of course, the Taliban: fuelled by religious fervour and profits from the illegal drug trade, relentless, patient, and able to recruit an endless stream of volunteers across the porous border with Pakistan.

On top of this array of disfunctionality, the Canadian military mission to Afghanistan – 1,000 troops in the field[1] – is far too small to exert widespread control in volatile Kandahar province. Even reinforcements promised by NATO to meet the Manley Panel[2]’s requirement of 1,000 additional troops to join our forces in Kandahar will fall far short of providing the capacity to control the province.

All of the above would seem to summon up the word “hopeless” when defining Canada’s mission to Afghanistan. It may therefore come as a surprise that the Committee has emerged from its third visit to the country, in March/April 2008, with a more hopeful assessment than we presented in our first report.

Myths and Half-Truths

The first thing we had to do was wrestle with a number of popular myths about the Afghanistan mission. Some of them might qualify as half-truths, but others are so off base that they get in the way of making an unbiased assessment of whether Canada should be in Afghanistan.

Myth No. 1: “Canada is in Afghanistan Because the United States Wants Us to be in Afghanistan.”

The Committee’s View:

The rationale behind then-Prime Minister Jean Chrétien decision to deploy to Afghanistan as part of U.S. Operation Enduring Freedom in 2001-2002 was Canada’s commitment to NATO solidarity and Canada’s commitment to fight international terrorism as authorized by United Nations Security Council Resolution 1368[3]. This initial deployment returned home in July 2002. So why did we go back?

Most Canadian governments – particularly Liberal governments -- have been reluctant to appear too cozy with their American counterparts. Nobody wants to look like a U.S. puppet. However any political realist recognizes that Canada-U.S. relations constitute our No. 1 international political file. Washington can make life miserable for Canadians when it feels the urge, and the U.S. government was not impressed with Canada’s handling of its final decision on the Iraq mission. We know that Prime Minister Jean Chrétien decided that Canadian troops would return to Afghanistan to assist the International Stabilization Assistance Force (ISAF) in Kabul in August 2003 and that in August 2005, Prime Minister Paul Martin decided to redeploy our troops from Kabul to Kandahar where Canada assumed command of the Provincial Reconstruction Team.[4] Only when historians gain access to secret cabinet conversations decades from now will Canadians know for sure how much the United States influenced that decision. It remains a matter of public debate, and it remains a matter of debate among members of our Committee.

A Shift in Purpose

That having been said, it is irrelevant whether our second deployment to Afghanistan was or was not primarily a matter of mollifying Washington. What is relevant today, is the fact that Canada is there, and that Afghans – battered by three decades of war and with average lifespans in the 30s – badly need us. A very small window in Afghanistan’s history now exists that may or may not allow the country to start turning things around. Are Canadians going to walk away because we don’t have major economic interests in Afghanistan? Or because we don’t share a history with these people? Or because their own people often let them down?

 

Perhaps most Canadians, if they think about it, won’t want to do that. We are, by design or chance, in position to help some of the poorest, war-weary people anywhere. It just may be that the Parliament of Canada has extended Canada’s mission to Afghanistan until 2011 for reasons that have taken on a new dimension over the past several years.

Myth No. 2: “Afghans regard Canadians as just the latest in a long list of foreign invaders – to be resisted, out waited and eventually sent home.”

The Committee’s View:

Sometimes the applause for foreign troops is deafening, as it was when Canadian troops liberated the Netherlands from the Nazis in 1945. Sometimes the jeers are deafening, as they were when Soviet troops occupied Afghanistan in 1979. Canada’s current status isn’t anywhere near the level Canadian troops enjoyed when they liberated the Netherlands, but it certainly can’t be compared with the hideous Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. Many Afghans are thrilled that Canada has sent troops to Kandahar. And some aren’t. When one examines the situation closely, it isn’t surprising that some Afghans are supportive of the current presence of UN-mandated NATO forces and some aren’t.

The majority of Afghans hate the Taliban with good reason, but many Kandaharis do not. Kandahar is home to the Taliban. Many Kandaharis have family connections, religious connections, and even ideological connections to the Taliban. Furthermore, the Taliban – who, when in government, outlawed the sale of opium – now dole out drug money to recruits and defend the poppy fields of poor peasants, whose crops they buy. It’s called buying friends, and it works.

The reason Canadians are fighting in the most hostile and strategically important area of Afghanistan is to buy time for the Government of Afghanistan to make progress in winning the support of the whole country, and buying time for it to build a military and policing capacity capable of restoring the kind of order Afghanistan is going to need to move into the 21^st century.

This doesn’t mean that all Kandaharis want NATO troops out. Those Afghans to whom Committee members talked – without Canadian officials present – expressed support for both Canada’s military and development efforts. Even in Kandahar, the six of us found enough appreciation of what Canada is doing in this country to conclude that – for many Afghans – Canada’s presence is valued.

We aren’t naïve – some of these people may have been telling us what we wanted to hear. But some of them were clearly brave people who don’t want to live repressive lives under the Taliban – people willing to work on roads and attend schools despite threats from the Taliban to attack the roads and schools and those who use them. These people are looking for an alternative to poverty and repression, and they aren’t going to get it if Canada and other NATO countries walk away anytime soon.

Adapting to the Afghan Environment

It became apparent early on that an excessive amount of collateral damage was taking place – too many innocent Afghans were getting killed. Some collateral damage is inevitable in military conflict, but every effort must be made to minimize it, even if it means showing restraint when aggressiveness would inflict more damage on the enemy. Excessive collateral damage is not only intrinsically wrong, it is counter-productive to gaining the support of the populace. Canadian troops now have a policy of refusing to pursue Taliban combatants when they seek cover in civilian settings. There is increasing emphasis on the delivery of international aid and less emphasis on pursuing insurgents – the military is helping deliver aid in Kandahar.

We saw evidence that the Canadian Forces are making a real effort to minimize the inevitable agony of war – even when it means paying a tactical price – and to improve the lives of Kandaharis.

There is now a clear understanding within the Canadian mission that the military is there to enable a civilian solution. Given the security situation, civilians cannot freely engage in development work. As a result, the Canadian Forces’ engineers and civil-military cooperation (CIMIC) teams, facilitate specific development projects in Kandahar.

Winning the Support of Afghans

There is a nation that may or may not take democratic wings here. If it is going to fly, it is going to need outside help with both security and development for some time. During that period, not every Afghan is going to like and appreciate what Canada is contributing to the process. All that Canadians can do is their very best to try to convince Afghans that they should, and they appear to be making every effort to do that.

Canada has taken a collaborative approach to decision-making. We have Canadian civilian and military experts working with Afghans at the national level in Kabul through the Strategic Advisory Team[5]. We have Canadian civilian and military experts working at the grassroots level attending local shuras[6] and engaging with district and provincial councillors. The Canadians we met felt strongly that they are there to translate the aspirations of ordinary Afghans into achievements, and that if we can’t help do that, there will be no lasting change.

So it is true that nobody wants foreigners with guns running their lives for years on end. But it is false to say that Canada is just one more invader on a long hate list of invaders.

Myth No. 3: “Canada should focus its development in peaceful countries, where military activity is not required to deliver aid.”

The Committee’s View:

Most decent Canadians love development. Most decent Canadians hate war. Unfortunately, in Afghanistan, development can’t get done at this point without using force to impose some measure of security. The Taliban don’t want development. The Taliban burn down schools because knowledge threatens its feudal ideology and because women are meant to serve, not learn. But Afghanistan is in dire need of development. Few countries in the world are in greater need than Afghanistan, which ranked 174 out of 178 countries in the United Nations Development Programme’s (UNDP) Human Development Index in 2007.[7]

Yes, it would be preferable – and much easier – to do development in Afghanistan in the absence of conflict. But development cannot succeed unless one of the parties to the conflict, the Taliban, are at least held at bay.

So Canada’s military activity in Afghanistan is essential to Canada’s development activity in Afghanistan. Canadians have suffered a great deal to get that development activity underway. In fact, the Canadian men and women we spoke to in Kandahar said that this posting was one of the most fulfilling and rewarding experiences of their careers. If Canada were to pull out based on the simplistic argument that conflict is bad and development is good and the two should not be mixed, we would preclude ourselves from helping people in any conflict zone around the world – in other words, we would refuse to help people who need help the most.

As for the argument that conflict would stop if Canada and other western countries would just go away, what would replace the conflict, a return to Taliban rule?

There are three good reasons why Canada should not shy away from development enabled by a military presence:

1.     Afghans are in desperate need of assistance precisely because they have endured more than three decades of conflict.

2.     If NATO’s (and Canada’s) military presence were to disappear, there would be no possibility of development.

3.     World security is increasingly threatened by weak and failing states; the number of these states has mushroomed to around 50. Afghanistan is one that’s on the critical list.[8] These states will continue to erode unless wealthier nations focus on security and reconstruction in a serious and sustained way. Canada’s two areas of focus at the moment are Haiti and Afghanistan. Our contributions in these two states are essential to a broader effort to help stabilize failed or failing states.

Mixing war and development may seem to some people like mixing oil and water, but when development depends on security, the mix becomes essential.

Myth No. 4: “Canada Should be Engaged in Darfur Rather Than (or in Addition to) Afghanistan”

The Committee’s View:

There is an argument that the Canadian government should change its focus from Afghanistan to Darfur. On the face of it, helping the war-ridden people of Darfur would be a worthwhile mission for Canada. In fact, Canada is already involved in Darfur as part of an international initiative designed to promote peace throughout Sudan.[9]  However, there are serious impediments to Canada engaging militarily in Sudan.

First, it would constitute an outright invasion. Canadian troops have been invited into Afghanistan by the Government of Afghanistan. The Government of Sudan has issued no such invitation. The mission that is currently in Darfur[10] is the hybrid United Nations African Union Mission in Darfur (UNAMID).  The Sudanese government has blocked most non-African union troops from joining UNAMID, interfering with the mission’s operations and actively interfering in the delivery of humanitarian aid.[11]

Second, the Canadian Forces currently do not have the capacity to engage in two extremely complex missions at the same time. A Canadian commitment in Darfur would be just as resource intensive as Afghanistan – if not more so. Deploying there with inadequate resources, in the face of a hostile government, would involve an inordinate risk to the lives of Canadian troops.

There should be no illusions: Darfur would not be a peacekeeping mission. It would involve conflict and the possibility of attempting to overthrow the Sudanese government. This wouldn’t be nearly as easy as some people pretend.

We have a chance in Afghanistan, both to improve the lives of Afghans and to improve world stability. Canada’s effort in Afghanistan is a UN-mandated, multilateral, humanitarian mission. Our chances would be far slimmer in Darfur. Pulling out of Afghanistan and invading Darfur might be seen by some as a moral move – at least in terms of intent. There is a good chance it would be disastrous in terms of results.

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Part 2: Challenges in Afghanistan

Senator Tkachuk: After the Second World War, Japan and Germany sued for peace. There was the capitulation of the enemy, new forces took control of the country and then they began their process of reconstruction. Also, they began their process of democratization, especially in Japan. In Vietnam, we had a war going on while at the same time they were trying to do development and trying to make democrats out of them. That effort was not successful. Is there evidence to show that the kind of action plans we have with Afghanistan and with Iraq are going to work? Have there been historical instances of this actually working?

Seth Jones, Political Scientist, RAND Corporation: That is an excellent question. There has been a rich history of what is often termed "state building'' since the end of the cold war — for example UN, European, other NATO operations in the Balkans, Bosnia, Kosovo, Haiti, Namibia, Mozambique, the Congo, Côte d'Ivoire, and a range of other countries. I would say that even this recent history of state building, even in some cases in the midst of quite violent situations or potentially violent ones as we saw in the Balkans, suggests one very clear lesson: You cannot do this cheaply. The number of forces and the amounts of development and assistance in the Balkans were orders of magnitude higher than what is in Afghanistan. In fact, when you look at Afghanistan on a per capita level, the amount of assistance and troops on the ground have been among the lowest of any operation since World War II. I have the data if you would like to see it. Frankly, it is embarrassing that the amounts of resources provided have been as low as they are. There are two big lessons: This can be done, but it cannot be done on the cheap. Unfortunately, we have tried to do Afghanistan with a light footprint, on the cheap. I do not believe the history of that sort of strategy is particularly optimistic.[12]

Challenges to Security

The Taliban aren’t fond of what other people call progress. They don’t like paved roads – even if better roads will help Kandaharis get their crops to market – because better roads are harder to sabotage and allow Canadian troops to move more freely. They don’t like schools opening – even though schools will provide Kandaharis with better economic opportunities – because education opens minds. And the Taliban don’t like either schools or roads simply because they are being bankrolled by foreigners, the Great Satan.

So Kandaharis who earn money building new roads get threats, and Kandaharis who go to school or send their children to school get threats. Sometimes they are accosted on the street; sometimes families receive the dreaded “night letters[13]” to let them know that the Taliban are watching them and doesn’t approve of their actions.

According to a March 2008 posting on the National Defence website, quoting Sergeant John H. Dawson, a tactical Civil-Military coordinator in Kandahar, “The effect of the letters is incredible; but that’s not all. Occasionally, [the Taliban] follow through on these messages by murdering their recipients.”[14]

How often does the Taliban follow through on its death threats? Committee members aren’t sure. We certainly heard that it happens, but during our visit we were unable to get a read on frequency. Whether the answer is yes or no, threats in the night wouldn’t be taken lightly by people who lived under the brutal Taliban regime.

Certainly joining the police – now being trained and paid by Canada and the United States – decreases life expectancy. Hundreds of police officers have been ambushed and killed by the Taliban in recent years.

There are a vast array of challenges facing the Canadian mission. We found the following particularly noteworthy.

The Roadside Bomb Challenge

Senator Mitchell: Is it therefore fair to say that relatively few of our soldiers are actually killed or wounded in direct confrontation [with insurgents], because they are so effective and well trained?

Brigadier-General P.J. Atkinson, Director General of Operations, Strategic Joint Staff, National Defence: Our soldiers are well equipped and well trained, and they know what they are doing. The biggest threat to us has been and continues to be the IED threat.[15]

 

Committee members would be delighted to report that NATO has figured out how to counter Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs). But since IEDs continue to account for the vast majority of Canadian casualties in Kandahar, it is clear that this isn’t an easy problem to solve.

In Afghanistan, we met with Major Dan Shaver to discuss IEDs. Every Canadian soldier has been trained to operate in an IED environment, and Canada has acquired equipment capable of detecting and clearing a large percentage of IEDs. An example of this counter-IED equipment is the Canadian Forces new Expedient Route-Opening Capability (EROC) system[16] which includes the Husky, Buffalo and Cougar vehicles. Also important: the procurement of more blast-resistant vehicles such as the RG-31 Nyala, the armoured patrol vehicle that the Committee travelled in while visiting development projects in Kandahar City and in the surrounding areas.

The use of specialized vehicles leads to spare parts and serviceability issues. Vehicles like the Husky are meant to absorb the impact of an IED. Because of the nature of the EROC system, the chances are quite high that a Buffalo and Husky would detonate an IED while performing their tasks. The possibility of repairs depends on the size of the blast and which part of the vehicle takes the greatest impact. The Committee was told that out of the four Huskies in theatre, one was down for repairs after being hit; only leaving three operational. At most, Canada has 12 operational EROC vehicles in theatre at any given time. We had to agree with the soldiers who told us that they could use a lot more.

Expedient Route-Opening Capability (EROC)

 

The EROC is a counter-IED system that consists of three blast-resistant vehicles which travel in single file to clear a route that is suspected to be laden with IEDs.

 

How it works: After the Husky vehicle first detects a suspected IED, the specialized mine clearing Buffalo vehicle uses its distinctive robot arm to probe and delicately remove the object from its hiding place. Once the IED is confirmed, disposal is done by the Cougar vehicle, which houses a specialized Explosive Ordnance Disposal team of combat engineers. The Cougar itself takes no part in de-mining; it simply transports the team and its gear including mine-protected suites, bomb- disposal robots, etc.

 

Major Shaver was open about the fact that every time NATO gets smarter about defending against IEDs, the Taliban seem to get smarter about setting them. The devices are getting bigger, they are increasing built out of non-ferrous materials[17] that are much more difficult to detect, and the Taliban have developed a wide variety of triggering devices. This is an ongoing challenge – regardless of what new countermeasures are employed by our military, insurgents will continue to build more powerful bombs and develop more ways to circumvent Canadian counter-IED tactics.[18]

The Challenge in the Air

Uninhabited Aerial Vehicles

One of the best ways of countering IEDs is to catch insurgents planting them, which is most easily done from the air. The Committee was shown footage by an Uninhabited Aerial Vehicle (UAV) of the Taliban planting IEDs, and then being successfully attacked by ordnance dropped from American jets. The Committee cannot stress enough the importance of improving Canada’s UAV capacity in Afghanistan. The Canadian military is using Sagem Sperwer tactical uninhabited aerial vehicles for reconnaissance. These have proven themselves to be unreliable when heat, wind and dust conditions get bad, as they often do in Afghanistan. Two had just crashed when we arrived.

The Government of Canada is also soliciting bids to acquire more sophisticated high-altitude long-endurance and medium-altitude long-endurance UAVs with the capacity to carry ordnance[19]. These won’t be available for a few years. Meanwhile, the word is that Canada is looking for an interim capability to replace the Sperwer and that an early contract award is anticipated and the UAVs will be in Afghanistan by year end which is about the time that the last Sperwer is likely to go down. These will be for reconnaissance only. They will not have the attack capacity of the UAVs Canada is expected to acquire a few years from now. That is a pity, and just one more challenge Canadian troops will have to live with in Kandahar. Members of our Committee have frequently advocated for increased use of UAVs in Kandahar. At least the Manley Panel’s complaint about the Canadian Forces’ lack of UAV capacity seems to have belatedly stimulated the Canadian government to begin dealing with the problem.

Helicopters

There is a similar problem in Afghanistan with the Canadian Forces’ lack of medium lift helicopters to support operations. It has been apparent since the outset of this mission that our troops need helicopters. Travelling by air avoids IED explosions – easily the No. 1 killer of Canadian troops since the mission began. In the summer of 2006, the Government announced that it planned to purchase a number of medium lift helicopters to fill the void.

Two years later, negotiations are still proceeding to purchase approximately 16 medium lift helicopters. But even with speedy approval of a contract, first delivery will not occur until 2011/12.  The Manley Panel strongly recommended the acquisition of helicopters, and the Canadian Government is now negotiating to provide a limited helicopter capability in Afghanistan by the end of this year.  This deal would see the Forces buy a number of used American helicopters currently operating in Afghanistan. It is anticipated that delivery would occur no later than the end of 2008, finally permitting the Forces to stop relying so heavily on road convoys for re-supply and movement of troops.

The Afghan National Army

There are a variety of obstacles to turning the Afghanistan National Army (ANA) into a military force capable of protecting Afghans without the support of foreign troops. For starters, the ANA lacks the equipment, resources and personnel to do the job. As Afghanistan expert Seth Jones from the RAND Corporation testified to the Committee on December 10, 2007:

 

Mr. Jones: The Afghan National Army is in relatively good shape. It has become more competent in conducting operations. Most of its army recruits are fearless. They will fight. There have been some retention problems, but the army is in decent shape, especially relative to the police. They cannot operate on their own for several reasons. One is that they have no air power, so they would need embeds anyway if there was need for air support. There are not enough personnel in the Afghan National Army to operate independently against insurgent groups.[20]

 

In Kandahar, the Committee met Canadian Major Mark Campbell, who is involved in mentoring Afghan soldiers. He told us that strength and courage among Afghan army recruits are in ample supply, but that other things get in the way of building an effective fighting machine.

Absences

For instance, Canadian soldiers were shocked to discover Afghan soldiers going AWOL (Absent Without Official Leave) quite frequently. The causes turned out to be part cultural, part financial. What would be seen as a court martial offence in Canada is simply not considered as a big deal in Afghanistan, particularly if a person disappears for a while with every intention of coming back. Often, the Committee was told, absences were related to the dire poverty of soldiers’ families. When a soldier gets paid, he knows his family needs the money, and there is no easy way of getting the money to where it is needed other than taking it there. 

Another factor involved is that some Afghans soldiers appear to find it difficult to be away from their homes and families for long periods of time. The Afghan army 9-month operational cycle is composed of one month leave, two months training, and six months operational.

This recurring pattern of disappearances doesn’t exactly contribute to the kind of disciplined armed forces that Afghanistan is going to need to wage a counter-insurgency war.

Training

 

Operational Mentor Liaison Teams (OMLT) & Training the Afghan National Army (ANA)

 

BASIC TRAINING: The basic training and equipping of Afghan National Army recruits is done by the US-led Combined Security Transition Command – Afghanistan (CSTC-A). Approximately 30 CF personnel serve in the CSTC-A.[21]

 

MENTORING: After ANA soldiers graduate from basic training, they are deployed at various points in the country where they are mentored. The Afghan troops deployed to Kandahar are mentored by Canadian troops through Operational Mentor Liaison Teams (OLMT or “omelette”). During mentoring, Canadian soldiers are embedded with Afghan army units, where they conduct operations together.

 

At present, the OMLT consists of approximately 200 CF personnel who are training approximately 3,000 Afghan soldiers of the 1st Brigade, 205th Corps, broken down into Kandaks (battalions) of about 350 soldiers each.[22]

 

One of the biggest barriers to creating a first-class Afghan military has been lack of training.  Canada is not responsible for the training of the ANA through the auspices of NATO; rather, Canadians are supplementing the training in Kandahar with on-the-job training, or mentoring.  This is a good thing, because Canadians have a reputation for being good mentors. There are a couple of problems, however.

The first problem involves the superiority of sustained training, as opposed to hit-and-miss training. Because Canadian troops are rotated in and out on a six-month basis, and because the Afghanistan government may move Afghan troops in and out of Kandahar at unpredictable times, and because Afghan troops have a 9-month operational cycle as described above, it isn’t always easy for a Canadian mentor to offer more than hit-and-miss advice.

The second problem the Committee was told by Canadian trainers is changing mindsets. Many of the traditions within the Afghan military were instilled by Soviet advisors during that country’s occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s. Within the Soviet tradition, senior officers are responsible for just about all the decision-making, with little room left for showing initiative in the lower ranks. This doesn’t always make for motivated, thoughtful soldiers – which the ANA will need plenty of if they plan to secure the country.

The Intelligence Challenge

It would be blithe to pretend that the entire population of Kandahar loves Canadians and hates the Taliban. Not so. This is the Taliban’s home territory and most of their support comes from this southern region.[23] Most of the Taliban leaders are from the Panjwai district of Kandahar. Bin Laden had a mosque here. Another factor in the Taliban’s favour: most of the money being earned in this area outside foreign aid comes from the opium crop. The Taliban – once opium-loathers– have reinvented themselves as opium-lovers. It fuels their insurgency.

In short, there aren’t very many situations where Canadian troops encountering Afghan citizens can be completely certain that they are dealing with friends rather than foe. Intelligence and caution are both essential. When observing a Canadian-financed road currently being constructed by 400 Afghan workers, we were told that each worker has to be searched by Afghan National Police before starting work each day, and that cell phones are not allowed on the job. Trust is important to any workplace, as well as to the building of better relationships outside the workplace. But trust is currently in short supply in Kandahar, which is just one more challenge that must be overcome.

The Committee was also told that the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) works overseas to aid our troops in Afghanistan and that the degree of cooperation and intelligence sharing between different allied agencies in theatre is reaching unprecedented levels. That said, there still seems to be something missing from this picture.

While Canada has spent considerable time and money training and supporting both the Afghan National Army and the Afghan National Police, and CIDA has been actively engaged in supporting reconstruction efforts in the country, little has been said about Canada’s engagement with the Afghan intelligence community.  The Committee heard from local Afghan officials about security concerns and the pervasiveness of intelligence activity by intelligence services from Pakistan, and likely from other neighbouring countries, intended to destabilize the country. If this is the case, and we believe that it is, more needs to be done by CSIS and allied services to engage the National Directorate of Security (Afghanistan’s Intelligence Service), the Inter-Services Intelligence (Pakistan’s Intelligence Service), and others in the region.  The activities of the intelligence services cannot be viewed separately from what is happening at a political level.  The Committee believes that more needs to be done in this regard.

The Bad Neighbour Challenge

The biggest challenge to Afghanistan’s future may be its porous border with Pakistan. It didn’t exactly come as a surprise when Haji Baran, Panjwai District leader, told Committee members that Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Pakistan’s notorious intelligence agency, is actively attempting to destabilize Afghanistan.

The ISI has a reputation of being something of a free-flying force in Pakistan’s security apparatus, responsible to neither the Pakistani army nor to the country’s highest-ranking politicians. The ISI is said to use drug money and other tainted funding to fight wars in Afghanistan and Kashmir.

While the Taliban fight in Afghanistan, their headquarters are in the fortress-like city of Quetta, high in the mountains of West Pakistan.

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, while supposedly a friend of the West, has long been accused of allowing the Taliban safe haven in Pakistan’s western tribal lands, which are generally thought of as ungovernable. Whether any central government (Pakistani or Afghan) could forcibly take command of this independent-minded region and root out the Taliban remains unclear.  As Victoria-based professor Gordon Smith notes, the “destruction of the Taliban movement – were it even possible – at this point basically translates into the destruction of Pakistani influence in Afghanistan”[24] – and such influence is not given up easily.

The new coalition government led by Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gillani of the Pakistan Peoples’ Party says it is willing to negotiate with tribal militants who march under the banner of the Pakistani Tribal Movement, but whether that will lead to less interference from Pakistan’s insurgents in Afghanistan’s affairs remains an open question.[25] The new Pakistani government is still extremely fragile and it remains to be seen whether or not it will be able to affect change regarding the border situation.

The fact is that the Pashtun tribe, the tribe of the Taliban and the largest tribe in Afghanistan, is also the dominant tribe in west Pakistan, and the flimsy border between the two countries allows virtually free flow of Pashtuns between the two countries.

Pashtun members of the elected Provincial Council who we spoke to in Kandahar said they do not feel they are adequately represented in the government of President Karzai in Kabul, and feel no loyalty to his government – just as the Pashtuns of West Pakistan feel little loyalty to the Government of Pakistan in Islamabad.

In a part of the world in which tribal loyalties are paramount, this is one huge problem. The Government of Afghanistan may some day provide Afghan Pashtuns with the kinds of services and opportunities that might engender greater loyalty. But their tribal loyalties are not going to go away.

Challenges to Economic and Social Development

Senator Nolin: Let us get back to Kandahar. You have people on the ground. What can you tell us about their security?

Stephen Wallace, Vice-President, Afghanistan Task Force, Canadian International Development Agency: The situation is difficult. This year, more than 100 [international] aid workers have been killed or kidnapped. The situation is very troubling. It means that our partners have less mobility on the ground. It has caused us to think about new ways of meeting our objectives.[26]

Development Workers Vulnerable

Most Canadian-sponsored development projects are staffed by Afghans. That is partially because Canada wants Afghans to be an integral part of the development process, partially because Canada recognizes that Afghans need jobs, and partially for very practical reasons – it is extremely dangerous for Canadians to go anywhere in Kandahar without military cover.

We were told by three representatives from local Afghan non-governmental organizations (NGO) that the lack of security represents the most serious challenge to improving the lives of Kandaharis. It is difficult for development to gather momentum when workers and participants are constantly under threat from the Taliban. What we heard was not that the Taliban are overwhelmingly strong, but that the Government of Afghanistan was too weak to protect Afghans from even the medium-sized threat that the Taliban pose.

Nobody likes being terrorized, Kandaharis included. Nor do Kandaharis appreciate the Taliban getting in the way of development – certainly the ones we talked to didn’t. But in a theatre with few troops and a lot of terrain, the Taliban are inevitably going to slip in and out of communities repeatedly, reminding the populace that foreign troops will be gone some day. Only if the Afghan National Security Forces develop the capacity to establish control of this region will Taliban intimidation of development organizations, and the civilians working for them, be a less serious threat. Whether that intimidation will ever disappear completely is probably a question for future generations to answer.

International Aid Organizations and the Challenge of Kandahar

Foreign NGOs and representatives of international organizations still do not feel safe in public in Kandahar. As a result, few international agencies send staff into Kandahar. Committee members met with representatives from the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), the World Food Programme (WFP), the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), as well as representatives of several local NGOs. All had security at the top of their list of barriers to doing effective development in the province.

International organizations and NGOs use locally hired security when operating in Kandahar, but this doesn’t make them secure. One example is the United Nations High Commission for Refugees: five local UNHCR employees were killed in 2005; in 2006 employees from one of UNHCR’s medical teams were kidnapped; in 2007 one of UNHCR’s drivers was killed.

According to the World Food Programme (WFP), food aid is a prime target. In 2007 alone, we were told that 900 tonnes of food was looted, along with four food-delivery vehicles, and the drivers killed. These incidents led to a new approach to delivering food aid.  The WFP approached the communities that the food was intended for and asked for their help in retrieving the stolen food. The intervention worked, and the WFP started involving the community up front by lending vehicles to communities to come to a depot and get the food themselves. This is just one more example of how it is frequently more advisable to let Afghans take the lead.

International Cooperation and the Role of UN Relief Agencies

Some Canadian officials have positive things to say about UN and international aid workers operating in Kandahar. Stephen Wallace, Vice-President of CIDA’s Afghanistan Task Force testified before the Committee:

 

Mr. Wallace: If we look at Kandahar province and the number of aid workers through the UNICEFs, Red Crosses and United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, there are about 400 right now in Kandahar province. If we look at the number of aid workers, Afghan NGOs we are working with through the Red Cross or World Food Programme, there are about 900. About 1,300 aid workers are linked directly to Canadian support, operating in Kandahar province.[27] 

 

If accurate, these numbers are impressive. We could not corroborate them in Kandahar – in fact the impression we got from some people was that the capacity of these agencies to operate in Kandahar is very limited.

Before the Committee left for Afghanistan, we heard from Dr. Seth Jones of the RAND Corporation who took a less sanguine view than Mr. Wallace of the level of international cooperation and the role of the UN in development in southern Afghanistan:

 

Mr. Jones: The argument is that on the military front, we have multiple chains of command going through NATO, through United States Special Operations Command and then through Central Command — at least three different chains of commands.

On the civilian side, we have no chains of commands — we have the Canadians, the British and the Americans operating on multiple fronts on the civilian side. We also have non-governmental organizations and international organizations like the World Bank, the UN and the IMF. There is no clear body or individual that has so much as part of that under its authority. We have no clear command and control structure. We are involved in a counter-insurgency effort, which should be mostly non-military efforts with 10 per cent or so military

kinetic operations. Not only can we not mesh the military and civilian sides, but also we cannot even mesh the civilian sides of operations. There has to be a serious rethinking about the efficiency and coordination among states, international organizations and non-governmental organizations, even on the development side, because we are entirely inefficient.[28]

 

The Committee got no clear sense during our visit of what the UN’s role in Kandahar is meant to be. We were briefed in Kandahar by six UN representatives who gave us the distinct sense that they felt much more comfortable sitting in their offices in Kabul. We were unable to detect any sense of coordination between the UN and NATO/ISAF in Kandahar, and we had difficulty in pinning down any coherent set of UN objectives. This was not an inspiring meeting.

Refugees

Committee members were told by international aid workers that one significant problem they were wrestling with in Kandahar was the return of millions of people who had previously fled the country. In one sense the return of an estimated six million people overall to Afghanistan is a good sign – it means that people who felt they couldn’t live under previous regimes have hopes they can live under this one. It seems that Afghans want to come home.

But there are significant problems. Ownership of land is often a confusing affair in Afghanistan, involving contending ownership documents and tribal rivalries. Refugees often return to homes that have been settled by other families. Most of these people fled with nothing and have returned with nothing. They came back with expectations, but in most cases these expectations are not being met. The makeshift refugee camps they occupy are breeding grounds for discontent.

Managing Canadian Expectations

There is another problem with doing development in Afghanistan: managing Canadian expectations. Somehow the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) needs to figure out how to explain reality to Canadians hoping for a “quick fix” in Afghanistan. Economic and social development, unfortunately, is usually a slow, incremental process.

Ms. Rangina Hamadi, one of the aid representatives we spoke to, risks her life daily running a small NGO in Kandahar. She told us it takes more time to respond to needs delineated by Afghans themselves, and to proceed in ways and at a pace that Afghans are comfortable with. “We are trying to change the western quick-fix mentality – this mentality often leads to backlash from Afghans and impatience on the part of western donors. My role is to make sure that development takes place in the Afghan context.”

At a meeting of the Kandahar Provincial Reconstruction Team (KPRT), Lieutenant-Colonel Dana Woodworth told the Committee that Canada needs to keep reminding itself that it must proceed with “operational patience” – that consultation with local people is always imperative, and that the urge to just go in and “fix things” is always a mistake. Process is as important as content in many countries of the world, and Afghanistan is one of them.

Canada’s Ambassador to Afghanistan, Mr. Arif Lalani, told us that there has not been enough communication with Canadians as to why Canada will have to commit to development over the long haul if Afghanistan is ever to emerge from its status as a failed state. Ambassador Lalani also said that the Canadian government intends to come out with clear benchmarks of what it hopes to achieve in Afghanistan within a few months. “We’ll be able to say here are the five priorities we want to achieve there.”

Committee members are all in favour of benchmarks, of course, and acknowledge that documents such as the Afghanistan Compact and the Afghanistan National Development Strategy[29] state objectives and outline benchmarks for Afghanistan agreed to by the Canadian government, the international community as well as the Afghan government. Still, the Committee has to wonder why it is only now – almost seven years after our original deployment to Afghanistan and two and half years after making the Kandahar commitment – that officials in Ottawa are deliberating as to what specifically the Canadian perspective is with regard to what Canada hopes to achieve in Afghanistan, and especially, in Kandahar. One might have thought those deliberations would have been engaged in before the mission began, and adjusted once we hit the ground and reality set in. Nevertheless, late benchmarks are better than no benchmarks.

Many development workers pointed out that sending reporters and other development workers to try to demonstrate to Canadians that their money is doing valuable work in Afghanistan is sometimes problematic. For instance, Committee members took Canadian spokespersons at their word when they told us that Canada is making valuable investments in community schools in remote areas. We took their word even though they told us that we couldn’t visit those schools, for fear of repercussions from the Taliban.

We do have one question about CIDA spending. The agency’s website says that Canada has committed $15.5 million for the widespread creation of community-based schools in Afghanistan, in partnership with an experienced non-governmental organization from Bangladesh. Why is only $3.5 million of that money going to Kandahar Province, which should be a focus of Canadian aid activity?

While Committee members would like to have seen some evidence of what is being done with schools in remote areas – simply to paint a better picture for Canadians – we recognize the need for caution in this case. This really is a dilemma at the heart of communicating the value of Canada’s development mission in the most insecure parts of Afghanistan.

Managing Kandahari Expectations 

Senator Moore: When we were there [in 2006], we were told that Kandahar City has two hours of electricity per day. Is that supply still the same, to the best of your knowledge?

Brigadier-General A.J. Howard, Director General Operations, Strategic Joint Staff, National Defence: In the early new year of 2007, we were concerned there would be no power at all. Minimal power is going towards Kandahar City.

Senator Moore: This is a city of 600,000 people.

BGen. Howard: Yes: There was some threat that without improved wages there would be no power, so that situation needed to be dealt with.[30] 

 

Seth Jones, Political Scientist, RAND Corporation: The key problem is what local Afghans at the village level think. You have to remember that, over the last 30 years of violence since the 1979 invasion, all politics in Afghanistan is local. It matters less what happens in Kabul and Kandahar City than it does what happens in the rural areas of the country. That is where you win or lose any counter- insurgency effort.[31]

 

The Committee has been critical of CIDA in the past for not focusing more of its Afghan aid program on Kandahar, where Canadian troops need all the help they can get in winning popular trust and support. The Manley Panel voiced similar concerns.

The Committee was told that it is important that CIDA act in harmony with Afghanistan’s national development plan, and that foreign aid money is seen to be funnelled through the Government of Afghanistan, to help Afghans build up an allegiance to that Government. Still, CIDA should be able to find ways of focusing more on Kandahar.

CIDA representatives have acknowledged to us that the agency has not had sufficient people on the ground. Ambassador Lalani told the Committee that CIDA doubled its personnel on the ground over the past year to nine CIDA staff, and is shooting to double that contingent in the summer of 2008. Because of the shortage of personnel CIDA also says that while it managed to get food aid to approximately 400,000 Kandaharis in desperate need through the World Food Programme, it has failed to reach at least an equal number who are also in great need.

On the other hand the agency obviously believes that it has done a lot of good work in Kandahar – of which neither Canadians nor Kandaharis seem to be particularly aware. A visit to the CIDA website reveals that it has claimed to have accomplished much in the areas of health, education, community development, humanitarian assistance and infrastructure[32].

However, it is possible that all these accomplishments are merely a drop in the bucket compared to the needs of Kandaharis. We heard Kandaharis complain that President Karzai is quick to brag about all the foreign aid that his government is delivering to Afghans, but in reality delivers very little. Certainly we heard those kinds of complaints on our visit, usually accompanied by suspicions that aid money is disappearing into the pockets of corrupt officials before it gets to where it is needed.

Or perhaps Canadian and other aid donors in Kandahar – hobbled by a lack of mobility in a difficult security environment, and reluctant to ballyhoo particular projects lest they be targeted by the Taliban – simply aren’t getting the message across to Kandaharis that progress is being made.

Either way, hearts and minds are not going to be won if these people do not believe they are getting a better deal from Kabul than they would be getting from the Taliban.

Challenges to Governance,  Human Rights and the Rule of Law

What are the biggest challenges to the future of Afghanistan? Certainly the country has severe security and economic issues. But social issues constitute a huge part of the mix. When human beings can’t get a fair shake because they are from the wrong tribe, or the wrong gender, or because of corruption within the bureaucracy, loyalty to the state can seem like a fruitless exercise in self-deception. Good governance, human rights and the rule of law are essential to Afghanistan’s future, and all are in short supply at the moment.

Gender and UN Security Council Resolution 1325

 

UN SECURITY COUNCIL RESOLUTION 1325 ON WOMEN, PEACE AND SECURITY[33]

 

On October 31, 2000, the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security. The eighteen article resolution urges those parties involved in armed conflict (and conflict resolution) to take into account the special needs of women and girls, who, in a conflict situation, arguably suffer the most in a civilian population.

 

UN Resolution 1325 calls upon signatory countries to include women in the decision-making process with regards to reconstruction, development and governance. The Resolution is not about imposing Western values on other cultures, but recognizing that women have a vital (even if unrecognized) role in a society, and – for practical and moral issues – cannot be left out in any comprehensive reconstruction efforts. 

 

 

Women are among the most marginalized groups in Afghan society and are heavily impacted by instability, abuse, violence, and poverty. This unfairness stands out, even in a country in which unfairness is endemic. It is a human tragedy for individuals, and a social tragedy for a nation that needs to maximize every resource. Of all the wasted resources in Afghanistan, women top the list. Dr. Seth Jones from the RAND Corporation told the Committee before we left for Afghanistan that he has seen little evidence that the terms of UN Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security is taken seriously in Afghanistan. En route to Afghanistan, Ambassador Lalani told us that cultural change on issues like gender discrimination will take generations. The argument from many Afghan males is that the UN resolution is several decades in advance of where Afghanistan is, and it is too early to push for women's reform. Dr Jones doesn’t agree, but recognizes that this attitude exists and stands in the way of reform. He sees no evidence that women are being treated any better than they were five years ago.[34]

When the Committee met with Ms. Rangina Hamadi in Kandahar, she stressed that cultural change such as women’s rights should be undertaken within an Afghan timeframe. As a women’s rights activist, she understands first hand that rushing such initiatives could cause serious backlash. Her life, and the lives of other women and girls pushing gender boundaries by participating in the decision-making process (national, provincial and community-based), earning an income, going to school, are at risk every day. She said, however, that the risk of backlash should not be a deterrent, just an important reminder for Canada to be realistic.

Corruption

Corruption hobbles the Karzai government. The Taliban government was cruel and tyrannical, but it was ruthlessly fierce in its adherence to its extremist interpretation of Qu’ranic values. Corruption – and disdain for the poor – is as contemptible in the Qu’ran as it is in the Bible. Unfortunately, corruption is also endemic within the Afghan civil service.

President Karzai spends a lot of time proclaiming the benefits of the foreign aid his government is attracting to the country, but when remote communities don’t see a flow-through at their end, they conclude the worst: it has disappeared into the pockets of every level of civil servant and policeman between them and the President.

An Afghan engineer named Noozai, head of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission, told Committee members that ordinary people feel there is a huge gap between them and the government in Kabul. Many people in Kabul seem to have money. But in remote areas, ordinary Afghans are lucky to have mud brick hovels. Still, others in the urban core of Kandahar City are starving to death while the mansions of warlords loom over them.

If there is one message we heard over and over again, it was there is a lack of fairness in the system – the lot of the poorest of the poor is not improving in anything more than a marginal way. We also heard that the best people are not hired by the government – hiring too often it depends on tribe or family.

In Kandahar, there is plenty of anecdotal evidence to connect the administration of the governor, Assudullah Khalid, as well as Parliamentarians in Kabul to corruption. This matter was of strong concern to the local people we spoke with on our visit. It may have been unfortunate that former Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Maxime Bernier questioned Khalid’s usefulness so openly with reporters in an April 14^th 2008 news conference, but Canadian officials are right to be frustrated about the Governor’s counter-productive presence.

How far can Canada push President Karzai on putting a tighter squeeze on corruption? The Committee has been adamant that reconstruction has to proceed under the direction of the Afghans, with respect for Afghan ways of doing things. Unfortunately, corruption is one component in the grand mix of Afghan traditions– people at various rungs on the ladder of power have tended to take more than their share, and the gushers of money pouring out of the drug trade don’t help.

Canada can argue that corruption is counter-productive; Canada can push to have corruption punished; Canada can threaten to withdraw aid; because corruption may be the one issue over which Canada should draw a line in the sand. If corruption continues at the level at which it now flourishes, it is difficult to imagine ordinary Afghans overcoming the cynicism we saw and developing loyalty to what is supposed to be an exciting new state. Corrupt states only excite those who benefit from all the corruption, leaving the vast majority of citizens disaffected – and looking for something else.

The Afghan National Police

 

Senator Banks: One of the main tenets in war is that when we conquer territory, to keep it we must be able to occupy it, and we occupy it with military forces. Are the police the right people to train people to do that? Is it proper for the Afghan National Police to do that job?

Pierre-Yves Bourduas, Deputy Commissioner, Federal Services and Central Region, Royal Canadian Mounted Police: The question is valid. We were taking into account the volatile environment. We must also bear in mind that there is not a line-up of volunteers to join the Afghan National Police, because they have recently constituted soft targets.

Senator Banks: That is because they are functioning as infantry, and they are not infantry.

Mr. Bourduas: There have been a number of casualties, and that does not help with recruiting. As you have indicated, when the military has secured an environment, the Afghan National Police, with an auxiliary force, comes in to maintain it. It is part of their training to establish a community relationship and take into account what has taken place there. There is a role for the police and a role for the military. Given that the area is highly volatile, at times we must remove these police officers to regain territory, and that has created many problems. Also, we have experienced a number of desertions. Some people have dropped their guns and left.

Senator Banks: Do they not take their guns with them? Do they actually leave them behind?

Mr. Bourduas: They leave them behind. That is the current reality on the ground.[35]

 

The Afghan National Police (ANP) are routinely castigated for shaking people down for bribes and deserting their posts, but they deserve some sympathy. Their lot is not an enviable one. Police in any country are going to have trouble performing well if they have substandard equipment, low salaries and inconsistent training. Nor is it morale boosting to be the primary targets for Taliban insurgents, who continue to ambush them at their flimsy posts in remote areas.

How does one reform a police force in which at least 80 per cent of the officers are illiterate, and therefore incapable of reading the laws they are supposed to enforce? Not surprisingly – with their easy access to drugs being transported for export and with the constant threats that surround them – we were told that many Afghan police officers are drug addicts. Finally, there appears to be little incentive for police officers to perform well, since nobody ever seems to get fired, no matter how woeful their performance.

Ambassador Arif Lalani told us that a countrywide attempt at training the ANP (undertaken by the Germans) didn’t seem to improve things much, so donor countries with regional security responsibilities – such as Canada – are tackling the problem in each region. The Canadian and American plan to pay the ANP in Kandahar directly is a starting point – police salaries were scheduled to increase, but very little of the money has yet to materialize. As Omar Samad, Afghanistan’s Ambassador to Canada noted: “we need more training and better pay for the police, so that a [Taliban] agent cannot come and buy the Afghan police for $5 a day. That is exactly what happens. The Talib police are paid $5 a day; the Afghan national police are paid $1 a day. So we have a problem. The drug lord comes and offers $6 a day, so you have another problem.”[36]

To compound the problem, we were told that there is little agreement among donor countries and the Government of Afghanistan on salary levels, a system of salary delivery and overall ANP training. In fact, there are some glaring criticisms of existing training methods of donor countries, as the Committee heard in testimony:

 

Senator Moore: We heard that the Americans and the Germans were there training the police. One company out of California was spending $5 billion per year to train police. Canada was spending around $2 million, although I forget the exact figure. The training was for a period of several weeks but most of the people left after five weeks. We asked why they would not stay for the full training, and they said they would get the money elsewhere, from a warlord or from the Taliban. Some of them were Taliban, but not strident members. Then again, they could get money from a minister in Kabul who would buy their loyalty. Are you aware of all of that?

Paul LaRose-Edwards, Executive Director, CANADEM: Yes.

Senator Moore: Were you aware of those things going on?

Mr. LaRose-Edwards: Yes.

Senator Moore: This is huge money, and I am surprised by such a company as that.

Mr. LaRose-Edwards: The company is DynCorp International.

Christine Vincent, Deputy Executive Director, CANADEM: DynCorp International is funded by the U.S. government, so there is an issue with taking Canadians. Tonita Murray has written a critical article on police training in Kabul, which I would be happy to share with you. Ms. Murray was head of the Canadian Police College and worked with the Ministry of the Attorney General, so she has a lot of experience. She wrote a critical article on police training in general, and she felt that the international community had failed the Afghan national police force.

Senator Moore: It sounds to me like a story from Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, where the Americans say, "You need training of policemen; it will cost you $5 billion; we will give you the $5 billion; and you pay the company from California to do the work.'' The money goes through and none of it sticks to the Afghan economy.

Mr. LaRose-Edwards: It is a regular occurrence.[37] 

Training the Afghan National Police (ANP) and Focus District Development (FDD)

 

BASIC TRAINING: The basic training of Afghan National Police is done by two main entities, the American-led Combined Security Transition Command (CSTC-A) and the European Union-led European Police Mission to Afghanistan (EUPOL). Afghan police recruits from Kandahar are trained under CSTC-A’s Regional Training Centre in Kandahar.   

 

MENTORING: As of September 2007, the Canadian Operational Mentor and Liaison Teams formed a sub-unit to work with Afghan police graduates called the Police OMLT or POMLT (“pomlette”). The POMLT embeds Canadian military police and combat arms specialists in some of the ANP’s 28 checkpoint and 6 substations in Kandahar. ANP officers also get additional training from the Canadian civilian police, in softer, civilian police methods. Afghan police posts are regularly attacked by the Taliban.

 

JOINT POLICE SUBSTATIONS: For the last year, a number of Canadian soldiers have been posted to joint police substations throughout the Zhari-Panjwai District. One substation would include about 10-15 ANP and 7 Canadian soldiers, 4-5 of which are Military Police, then rest, infantry soldiers. They conduct joint patrols of their jurisdiction as a confidence building measure to ensure that Afghans moving back into the area feel safe.

 

FOCUSED DISTRICT DEVELOPMENT (FDD): Recognizing the uneven training of the ANP, a joint US-Afghan Ministry of Interior initiative called Focused District Development will remove existing Afghan police officers from their districts, retrain and reinsert them. FDD will train officers one district at a time and will provide additional survival training, law enforcement skill, as well as human rights, Afghan law and culture.[38] The first cycle of FDD training began in December 2007. With Canada’s influence FDD is now also going to be delivered in Kandahar City, training 188 ANP for two months at the Regional Training Centre, while the Afghan National Civil Order Police will fill the vacant positions.[39] 

A Long List of Problems

The list of ANP problems is long and discouraging. For a start, police and prosecutors need to train together so the police understand the judicial process. The police should know what kind of evidence is legitimate and how to treat suspects appropriately to ensure the accused will get a fair trial.

There are plenty of female victims in Afghanistan, but few women in the ANP. The government is aware that more need to be hired. The women currently serving do not play a significant role in the ANP. In her report on the status of women in the ANP, Tonita Murray, Gender Advisor for the Afghan Ministry of Interior, found that “while the training of policewomen is supposed to be equivalent to that of men, even at the officer level many have had little training… In effect, they have little presence in the ANP or in the public mind and, consequently have virtually no impact on policing in Afghanistan.”[40]

The Afghan police are trained more toward going toe-to-toe with Taliban insurgents than to do the kind of police work that is the backbone of a civil society. There are Canadians in Afghanistan ­– like Sgt. Paul Wassill of the Durham Regional Police – whose roles are to ‘civilianize’ the training of the ANP. But much more of this is needed. Then again, how much priority is the Government of Afghanistan going to put on developing a civilian police force when it needs every body it can get to stave off the Taliban? Kandahar province is still a long way from having a mature system within which the army fights battles and the police protect citizens.

Reform of the Afghan National Police is undoubtedly one of the biggest barriers to success in Afghanistan. It will be one of the toughest nuts to crack.

Reforming the Judicial System

Senator Moore: That has to come from the central government, but there seems to be a traditional system of justice within the tribal regions, and they are not adopting — and perhaps they do not think they need — a national system of justice such as we have in Canada.

Seth Jones, Political Scientist, RAND Corporation: Yes. In my personal view, that is okay to some degree. Especially in Pashtun areas, when someone steals someone else's animal, the issue may be addressed at a local jirga level. Local tribal elders will be called, have a meeting and will address it. More serious issues such as murder and killing are sometimes addressed by jirgas and sometimes above and beyond that. We have seen that in some provinces they are being addressed by a Taliban governance structure. At low levels we have an informal, jirga-based system and at high levels we have a somewhat formal system. It is just not particularly effective.[41]

 

Since crimes and disputes have traditionally been dealt with at a local level in Afghanistan, it is not easy to impose a universal justice system. This, of course, is sometimes complicated by different attitudes in different regions as to whether Sharia law[42] trumps government law, or vice versa.

Committee members were told that there are only six judges for all of Kandahar province, and that they are reluctant to handle security cases or some types of controversial cases for fear of tribal retribution. One suggested solution is to send in judges from Kabul. This could be a start to professionalizing the justice sector, although it might run into local antagonism if the judges were seen as “outsiders” replacing persons of standing from within communities. Reforming the justice sector will face numerous obstacles.

Elissa Goldberg, the Representative of Canada in Kandahar (ROCK), told us that in recent years the Government of Afghanistan has passed 188 laws on taxes, customs, and land regulations, etc. Turning words into deeds comes next. So far there has been no flood of anecdotes suggesting that police have quit taking bribes, or all cabinet ministers have distanced themselves from patronage, or even from the drug trade. In a largely illiterate country with little central government presence, who knows about these laws? And in a country with entrenched customs, in which local leaders have traditionally settled disputes, who cares? The Committee was told that an estimated 60-70 percent of criminal charges are currently dealt with through the informal justice system.  It seems that reform of the justice system in Afghanistan actually trails police reform.

Ambassador Lalani guessed that it would take a generation for legal changes and new judicial procedures to take hold. One senses that the Ambassador is an optimist.

Why Poppies Threaten a Stable and Just Afghanistan

Afghanistan’s reliance on narcotics to fuel its underground economy is well known. In 2006, 93 percent of the world’s heroin originated from Afghanistan.[43] In addition to representing challenges to global anti-drug efforts and the development of a balanced Afghan economy, narcotics also represent a harmful spoiler to virtually all Canadian efforts in Kandahar. Unfortunately, the Committee did not spend much time studying the poppy situation in Kandahar province while on its 2008 visit. Committee members acknowledge that the opium trade is a cross-cutting issue that fuels corruption and hampers Canadian progress in the region.

In short, this is what the Committee heard:

·           Rule of Law: During our visit, the Committee was told by Canadian police trainers that narcotics represented a major challenge to the Afghan National Police, and that drug addiction rates in the police are substantial.

·           Corruption: The cultivation of poppies helps the status quo and maintains corrupt people in power. As the Committee was told, “the most significant area in which you see corruption is involvement in the narcotics trade. Individuals are involved in various ways in controlling areas or forces that are reaping profits through taxes or in other ways on the production, cultivation and trafficking of poppy.”  This status quo, we were told by Afghans, increases popular perceptions of a corrupt central government.

·        Security: The Taliban would not exist without drugs , and the money derived from the drug trade is a major source of the Taliban’s current influence: it’s what gives the Taliban the ability to buy supporters in the south, pay off the Afghan National Police, as well as purchase rocket launchers and materials to make IEDs to kill Canadians. As long as drugs remain entrenched in Kandahar, the insurgency will not die.  

The Committee stands by it February 2007 recommendation, that the Government of Canada advise the Karzai government that it must present to NATO a comprehensive, transparent and effective plan to reduce corruption as a condition of Canada’s continued long term commitment in Afghanistan.

Challenges to Canada’s  “All of Government” Approach

Gagged Canadian Government Civilians

Prime Minister Harper was criticized by the Manley Panel for not taking the lead in communicating with Canadians what is happening in Afghanistan. Since February 2008, the Government has been holding technical briefings in Ottawa about three times a month on Canada’s mission in Afghanistan. Ministers and senior representatives from the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (DFAIT), CIDA and the Department of National Defence (DND) have been regularly updating reporters and answering questions regarding the mission. The Committee acknowledges that giving background information to the media is a good start but the government is still too restrictive in communicating with Canadians. For starters, cameras should be allowed at these briefings.

On the ground in Afghanistan, military spokespersons appear to be far more forthcoming about progress and problems on the security front than anyone speaking on the diplomatic or development fronts. During our visit, the six of us were told that the government discourages civilians representing CIDA or DFAIT from talking to reporters or other visitors about their activities. How can all this gagging lead to better communication to the Canadian public about why Canada is in Afghanistan?

Canadians should be hearing about Canada’s mission in Afghanistan from Ottawa and from the field. Granted there should be some acknowledgement that our forces are involved in counterinsurgency operations and this fact places certain restrictions on communications for security sake. The Committee thinks that Canadians would appreciate hearing from the men and women, military and civilian, in the field to gain a better understanding of the conditions they live in, the threats to security they face as well as the progress they are making.

Too Few People for a Huge Job

Canadian Government Officials

A second point about Canadian government officials on the ground: there simply aren’t enough of them. Canada is well short of the number of soldiers needed to control Kandahar, and extremely short of the number of diplomats and aid officials needed to coordinate activities with the Government of Afghanistan in Kabul, and to run Canada’s largest international development program.

There are 26 Canadian government officials in total in Kandahar. We were told that the government intends to double this number in the next year. Doubling sounds like a big deal, but it isn’t when the base number is currently a 26. The civilians we spoke to in Kandahar strongly expressed that they could use more help in general. The operational tempo is intense and since the Afghan work week conflicts with the Canadian work week[44] and there is always work to be done, there are not many rest days. In a stressful environment, it is no wonder our civilians are burning out.

In addition, the Committee heard that civilians in Kandahar could especially use help in areas that need a dramatic amount of improvement:

·        civilian police from the RCMP as well as municipal and provincial police officers from across Canada to assist with training the ANP

·        legal experts from Justice Canada to help with justice reform in Kandahar, which lags far behind all other sectors

·        government employees in public affairs so that government officials working in Kandahar can get their true message out to the Canadian public

At the Strategic Advisory Team in Kabul, Col. Serge Labbé told us he would like to see at least 100 of Canada’s best men and women serving on the SAT-A.

 

Strategic Advisory Team – Afghanistan (SAT-A)

 

·        The Strategic Advisory Team is a Canadian Forces initiative that began in 2005 to provide, on a bi-lateral basis, a team of strategic military planners to support the development of Afghan government ministries with Canadian expertise.[45]

 

·        As of March 2008, SAT-A has 19 personnel, whose role is to advise and assist their colleagues in Afghan Ministries to overcome procedural matters, while staying neutral regarding policy.

 

·        SAT-A is part of the implementation of the broader Afghanistan National Development Strategy, with Canada in the lead on this initiative.

 

If the Canadian Government needs to pay bonuses to help inspire Canadian government employees to work in Kandahar, it should pay them. Even another one million dollars on the public service payroll would be a miniscule amount compared to the risk of trying to run such a large and vital exercise with a short-staffed core of tired people.

The Canadian civilians we met in Kandahar appeared, for the most part, to be extremely competent. These people won’t be able to do what they need to do if we burn them out.

Military Personnel

(a) To Fight the Insurgency

 

“The size of the foreign military presence in Afghanistan has been well below what might have been expected from the start. In the southern sector, there are approximately 6 soldiers per 100 square kilometres. In Bosnia, a country less than a third the size of Afghanistan, there are still 11 soldiers to cover the same area more than 10 years after they were first deployed following the Dayton accords (at which time there were 117 soldiers per 100 square kilometres).

 

…If an insurgent is faced with overwhelming force, he is less likely to engage in violent actions. The level of violence in the south in 2006 is a reflection of how little force ISAF can muster on the ground. More importantly, the numbers show just how little political will – as distinct from rhetoric – countries have when it comes to Afghanistan. While well-conceived tactics are important, political will is essential to defeat an insurgency.”[46]

 

The Committee has repeatedly argued that the contingent of 2,500 Canadian soldiers in Kandahar – of which only about 1,000 troops are engaged in combat outside the wire – is not large enough to neutralize the insurgents. The Committee was surprised that the Manley Panel recommended that Canada insist that NATO bring in only an additional 1,000 troops. We believe that it will take far more than 1,000 extra soldiers to push the Taliban out of Kandahar province, a prerequisite to full-scale reconstruction.

France’s commitment to deploy troops to eastern Afghanistan in order to free up American combat soldiers to hook up with Canadian troops in the South is, of course, a welcome response to the Manley Panel request. There has been speculation that Washington may end up sending a much larger contingent, which would also be most welcome. Let us be blunt: from what we have seen, and what we have heard from virtually every commander and every rank-and-file soldier with Kandahar experience that we have talked to, even twice as many combat soldiers operating in Kandahar would fall short of what is needed to assure the degree of security to get development moving.

Although Canadian soldiers are fighting along side the Afghan National Army, the ANA still doesn’t have what it takes to integrate with a professional fighting unit. What’s missing? To name a few things: several kinds of modern equipment, communications and logistics units and air capacity. Eventually the ANA should have what it takes, but this is a work in progress.  

(b) To Enable Development and Mentor

 

It is clear to Committee members that Kandahar is not yet safe enough for civilians – local or Canadian – to venture into the countryside, unprotected, to participate in development work. As mentioned earlier, the Canadian Forces’ civil-military cooperation CIMIC teams are incredibly useful in these situations. These teams go outside the wire weekly, interacting with Kandaharis and facilitating development projects. However, these teams are stretched thin. As the Afghan National Army’s capacity grows, Canada should take the opportunity to expand its involvement with these Operational Mentor and Liaison Teams. This is one of the ways Canada can increase its non-combat commitment to Kandahar. Once again, however, we remind Canadians that these kinds of operations cannot flourish without a much greater degree of security in place.

In the Committee’s last report on Afghanistan (2007), we recommended that the Government of Canada send up to 250 additional Canadian Forces instructors to expand the capacity of Canadian Operational Mentor Liaison Teams to help train the Afghan National Army. The Committee is pleased to see that the Canadian Forces have expanded the Liaison Teams and recommends that it continues to do so as the size of the ANA grows.

More Time to Do the Job Right

Canadian soldiers told the Committee repeatedly that six months is just not long enough for them to do their jobs effectively. By the time a soldier is comfortable doing his or her job – with all the insights that requires – too often it is time to leave. This is particularly true for soldiers who work with local Afghans. Good working relations with Afghans depend on trust. Given the history of the country, foreign troops need to earn this trust, and they need time to do it

It’s tough to build trusting relationships when Canadian soldiers disappear every six months, replaced by people who have to climb the learning curve all over again.

Canadian government officials working at the Kandahar Provincial Reconstruction Team (KPRT) have daily interactions with local Afghans. More intelligently, they are posted to Kandahar for nine months to a year. On the military side, ANA mentors and CIMIC officers are posted for six months. There is a six-day transition period with their predecessors. The process makes sense – the soldier who is leaving shows around his or her replacement for three days, meeting the local workers and decision-makers. Then, for the next three days, the soldier who is leaving shadows his or her replacement to ensure that the replacement has a good feel for how to go about the job. The Committee was told that when a soldier shows trust in his or her replacement, Afghans are likely to as well.  This is a good process, if a brief one, but Committee members find it hard to believe that it works effectively every time it takes place. It seems to us that the fewer times the baton needs to be passed, the less chance there is of dropping it.

 

Nine to Twelve Months a Better Option

There are a number of reasons why rotations longer than six months, for certain personnel, is a good idea.

The first is obvious – nine to twelve months would give Canadian soldiers more time to understand Afghanistan and Afghans, likely increasing the success of the mission. The six-month rotation hinders Afghan stability, where knowledge of the local population is key to winning their support as well as distancing them from militants.

The second is that Canadian soldiers would be better off deploying to Afghanistan less frequently – and so would their families. Multiple tours are already routine because Canada is short of soldiers. Surely two tours of nine months, for example, would be less disruptive to families than three shorter tours. Soldiers should get bonuses for longer tours in the form of extra pay and longer leaves. It goes without saying that tours should not be extended for troops already in the field or for those who are currently in training for the next rotation, who were told (and whose family were told) they were going for six months.

The Committee is also aware of the challenges regarding replacements in situ - the way in which the Canadian Forces conduct the turnover of troops in the field - and the implications this may have on operations. The military would have to take into account the difficulties associated with changing troops in theatre at the height of insurgent activity when deciding on appropriate tour of duty extensions. In the end, the Committee believes that this challenge would be counterbalanced by potentially safer tours resulting from a good working relationship between our soldiers and the Kandahari population.

The Canadian military has a history of longer missions.  During the Korean War, year-long tours of duty were the norm. Even now, soldiers deployed to ISAF headquarters in Kabul serve nine months, and so do soldiers at headquarters in Kandahar.

The U.K. media have been reporting that British officials are considering extending their soldiers’ tour of duty to a year. Extending Canadian tours to nine months wouldn’t be popular with every soldier or every family. But, in the end, it could be less onerous for families, and it would increase Canada’s chances of making progress in Afghanistan.

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Part 3: Progress in Afghanistan?

Senator Tkachuk: ...You mentioned earlier that there was difficulty in talking about our story. Maybe that is not the story people want to hear. Maybe they want to hear that they are more secure and why they are more secure.

Brigadier-General P.J. Atkinson, Director General of Operations, Strategic Joint Staff, National Defence: …There is a full-court press and the story is not just about the security. The security is what we do, but the real story is what is happening to the [Afghan] people.

I showed you a picture of where we were last April to this November in Sangin, in the Zhari-Panjwai area. When I spent Christmas there a year ago, we looked out in a certain town area and there was not a light in place, not a soul. When I was back there in May of this year, there were 30,000 people back in the region. The lights are on, the roads are open, the vineyards are planted and they are digging wells. We can see it. By giving them hope and confidence in the Afghan National Security Forces — and I talked about them actually conducting operations for the first time, joint operations and then independent operations — it demonstrates to the Afghans that they have a hand and a stake in their future.[47]

 

Recognizing the many barriers to progress in Afghanistan, Committee members decided to take a skeptical look at whether there is any real evidence of progress in Afghanistan – either in the way Canada is carrying out its mission, or in getting results.  Our assessment is based on many hours of testimony collected at hearings, private interviews and our three visits to Afghanistan in 2005, 2006 and 2008.

Why skeptical? Because any reasonable person would expect that our Canadian hosts – and the Afghans who work for them – would naturally be putting their best foot forward. Canadians working in Kandahar have a lot invested in a successful outcome to the Canadian mission in Afghanistan, and it would be naïve to expect them to direct the Committee toward warts instead of beauty marks.

Having said that, Committee members encountered enough candor on the ground about the possibility of the Canadian mission failing that we concluded we hadn’t been spoon fed optimism or shielded from reality. There are no guarantees that Afghanistan will emerge from three decades of agony with some semblance of a functioning nation. But we did see signs of hope.

Progress in Security

Security enables governance and development. Afghans are never going to emerge from decades of despair unless some semblance of order is restored to all parts of the country. Only then will Afghanistan be able to create opportunities for its people, unimpeded by the disruption of continuous conflict and free of the threat that the Taliban will return to impose its medieval brand of subjugation.

Since the Taliban remain a persistent threat to the democratically elected government, and will continue to be so for the foreseeable future, these conditions cannot be brought to bear without the use of military force. Most of this force is still being provided by foreign troops.

Key Question:
When Will Afghan National Security Forces
 Be Capable of Protecting the Afghan People?

Senator Nancy Ruth: Is there any measurement mechanism for how the Afghan [National Army soldiers] are doing?

 

Brigadier-General P.J. Atkinson, Director General of Operations, Strategic Joint Staff, National Defence: The proof is in the pudding in the operations they conduct on the ground. I talked about the independent and joint operations conducted this last month — that was the proof of progress right there. It is very successful.[48]

 

The desirable end-state would be a situation in which the Afghan National Army is in barracks – prepared to support the civil authority when needed –and day-to-day security is provided by the police. There appears to be a significantly increased military capacity and to a lesser extent, an increased police capacity throughout Afghanistan. The Afghan National Security Forces are an arm of the central government that reaches far beyond the country’s capital. The ability of the military and police to protect the Afghan population therefore reflects the competence and legitimacy of the central government. In the end, the effectiveness of the Afghan National Security Forces will determine the attachment and confidence the Afghan people feel towards their government. Further improvements to both the military and police are going to be gradual – this is clearly a marathon, not a sprint.

Afghans have a warrior history, so there is no shortage of courageous, tough men willing to fight. The problem has been moulding these men into a unified and disciplined fighting force, then providing them with proper equipment.

Nearly everyone we talked to on this trip commented on how much more disciplined the Afghan troops have become, both in terms of presence (in the past, many didn’t show up for duty on holidays or other occasions) and in terms of fighting as effective units. To a large extent this has been a result of Canadian troops embedded in Afghan units under the Operational Mentor Liaison Team concept (OMLT). Some modern equipment is also being provided by Canada.  C7 rifles, adaptations of the American M16, will be provided to 2,500 Afghan soldiers in Kandahar in the coming months. Many have already been distributed, and Canadian troops have been training their Afghan counterparts in their use.

Clear, Hold & Build

Brigadier-General P.J. Atkinson, Director General of Operations, Strategic Joint Staff, National Defence: The Afghan National Army recently completed a successful joint operation to increase security in the Zhari District of Kandahar Province. Operation TASHWISH MEKAWA, or No Worries, as it is translated, was executed by the 1st Brigade of the 205th Corps, ANA, working with Canada's Joint Task Force Afghanistan and other elements of the NATO-led ISAF. The operation had two aims: to drive insurgents out of the territory surrounding an important crossroads in the Sangsar area, about 40 kilometres west of Kandahar City, and to establish a strong point, a fortified compound, from which Afghanistan's national security forces will control the crossroads and maintain a presence in the area as we did in other locations last October.[49]

 

On Day 1 of our visit Brigadier-General Guy LaRoche gave us some examples of how defence responsibilities are being transferred to the Afghan National Army (ANA) from Canadian Forces. This time last year, Canadian troops were responsible for holding the Zhari district after fierce battles to regain the Taliban-infested territory. Due to a doubling of ANA troops in the area as well as the advances made by the Royal 22^nd Regiment through joint CF/ANA operations, Afghan troops mentored by Canadians now have the responsibility for ensuring the Zhari District does not fall back into the hands of insurgents.

The majority of troops going outside the wire[50] to conduct operations are now Afghans with the Canadian Forces playing a supporting role. This frees up Canadian troops to do two things (a) expand the scope of their activities, making it more difficult for the Taliban to control various territorial pockets; and (b) do more training of Afghan troops, which is incredibly essential to the country’s future. When the Afghan National Army troops took control of the Zhari district, this freed up some of our troops to secure more territory and open up Forward Operating Base Frontenac. Taking territory from the insurgents and building a strong point on it, from which Afghan forces will control the area, is part of the Canadian Forces’ strategy to set the stage for a lasting security environment in the Canadian area of operation[51]. The more territory our troops secure, the more interaction our troops and civilians can have with the local population, the more development can be done. As our soldiers put it, the ink blot is spreading.

As of April 2007, the ANA was an army of 46,000 regulars, up 20,000 from 2005. If the Government of Afghanistan is to acquire the capacity to hold off the Taliban on its own – and to stabilize the country to the point that Afghans will respect their government – the Afghan government says that it needs an army of at least 70,000 regulars. Some of these regulars are still not adequately trained, but at least things are moving in the right direction, both in terms of numbers and training.

Afghan Military Gaining Respect

Arif Lalani, Canada’s Ambassador to Afghanistan while briefing Committee members early in the trip, told us that there has already been a considerable increase in the respect that ordinary Afghans have for the country’s military. We heard similar comments on the ground in Afghanistan. A recent poll of Afghans conducted by the Environics Research Group showed that “strong majorities of Afghans express at least some confidence in the National Army (84%).”[52] If this trend continues, it will dramatically improve the new state’s chance of surviving.

The Canadian contribution towards such progress has been enormous. Simply by denying the Taliban control of their traditional homeland in Kandahar, the Canadian Forces have diluted the Taliban’s military recovery.

However, the Taliban’s attempts to undermine the Afghan government continue. The Taliban have plenty of drug money to hire troops and buy weapons, and they have continued access to zealots schooled in the tribal lands of Pakistan. Without NATO troops, the Taliban might well have been back in the driver’s seat by now.

Ambassador Lalani told Committee members that the Taliban may yet prove capable of retaking the whole country, but it will not do so unless it can first take Kandahar. That hasn’t happened, and Canadian troops deserve much of the credit.

Four Encouraging Developments in Kandahar

1. Afghan-Canadian Cooperation

The Canadian Forces are working with some degree of harmony with the Afghan military, police and government agencies to hold and begin development in cleared areas. In earlier years, the Canadians, operating without much help from the Afghans, would move into an area, take it, then move out and subsequently lose what was gained because the Afghans were incapable of holding it on their own. These coordinated efforts between Canadians and Afghans represent a significant step forward from the Committee’s last visit in December 2006.

2. Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs)

We were told that the Canadian Forces are receiving a lot more intelligence from the Kandahari people about Taliban activities. Locals are coming forward with information on IEDs, where they are being made and where they are being planted. The Committee was told that the insurgents are so frustrated by locals calling our troops with this information that they have been urging phone companies to shut down services while they plant IEDs. Phone companies that have refused to shut services have had their communication towers burned down by insurgents; there have been 12 incidents in Regional Command South[53].

We were told that the Canadian Forces are taking a holistic approach to countering the IED threat. This includes the use of local intelligence as described above and working in conjunction with the Afghan National Police, whose officers have a better understanding of the patterns of life within villages than do our soldiers. Other improvements: the continual updating of counter-IED training, and the acquisition of blast-resistant equipment and sophisticated technology that can not only detect and defuse an IED, but also retain enough evidence so that soldiers can investigate the origins and makers of the bomb.

 

Senator Banks: … There have been reports lately of improvements in those areas. Do we have better vehicles now for dealing with IEDs and roadside bombs and suicide bombers?

 

Brigadier-General P.J. Atkinson, Director General of Operations, Strategic Joint Staff, National Defence: Our Canadian battle group is the best equipped brigade bar none in the theatre, from the LAV3 to the Nyalas, to the tanks that we have deployed, to the route-opening system that we have just deployed, to the heavy armoured trucks we have just deployed over there. In sum, we have absolutely the best equipment.[54]

 

Our soldiers may have the best route-opening system and heavy armoured trucks. But, we heard concerns that they do not have enough vehicles and spare parts in the field. There is a perceived need for more blast-resistant route-proving[55] and armoured patrol vehicles as well as the most up-to-date technology to detect and defuse IEDs.

 

3. Team Work

The Canadian military, diplomats, aid personnel and other agencies are acting in far greater harmony than they were when we last visited. We were also told that Canadian military and civilian personnel are working in a more cohesive way with the Afghan military, police and government personnel. For instance, a Joint District Coordination Centre (JDCC) has begun to operate out of Forward Operating Base Ma’sum Ghar. It coordinates all the security forces (Canadian Forces, RMCP, Afghanistan National Army, Afghan National Police, Afghan National Civil Order Police [ANCOP, Afghan version of the RCMP] and National Directorate of Security [NDS, Afghanistan’s intelligence agency] so that everyone is moving with common objectives. Regular meetings are held to discuss security concerns and to hammer out solutions.

 

4. All-Round Better Security

Panjwai district leader Haji Baran told us that one of the ultimate tests of an improving situation is the return of civilians to their villages. An estimated 4,000 Afghans who fled the traditional Taliban stronghold of Sperwen Ghar when the Taliban controlled it have come back; an estimated 3,000 have returned to Panjwai district, another Taliban stronghold. Shops have begun to reopen in both districts and development projects, such as the community-based bakery and market the Committee visited, are springing up.

One big difference we saw on our third and most recent visit to Afghanistan was the amount of time we were able to spend outside the wire, away from the protection of the base. When the Committee visited Kandahar in December 2006 our time spent outside the wire was limited to three or four hours at the Kandahar Provincial Reconstruction Team (KPRT, Camp Nathan Smith). During our latest visit we spent the night at KPRT. We took a convoy through Kandahar City and saw a number of development projects on the City’s outskirts. We also spent a few hours at one Forward Operating Base (FOB). The fact that our helicopter flew low over Kandahar City without an attack helicopter as an escort demonstrates a confidence in security that wasn’t there a year and a half ago. 

The Committee’s “Escalation of Force” Experience

 

On our return to KPRT, Camp Nathan Smith, after visiting a Women’s Vocational Centre in Kandahar City, our convoy experienced what is known as an “Escalation of Force.” A taxi refused to back away from our convoy despite the fact that our soldiers were making all the physical signals to obtain the driver’s cooperation. The next stage was to fire a warning shot into the ground, which stopped the driver in his tracks. This minor incident was a reminder that no matter how much security has improved in some parts of Kandahar, nobody is taking anything for granted.

 

The Taliban have their problems too . . .

The Taliban are likely to be causing problems for Afghanistan for many generations to come. The question is whether the Taliban will ever control Afghanistan again – or continue to disrupt it to the point that nobody is capable of running the country.

Either scenario is possible. We were told that Afghans aren’t at all certain who is the best bet in this confrontation, the Taliban or the current government, and whether NATO has the staying power to give the Government enough time to secure the country. Some analysts think the Taliban are in the process of gaining the upper hand even now.

On the other hand, the Committee has seen and heard enough in recent months – including what members saw and heard on this trip – to come to the conclusion that all is not going as well for the Taliban as they would like us to believe. Militarily, we own the night and the Taliban are aware of it. The Committee was told that our soldiers have superior operational capabilities after dark and are doing well at night. Intercepted communications reveal the Taliban’s concern over this superiority.

There are also signs of Taliban desperation. For instance, on their home turf, one would expect the Taliban to be battling for hearts and minds as much as the Government is. But measures like burning down schools and threatening road workers are not winning them any friends. Burning down communication towers when the insurgents themselves use cell phones also seems counterproductive to their aims.

The fact that Kandaharis keep going to school and building roads demonstrates that many of them want progress. Afghans told us over and over again how sick they are of being terrorized, and how appreciative they are of Canada’s efforts. Telling us what we wanted to hear? Maybe. But the ones who are shrugging off threats to go to school and build roads are voting with their feet, and their feet are saying no to the Taliban.

Progress in Social and Economic Development

Senator Peterson: Mr. Wallace, you described a progressive picture of your achievements in the area. I am certain that the Taliban and al Qaeda do not want you to succeed. Do you encounter difficulties where projects you are working on are destroyed by the Taliban and al Qaeda to refute what you are doing?

Stephen Wallace, Vice-President, Afghanistan Task Force, Canadian International Development Agency: The insurgency does not have an interest in the success of a democratically elected government. That said, I think there is a real difference between what is considered local and what is considered foreign. When we see 600 community development projects completed through 530 development councils in Kandahar province and virtually none of these projects attacked, we ask ourselves the question: why is that? I think the answer is they are considered to be local priorities; local projects, led by local authorities.

When we see local Afghan communities taking charge of their own development and implementing their own projects, these projects do well. That is the biggest single difference here. Where Afghan communities take responsibility for their development, we see a level of protection that we otherwise might not see.[56]

 

Canada’s military mission in Afghanistan attracts the majority of the media’s attention. Canada can do nothing to improve the life of Afghans without the support of the military mission. However, in the end, progress in the areas of social and economic development offers the only hope for a viable Afghanistan.

This kind of development can only take hold if it reflects the priorities of the Afghan people themselves. Committee members were told that Community Development Councils (CDC) – in Kandahar City and remote areas where the Government in Kabul continues to have little influence – are at least in some cases taking hold and giving Afghans an increased sense of control over their own destiny. Local representatives elected to the CDCs decide how the National Solidarity Program[57] spends money to improve opportunities and also decide which development projects should be priorities in their communities. This is crucial – for as long as any living Afghan can remember, ordinary Afghan men and women have been the pawns of the Soviets, the Taliban, the warlords and the drug traders.

Again, we are not naïve. Committee members were only able to visit and talk to the project facilitators of two development projects on the outside of Kandahar City. But from what we saw at the two projects – and from what we heard about other projects – the concept is certainly good, and apparently even workable.

Canadian NGO Projects

Paul LaRose-Edwards, Executive Director, CANADEM: …My experience has shown that NGOs and others will find ways to work in difficult situations. You will always find some Canadian civilians, including various Canadian organizations, who will have the temerity to go into almost any situation, whether or not there is military there…

Senator Banks: They had virtually all left Kandahar when we were there.

Mr. LaRose-Edwards: We know of a specific organization, Development Works, that was there. Development Works was in Kandahar dating back to 2002.[58]

Two projects we visited were managed by a Canadian company, Development Works, based in Almonte, Ontario, as part of a $5 million CIDA contract. Development Works’ credo is to “do the right thing by respecting people, sharing benefit and working with people.”[59]

Committee members viewed this company’s efforts to assist in rebuilding a small village. The project, called the Kandahar Rapid Village Development Plan, involved helping local people improve irrigation and sanitation infrastructure, and local school buildings.  As well, the project assisted in building a market area and a community-based bakery. The Director of Development Works, Mr. Drew Gilmour who spends 60 -70 per cent of his time in Kandahar, is committed to keeping these projects true community-based projects. He told the Committee that it takes seven months for him to meet with provincial councillors and local community leaders as well as ordinary Kandaharis to determine their needs and priorities, and to agree on which development projects will get the green light. Once the project is agreed upon, the announcement is placed on the mosque wall.

Mr. Gilmour’s projects are meant to maximize the needs of the local people. The Committee was told that the site for the Rapid Village Development project we visited was chosen because it was a central location whose market, bakery, clinic and other service centres would be accessible to approximately 60,000 Kandaharis. As well, he told the Committee that in negotiations with the local people, they agreed that 60 percent of the bakery’s profits would go to training teachers. The Afghanistan Ministry of Education is also onboard with this idea, as this will be a welcome boost to the low salaries teachers currently receive ($60 USD a month) and will also hopefully attract more Kandaharis to the teaching profession. The rest of the bakery’s profits go to the master baker (10%) and to a community fund (30%) for building wells, subsidising transport to clinics etc. Satisfying a number of community needs as well as serving a great number of local people are goals that are not only benefiting the surrounding villages, but also guaranteeing that the project is protected by the local villagers, and therefore, Taliban proof.

Development Works also helped in establishing a series of Women’s Vocational Centres where 120 women are upgrading their sewing skills toward the establishment of a Kandahar garment and apparel industry. The Committee visited one of these Centres. According to Ms. Rangina Hamadi, a local women’s rights activist, the income these women are earning is giving them a greater decision-making role in the household. As a result, many women are using this as leverage with their spouses to send their daughters to school for the first time.

A Change of Approach for CIDA?

Clearly CIDA is experimenting with providing contracts to civilian companies who are prepared to accept the risk of working in Kandahar’s villages. At the same time, CIDA continues to contribute the bulk of its development assistance funding to international organizations, which in turn, allocate the funds to various Afghan government agencies to help support government development initiatives and improve the government’s visibility in all regions in Afghanistan. The jury is still out on CIDA’s two-pronged approach. The Manley Panel called for Canada to be creative in how it increases Afghan support for the central government, while at the same time developing its own presence in Kandahar. Development Works’ projects fit nicely into the Manley Panel’s desire to see more Canadian “signature” projects in Kandahar province. We do not know if Development Works has the “right” approach to development in Kandahar, given our lack of exposure to a wide variety of projects. However, what we saw looked good and the Committee believes that CIDA should encourage more entrepreneurial efforts along the lines of what Mr. Gilmour is contributing to Kandahar.

The projects are also a reminder of how important Canada’s military mission remains in terms of creating the type of non-threatening environment needed to sustain development. While Mr. Gilmour blends in on this project as much as he can – wearing local clothes, eating local food, etc. – he is also wearing a flack jacket under those local clothes. It remains dangerous for Canadians to foray anywhere outside Canada’s military compound in Kandahar. Ms. Elissa Golberg, the Representative of Canada in Kandahar, and other Canadian government civilians expressed frustration at being limited in their mobility around Kandahar due to force protection requirements.

Even Afghans involved in development projects face threats and retaliation from the ever-present Taliban. Nevertheless, District Leader Haji Baran told us that the locals still show up for work – evidence, one hopes, of a desire to break free of Afghanistan’s destructive past and start building toward new possibilities. Of course there is another, less lofty explanation: it is also evidence of Afghans’ desperate poverty and need for work.

Projects Funded by the Canadian Military

There are two ways the Canadian Forces help enable development: The first is hands on – military engineers manage quick-impact reconstruction and development projects. The second is consultative –a Civil-Military Cooperation (CIMIC)[60] platoon made up of Army Reserve soldiers organizes meetings with local decision-makers and international NGOs to determine whether they need help with security, or whether the Canadian Forces should try to stay out of their way. Each military rotation gets a budget for projects aimed at improving the quality of life of local Afghans. Assisting the local population has a positive effect on the security of our troops in the field. This helps Afghans and helps Canadians.

From the vantage point of Forward Operating Base (FOB) Ma’sum Ghar, the Committee observed a road development project being implemented by military engineers. About 400 Afghans work on the road, which will greatly increase the ability of local farmers to move crops to market. We were told that, for a long while, Afghans working on the road called it “the foreigner’s road.”  Our soldiers realized that it was important for the locals to take ownership of this project, by working on the road and simply by naming the road themselves after a local hero. There is an additional benefit to the road: a paved and Afghan-owned road means fewer roadside bombs since Afghans now have a vested interest in the sustainability of the road for their future.

Project administrators sometimes have to be especially sensitive to the needs of local Afghans. In one case the need for flexibility was a matter of life and death. In the beginning Afghan road workers were expected to show up very early in the morning to start work – before most of the populace was up and about. This made it easy for the Taliban to pick out people who were working on the project, and threaten them and their families. Scheduling adjustments were made to reduce this particular risk.

Another adjustment: while it would be much easier to build the road using imported heavy equipment, Afghans are instead mentored by Canadian Forces engineers on how to build a quality road, but to do so by hand. This creates life-long skills for road building and road maintenance, while at the same time it increases job opportunities.

Schools Projects

The Committee drove by an elementary school under construction. We were told that CIDA has donated $3.5 million toward building 51 schools in Kandahar province this year. So far one school has been completed and 18 others are under construction. We are told that there are plans to build 32 more schools.

 

Development in General

Canada is investing heavily in development in Afghanistan in general and in Kandahar in particular. On a per-capita basis, Canadians are investing more than any other donor country in development in Afghanistan. U.S. Official Development Assistance (ODA) budget for Afghanistan was $US 1.23 billion in 2007. Britain’s budget was $US 301million. Canada’s was $US 292 million.

 

 

Per-capita ODA to Afghanistan

Canada (pop. 32 million)                              =     $US 9.13 per Canadian

Britain (pop. 61 million)                              =      $US 4.93 per Briton

United States (pop. 303 million)         =     $US 4.06 per American

 

 

Committee members only saw a handful of projects, so there is no way that we can report after a short visit that Canadians are getting good value for their investment in the development of Afghanistan. We can say that the projects we saw appeared to give Canada a positive presence in Kandahar, met the needs defined by Afghans, and greatly expanded the usefulness and depth of Canada’s mission to Afghanistan.

Progress in Governance, Human Rights and the Rule of Law

It is no secret that Afghanistan’s institutions are in disarray. This is a decentralized country with a history of arbitrary rule. Canadians understand that democracy, integrity and accountability are essential to good governance, but until recently they weren’t much more than quaint concepts in Afghanistan. Integrity is incredibly important to most individual Afghans. But their institutions have long been riddled with the kind of corruption that drags down many impoverished countries.

However, from what the Committee members could gather, Afghanistan’s institutions are in less disarray than they were a couple of years ago. Small but important steps have been taken.

Training Prison Guards

Correctional Services Canada (CSC) has been mentoring prison guards at Sarpoza prison in Kandahar since February 2007. Canada has played a lead role in the attempt to reform Afghan prisons so they conform to the developing Afghan rule of law and international standards. CSC has been sending senior managers to Afghanistan since 2003 to serve as Corrections Advisors to the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA).

The assistance that CSC is offering includes human rights training. Ms. Paula Milino, Director of Correctional Operations at KPRT, told us that Afghans are attracted to the job of correctional officer because they work in a safe environment and they receive food, a place to live and a uniform. A major challenge remains – correctional officers get the lowest pay in the justice system.

Also, the Committee remains concerned about judicial integrity. The Committee brought up its concern over reports that prisoners have been buying their freedom through corrupt judges. Ms. Milino stated that at Sarpoza, a sentencing prison, she has not encountered any such incidents.

The Afghan National Police

Brigadier-General P.J. Atkinson, Director General of Operations, Strategic Joint Staff, National Defence: The focus on the Afghan National Police did not begin until two years after the Afghan National Army, but they are on an uphill climb and are getting better. Two big focuses have been done with the Afghan National Police. The first was survival skills. The ANP were viewed by the Taliban as a soft target because they are in small, light Toyota trucks. They had uniforms but not much training or body armour. The first focus has been how to survive in this kind of environment.

The second focus has been mentoring. The police Operational Mentor Liaison Team, OMLT, is to mentor these guys and bring them along slowly. Afghan police are trained at a facility inside Kabul and then sent out into the regions and districts. The success we are having with the army is the reason that we have put our focus on police OMLTs, who are able to bring them along. We have military police and soldiers combined in each segment.[61]

 

As one of the Taliban’s primary targets, the Afghan police are incredibly vulnerable and brave for joining the force under such threat. On April 14 2008, after we had departed Kandahar, Taliban militants attacked police sleeping at an isolated checkpoint, killing eleven of them in what has become a recurring story.

In this kind of security environment, it is difficult to transform what is essentially an ineffectual paramilitary organization into an effective force protecting citizens. There is even a local joke: Q. How do you get rid of crime in Afghanistan? A. Disband the Afghanistan National Police.

When one considers the starting point, the police are improving, and Canada is helping. Canadian Forces infanteers and military police are embedded with the ANP in a number of joint police sub-stations across the Zhari-Panjwai district not just for protection but also for mentoring in the field. The Committee met with Canadian civilian police who are training Afghan police on how to protect the community in an IED environment, for example, learning how to follow-up on local intelligence, cordon off and keep locals away from an IED area, and collect evidence and investigate cases. A literacy course pilot project has also been started for local police.

Low salaries were alleged to be one of the reasons that police demand bribes – although it is difficult to find observers who believe that bribery will be drastically reduced with larger salaries. Scheduled increases from $77 a month to $150 a month (drawn from an international donor fund) were not flowing down through the chain of command, so Canadian and American military officers took the matter into their own hands.

Since November 2007 the Canadian military has been paying the salaries of police in Kandahar directly since it became obvious that the police were not receiving money owed by the Government of Afghanistan. As Brigadier General Guy LaRoche told the Globe and Mail: “The money did not get to these guys. Somebody is taking 10 percent here, 10 percent there, and in the end, the poor guys are left with nothing.”[62]

Focused District Development –New Hope for the ANP?

David Beer, Chief Superintendent, Director General, International Policing, Royal Canadian Mounted Police: …The relationship that we as a police organization have with the Canadian and international military needs to be replicated in the Afghan environment. The police will not, in the immediate future, be able to provide a security net in Kandahar province in a war-like environment. That will be the responsibility of the Afghan National Army, supported side by side with the developing police.

In fact, a strategy is now unfolding, on a region-by-region basis, where, to stimulate more development in the police organization around the country, the Combined Security Transition Command-Afghanistan, CSTC-A, will extract the Afghan National Police, put them into an all-encompassing training environment, bring them up to speed, backfilling the otherwise void with the Afghan National Army and with coalition forces providing the security where police would be participating, and then returning the police, hopefully to that environment, working side by side with the Afghan National Army.[63]

 

The latest hope for police reform is Focused District Development (FDD), an eight-week training program developed by the Americans that Afghanistan’s Ministry of the Interior hopes will help create a more disciplined, professional police force across the country. The course provides police with better equipment, trains them to use it, and encourages them to behave as public servants hired to serve ordinary Afghans. It teaches elements of Afghan law, basic human rights and cultural sensitivity.

In the end, FDD is meant to instil improved competency, a sense of purpose and get through to enough officers that when any of their colleagues fail to live up to standards, someone must confront them.

The new symbiotic relationship between Canadian military and civilian officials proved useful at convincing the Americans to bring FDD to Kandahar. An initial military request was made by Canada’s military to bring in FDD, but U.S. authorities didn’t seem to think the request was serious. Only when diplomatic efforts bolstered the military’s efforts was the deal made.

Progress in Canada’s  “All of Government” Approach

In our experience, military personnel are usually out front of everyone else in understanding that there are few conflicts in this world that can be solved solely through the use of military action.

Without diplomacy, and without campaigns to deal with the social, cultural and economic causes of conflicts, military victories can easily turn into footnotes for lost causes. Committee members were told over and over again that there is no military solution to Afghanistan’s problem. The best the Canadian Forces can do is hold the Taliban at bay and give the Government of Afghanistan all the assistance it can to serve Afghans in a way that will win their support.

To get where it needs to go, the Government of Afghanistan needs more than military help. The Harper government has wisely taken an all-of-government approach to the Afghanistan mission: the Department of Defence is only one of several departments actively trying to contribute to making Afghanistan a viable country.

Civil-Military Cooperation

Until last year, Canada wasn’t very good at getting representatives of contributing departments other than the Department of National Defence on the ground in Kandahar, where tough and quick decisions need to be made. The Committee is pleased to see that is changing. For instance, the Committee was told by Ambassador Lalani that CIDA has doubled its personnel on the ground over the past year to nine CIDA staff, and is shooting to double that contingent in the summer of 2008.

Similarly, Ottawa is bulking up on representation from Correctional Services Canada and the RCMP. Representatives of these organizations were entrenched with Canadian Forces personnel virtually everywhere we visited, including Camp Nathan Smith, FOB Ma’sum Ghar, and Kandahar Airfield. There is genuine consultation and collaboration among these agencies – a big step forward from some of the dysfunctional relationships we witnessed in 2006. Canadian Ambassador Arif Lalani actually signs off on Brigadier General Guy LaRoche’s operational plans, and the two of them discuss how to harmonize their actions to meet both military and civilian needs.

The Committee strongly believes that Elissa Golberg, the first Representative of Canada in Kandahar (ROCK), is a significant addition to the civilian component to Canada’s role in the war-torn province. Having a civilian counterpart to Brigadier General Laroche in Kandahar not only greatly improves the civil-military cooperation in the province but also, by reinforcing each other, they have been able to “leverage their message to the Governor of Kandahar” which makes for a more united and effective front in tackling virtually any issue in the province.

Col. Serge Labbé obviously represents the military, but as head of the Strategic Advisory Team in Kabul, he reports to Ambassador Lalani. He believes Canada has already made a big difference in providing direct planning support to government ministries and working groups in development and governance. To date, the team has worked extensively with Afghanistan’s National Development Strategy Working Group, Public Administration Reform, Civil Service Gender Equity Policy, and with the Ministry of Rural Rehabilitation and Development.

Gender and United Nations Resolution 1325[64]

Canada on its own can have only marginal influence on gender issues in Afghanistan. This is and must be an international effort if systemic progress is to be made throughout the country. Canada has donated money to programs for women’s health, to micro-financing projects and other projects designed to improve women’s lives.

The Committee hopes that the many female advisors and mentors who Canada sends to Afghanistan will have some impact on women’s visibility in the work force. Canada has sent, in addition to female soldiers, project officers, academic and technical experts and police and correctional officers to Kabul and Kandahar. An officer of CANADEM, a Canadian agency with a roster of Canadian expert consultants for government agencies and international organizations, testified before the Committee:

 

Paul LaRose-Edwards, Executive Director, CANADEM: We take UN Resolution 1325 very seriously with regard to the people we have on our roster and whom we put forward. One of our female registrants was just selected as the head of human rights in Afghanistan. An example of how we work to advance the presence of women internationally is our internship program. Over the past 10 years, we put some 350 interns in the field, and about 75 per cent were young women. [65]

 

Another Canadian civilian making a difference in Afghanistan is Tonita Murray, a former RCMP civilian employee and Director of the Canadian Police College in Ottawa. She is now in Afghanistan and is the Senior Police Gender Advisor in the Ministry of the Interior. Ms. Murray’s progress was detailed in testimony to the committee by a representative of CANADEM, the Canadian organization which sent her over to Kabul:

Senator Nancy Ruth: How does she incorporate something like United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 [on Women] into her work? Is she able to work it [UNSCR 1325] into areas that are not her work?

Christine Vincent, Deputy Executive Director, CANADEM: She is there to provide more security for women and children. That is the major focus of her work. She is examining how, in an Islamic country, one can recruit more women to work with women, children and vulnerable populations. She was instrumental in having family violence units established. The first was done with U.S. funding. One of the first was attached to the police station in Kabul. Women can go in through a separate entrance and make reports regarding family violence. Since the assessment was completed, which was very positive, there are now 13 family violence units. Canada has been instrumental in supporting that.

There are parks that are for women only. She was instrumental in having security put into those parks, but found that there were problems with the women actually doing the security because they were not properly trained. She is now working to get appropriate training for those women. Women who are graduating from the police training in the outside areas have no uniforms; there are uniforms only for men. She helped coordinate with the RCMP to provide uniforms for female police. These are all baby steps to provide greater security for women and children in Afghanistan.[66]

 

 

In Kandahar, Elissa Golberg (ROCK) told the Committee that Afghanistan has taken a leap forward by mandating in its constitution a certain number of seats for women in Parliaments. Women, as required under the constitution, occupy 68 of the 249 seats in the Wolesi Jirga, or lower house of parliament. In the 2005 election, women secured 17 seats beyond the 68 they are allocated by constitution[67]. However, women secured only 121 seats in the provincial councils, which have a total of 420 members. That was three short of the 124 mandated by law because not enough female candidates could be found[68]. Having women in decision-making making positions is an important step towards giving all women in Afghan society a voice.[69]

Training

The Committee has been told that Canada’s All-of-Government Approach has not only spread to deployments in theatre, but also to preparatory training of Canadian Forces and civilians in Canada. The Committee was initially critical during our last visit to Wainwright, Alberta (the site of Canadian Forces training for Afghanistan) because we saw no CIDA or DFAIT personnel training with the Forces. Since then, the Government seems to making a genuine effort to respond to our complaint. DFAIT officials Kerry Buck, Director General of the Afghanistan Task Force and David Mulroney, Associate Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and Interdepartmental Coordinator for Afghanistan, testified before the Committee:

 

Senator Banks: Then the next time we go [to Wainwright], we would be able to find folks working in DFAIT and CIDA jobs who would be perfectly comfortable with the milieu in which they are working?

Kerry Buck, Director General, Afghanistan Task Force, Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade: It depends on which component of the Wainwright training, but there are DFAIT personnel participating in Wainwright training.

David Mulroney, Associate Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and Interdepartmental Coordinator for Afghanistan, Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada: If I can add to that, senator, the answer is yes. This is essentially the first major rotation of this large group of civilians. As I say, we are working on the second and the third rotations. We want to be sure that we have addressed that issue. We have also been successful in getting people who have served in Afghanistan before or who have served in other post-conflict situations, so they are familiar with this type of experience. I set a premium on developing a pool of people in foreign affairs who have this experience, because increasingly this will be one of the specialities we need for deploying people. The experience in Canada is key, but other relevant international experience is key as well, and working with both the Canadian Forces and their CIDA partners and the people who will essentially be living and working beside them 24/7 is fundamental to us.[70]

International Coordination

Problems with disjointed international coordination also seem to be getting some attention. Ambassador Arif Lalani told us that Canada has moved from being a simple contributor to being a leader in areas such as education, policing, anti-corruption measures, and women’s rights. DFAIT officials in Canada also took the lead in the “Dubai Process,” bringing senior Afghan and Pakistani politicians together to try to improve border security. This may turn out to be a non-starter, but it was an effort that had to be made. In terms of intelligence, Committee members learned in a briefing from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) that sharing information with allies has reached an unprecedented level, and that Canada is playing a key role in this process – going from intelligence “consumer” to intelligence “producer.”

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Part 4: Benchmarks and Action

“What does the Government of Canada expect to accomplish in Afghanistan in general, and in Kandahar in particular?”

 

This is an essential question. It is a question that a number of years from now will lead to two even more important questions that Canadians will be asking:

(a)        What did the Government of Canada accomplish in Kandahar and Afghanistan as a whole?

(b)       Was Canada’s sacrifice in Kandahar worth it?

But those are questions to be asked in the future. Let’s get back to the question that matters now: What does the Government of Canada expect to accomplish – in Kandahar and in Afghanistan – through this mission?

Any Parliamentarian who voted in favour of extending Canada’s military mission to Afghanistan until at least 2011 must currently have expectations that the mission is worthwhile, and will continue to be worthwhile. That means they must have some idea of what kind of achievements will make it worthwhile. What are their expectations? Do they fit the definition of what most Canadians would consider reasonable expectations, given the cost of the mission in human lives and dollars?

 

Communicating with Canadians

The Committee has been told that the government is in the process of gathering input from the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (DFAIT), the Department of National Defence (DND), the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), and other government departments and agencies involved in Afghanistan to formulate a series of benchmarks that will help Canadians assess how we are doing in Afghanistan in general, and in Kandahar in particular. The Committee was also told that these benchmarks would be released this summer. The Committee hopes this happens according to schedule. Canadians should not be subjected to the kind of two-year delay that slowed the announcement of the Canada First Defence Strategy, which was to have been released in the summer of 2006 but didn’t reach the public until May 2008.

The Committee is concerned that the Government has not come forth with improved mechanisms to communicate its objectives to the Canadian public since the Manley Panel. We question the Government’s broad acceptance of the Manley Panel recommendations and its commitment to improving communications with the Canadian public about the Afghan mission. The recently created Cabinet Committee on Afghanistan is chaired by the Minister of International Trade, who does not have a vested interest in the mission.[71] Given the importance of the Afghan mission to Canadians, if the Government is serious about improving its communications strategy, our Committee believes that the Prime Minister himself should be the Cabinet Committee’s Chair and Spokesperson. 

Government officials have promised to release a set of benchmarks to Canadians this summer; however, a list of benchmarks is useless without clear goals for Afghanistan in general, and Kandahar specifically.

 

Defining Success – the Committee’s Suggested Goals

What needs to be accomplished before Canadian troops come home, and before CIDA can reduce the intensity of its focus on Afghanistan?

Canadians need realistic benchmarks so that one day they can say: “mission accomplished” and Canada can move on. To this end, the Committee suggests three general goals that should constitute Canada’s Definition of Success:

Definition of Success

 

Overall Security Goal: Afghans are living in reasonable security[72] across the country, with the Afghan military strong enough to maintain the Government’s control of the nation’s territories, and with police providing citizens and communities with protection under the rule of law.

 

Overall Governance Goal: A central government in Afghanistan that has progressed to the point that it is responsive to the needs of the people and that it can effectively provide basic services to its citizens.

 

Overall Development Goal: Afghans have access to basic essentials - food, water, sanitation and shelter, and opportunities have started to develop which allows them to improve their economic conditions and encourage free enterprise.

 

There is nothing profound about the three goals listed above. The Committee wants the Government to establish a realistic and reasonable set of goals that will define the conditions for success in Canada’s part of the Afghan mission. Only after setting out the goals that Canada is trying to achieve can the government formulate a set of benchmarks to determine to what degree Canada and Afghanistan are moving toward meeting those goals.

 

Hierarchy of Goals to Better Understand Priorities

Sixty-five years ago, an American psychologist named Abraham Maslow proposed a theory of human motivation known as “Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.”[73] The main thrust of Maslow’s theory is that human behaviour was focused on satisfying the basic physical needs of a human being above all else: the need to eat, the need for shelter, the need for physical security. Only after this foundation had been established, does human motivation move on to the pursuit of loftier ideals such as a person’s purpose in life and questions of morality.

If Canada is in Afghanistan because the Afghans need us, what do Afghans need? After 30 years of war, Afghans in many parts of the country do not have access to the most basic needs: food, water, shelter and security. Maslow’s theory sets out human needs hierarchically; so should Canada’s goals. Helping the Afghan Government provide basic security and essentials to Afghans should be at the top of the list of what it will take to define success in Afghanistan.

Dr. Barnett Rubin, an expert on Afghanistan, testified to the Canadian House of Commons Foreign Affairs and International Development Committee on March 29, 2007:

 

Barnett Rubin, Director of Studies and Senior Fellow, University of New York, Center on International Cooperation: the only thing I'll say about the question of whether it's winnable is if we define our goals in a reasonable way, then it's still possible to succeed.

 

It is not possible to turn Afghanistan into a modern, prosperous, stable, peaceful democracy that has a higher level of representation of women in its political system than the United States, in a short period of time, especially with few resources.[74]

 

Keeping the hierarchy of needs and the Committee’s overall “definition of success” goals in mind, the Committee suggests that Canadians look at goals for Afghanistan in terms of first, second and third priority goals. Nobody can succeed with a third priority goal if the first two sets of priorities have not been met. On the following page, the Committee attempts to illustrate how the first priority goals should allow for the second and third tier goals to flourish.

Prioritizing Canada’s Goals

 

REASONABLE SECURITY

xBASIC NECESSITIES (e.g.: FOOD, WATER,
SHELTER, BASIC HEALTH)

                  

COMPETENT GOVERNANCE[75]

HEALTH INFRASTRUCTURE

ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITY

LITERACY

UNIVERSAL EDUCATION

GREATER DEMOCRATIC PROCESS

LESS CORRUPTION

TRANSPARENT RULE OF LAW

INDEPENDENT PRESS

MAJORITY EMPLOYMENT

FREE ENTERPRISE

ACCESS TO AN INDEPENDENT JUDICIAL SYSTEM

HUMAN RIGHTS which includes WOMEN’S RIGHTS

 

 

REASONABLE SECURITY: The Committee believes that “reasonable security” means: A decline in violent deaths resulting from armed conflict or criminal activity to a level that enables central government and its provincial subsidiaries to provide basic services to the populace and allows Afghans to begin making individual efforts to improve their lives.

 

The Afghanistan Compact

Early in 2006, the Afghanistan Compact set out, at an international conference in London, a series of general objectives followed by benchmarks to measure progress in Afghanistan until 2011.[76]

Some of the benchmarks were clearly too ambitious. For instance, one major Afghanistan Compact benchmark was that “all illegal armed groups will be disbanded by end-2007 in all provinces.”[77] This has not occurred yet and the target date for the disarming of all illegal armed groups has been extended by the Afghanistan National Development Strategy to March 2011[78]. As in all multilateral agreements, the Compact is a result of compromises. This means that in taking into account dozens of interests and priorities, commitments are often vague, unrealistic and difficult to enforce.

Nevertheless, the objectives and benchmarks established in the Afghanistan Compact and the Afghanistan National Development Strategy guide all international efforts in Afghanistan, of which Canadian efforts – as well as the Committee’s suggested goals – fall under. However, the Committee believes that the Canadian public deserves to know:

 

What Canada's priorities are in Afghanistan: Canadian goals and benchmarks (as part of broader international goals guided by the Afghanistan Compact) should be clearly prioritized by the Government of Canada, and

What Canada's goals and benchmarks are in Kandahar specifically: Since the majority of Canada's efforts are focussed on Kandahar, Canadians need to be continually updated on goals, priorities and benchmarks for Kandahar province.

 

The Canadian public deserves a document that outlines goals and benchmarks for Kandahar province similar to the Afghanistan Compact, but tailored to the specific needs of Kandaharis, the specific capabilities of Canada, and the capacity of the Afghan government in Kandahar. Only after such a document is released can Canadians determine whether the existing programs Canada is implementing in Kandahar are attaining their intended impact.

 

A Reasonable Reporting System

To keep Canadians updated on the status of achieving these goals, the Committee believes that the Government of Canada should issue an “Afghanistan Report” every six months that would report the progress of goals in Kandahar, as well as other Canadian efforts in Afghanistan. The report would be signed off by senior Canadian military, development and diplomatic officials. It would offer Canadians hard numbers on progress, and it would also offer anecdotes to illustrate intangible indicators of progress or lack of progress.

 

Numbers Example: Every six months provide the best estimate of the number of Kandaharis killed or wounded by military and insurgent action compared to previous six-month periods.

 

Anecdotes Example: In the previous six-month period Canadian aid officials may have been unable to travel to a particular region unaccompanied by an armed convoy. In the past six months the situation might have changed: perhaps Canadian development officers were finally been able to visit projects in that region without armed escorts, and perhaps a number of Canadian development officers were able to put in full days at their projects without intimidation.

 

The Committee notes that some of this information is currently available to Canadians on various parts of the Government of Canada’s “Rebuilding Afghanistan” website,[79] but not in the quality or quantity needed to keep Canadians updated on the mission.

Analyzing Trends

The Committee understands that there is no way of setting arbitrary targets and “scoring” progress from one six-month period to another. What the report needs to do every six months is present clear indicators that trends are going one way or another, so that all Canadians – from all walks of life – can interpret these trends. But unless a series of meaningful trends are collected and published on a regular basis, confusion will reign as to whether significant progress is being made in Kandahar in particular and the country in general.

 

Tools for Measuring Progress

It is difficult to measure progress through numbers, but not impossible. One of the most useful tools in this area could be polling. Afghan men and women could be asked questions something along the lines of:

·        Do you think the Afghan National Police have become any more helpful to citizens and any less corrupt over the last year or so?

·        Do you believe that the Government of Afghanistan has been doing a better/worse job recently in helping ordinary Afghans improve their lives?

·        Do you believe that government officials have become more corrupt/less corrupt over the past two years?

·        Do you believe that new laws passed in Kabul will make life more fair and just for ordinary Afghans?

During our visit to Afghanistan, the Committee was told that the Government of Canada conducts surveys in Kandahar approximately every three months. The Committee believes that sampling the opinions of Kandaharis in all areas of the province should be an important part of measuring progress in the province.

 

Benchmarks for Determining Progress

The Committee has criticized the Government for inadequately communicating with Canadians on the Afghanistan file. The Manley Panel agreed with us. We believe that the kind of report system we are recommending here will help the Prime Minister offer Canadians a better understanding of what is happening in Afghanistan, so they can make their own decisions as to whether the mission is worthwhile.

In the following sections, the Committee has set out suggested benchmarks by which we believe progress can be measured. The following benchmarks are only general suggestions – we leave detailed benchmark formulation to the experts dealing with these issues on a day-to-day basis in Afghanistan. We do hope that the Committee’s suggestions will spark debate about the nature of progress in Afghanistan, and we encourage the Government of Canada or other interested parties to come forward with additional benchmarks that will help Canadians measure progress – or lack of progress.  

Not every indicator of success is quantifiable. More people on the streets in Kandahar City, for instance, would be one indication that the security situation has improved. But who is going to go out and count the number of people on the streets? Who is going to measure the number of smiles on people’s faces one year to the next? Nobody. But there are measurable indicators, and the Government of Canada should be providing Canadians with numbers to reflect these on a regular basis.

If the Government does come up with a better plan, the Committee will applaud it. But a plan is long overdue, and after studying this issue for some time the Committee hereby proposes some benchmarks for Canadians to consider.

Security Benchmarks for  Kandahar and Afghanistan

 

Overall Security Goal: Afghans are living in reasonable security across the country, with the Afghan military strong enough to maintain the Government’s control of the nation’s territories, and with police providing citizens and communities with protection under the rule of law.

 

Earlier this year the Manley Panel was adamant that 1,000 more NATO troops were needed to secure Kandahar. The Panel suggested that if these troops were not forthcoming, Canada should pull out. The Manley Panel demand was met in April 2008, when NATO announced that France will be sending troops to eastern Afghanistan, freeing American troops to bolster the Canadians in the south.

While the Committee welcomes more support in the South, it believes that a much larger contingent of NATO troops needs to be put in place if Kandahar is to become secure enough for development to proceed at a reasonable pace. Many parts of the province are either controlled by the Taliban or open to Taliban incursions. Until the Afghan National Army becomes self-sufficient, NATO needs to fill the void.

 

SECURITY BENCHMARK PROPOSAL 1:
Proof of Increased Afghan Military Capacity

The Afghanistan Compact’s original estimate was that Afghanistan will need a trained military of at least 70,000. The recent Afghanistan National Development Strategy raised this number to 80,000.[80] Only after this is accomplished, can “reasonable security” be a step closer to reality in Afghanistan.

The Canadian Forces – having led NATO operations in Kandahar for nearly three years and having mentored a number of Afghan army battalions – knows how many adequately-trained Afghan combat troops are actively engaged in Kandahar, and how many more are in the pipeline.

The Canadian Forces should also be able to give a reliable estimate of the total number of NATO and Afghan troops that would be required to provide a reasonable level of security in Kandahar over the next few years. Neither Committee members nor Canadians have been told what that number is. We should know.

If “reasonable security” is to be attained in the province, some major indicators of achieving that goal would be benchmarks that measure the growing capacity of the Afghan National Army (ANA). These could include, for example:

·        Number of ANA troops & battalions active in the province

·        Number of ANA troops being mentored in the province

·        Number of large- and small scale operations that have been conducted led by the ANA over given periods

·        Number of large- and small scale operations that have been conducted independently by the ANA over given periods

·        Success or failure of those operations

 

SECURITY BENCHMARK PROPOSAL 2:
Casualties Caused by the Taliban

The Committee suggests that a major benchmark should be the number of casualties inflicted by the Taliban, six-month period over six-month period, year over year. Both NATO and Afghan authorities seem to be quite forthright about making these kinds of numbers public. If year-end summaries present a downward trend in the country generally and in Kandahar in particular, that should be an encouraging sign for Canadians. If there isn’t such a trend, both Canadians and Afghans will have good reason to be skeptical about progress being made on the security scene.

Just as importantly, Afghan civilian casualties inflicted by the Taliban can tell us to what extent the Taliban are able to operate in Kandahar and terrorize the population. Getting figures for the number of Afghan civilian casualties is difficult. It is conceivable that some Afghan families don’t report deaths for fear of reprisals, or because there simply isn’t a system of recording these kinds of casualties in more remote areas. Nevertheless, the Government of Canada should make every effort to prepare these kinds of estimates on a regular basis, and to be open about how the information is collected, and how reliable it is likely to be.

In addition to civilians killed by the Taliban, it is important to track civilians killed accidentally during NATO operations to ensure that our methods of lowering collateral damage are successful.

 

SECURITY BENCHMARK PROPOSAL 3:
Territory Held by Afghan and Canadian Forces

Kandahar City is far more secure this year than it was a year and a half ago – the Committee saw clear evidence of this. But gains made by NATO/Afghan forces need to be balanced against those parts of the province that the Taliban either controls or moves in and out of freely.

The Canadian Forces should share, on a regular basis, honest assessments of what percentage of Kandahar, in particular, and Afghanistan, in general, it deems to be “safe” (under the control of the ANA or foreign troops) or “unsafe” (either in the hands of the Taliban, or easily accessible by the Taliban).

Canadian soldiers can for the most part only conduct foot patrols and interact with the population in relatively safe areas, so a higher number of foot patrols are a reflection of better security in an area. Possible benchmarks include:

·        Number of districts taken and held by Canadian and Afghan forces (such as Zhari-Panjwai)

·        Ratio of Afghan troops to Canadian troops

·        Number of NATO foot patrols conducted   

 

Development Benchmarks for  Kandahar and Afghanistan

 

Overall Development Goal: Afghans have access to basic essentials - food, water, sanitation and shelter, and opportunities have started to develop which allows them to improve their economic conditions and encourage free enterprise.

 

While the Committee defines ‘reasonable security’ as the most basic condition for success in Afghanistan, security in itself cannot not provide the basics needed to live -- such as food, water, health and shelter. Moreover, the success of the central Afghan government depends not only on its ability to provide reasonable security, but also to provide the basics necessary for the development of the country. In this section, the Committee suggests benchmarks designed to demonstrate whether the general well-being of Kandaharis is on the upswing.

 

DEVELOPMENT BENCHMARK PROPOSAL 1: Food Comes First

While CIDA reports that “many Afghans cannot meet their basic food needs.

With Canada’s support, the United Nations’ World Food Programme (WFP) is working to help address this need through the provision of food aid.”[81] The WFP however, is forthright in acknowledging that “the 2005 National Risk and Vulnerability Assessment found that some 6.6 million Afghans do not meet their minimum food requirements.”[82]

There can be no meaningful development in Afghanistan while large segments of the population are malnourished. In our ‘Challenges’ section, the Committee outlined a major problem in meeting Afghan expectations: the WFP had been unable – for a variety of reasons – to reach more than half the population in “desperate need” of food aid.

International relief workers told the Committee that although the WFP had attempted to identify areas that urgently needed food in Kandahar province, the central government had not been sufficiently responsive to these urgent needs, especially in the cases of refugees returning from abroad and internally displaced persons.

Through whatever means, the Committee believes that the Government of Canada should monitor benchmarks such as:

·        Number of Kandaharis still in need of basics

·        Amount of food aid being provided through the Afghan government versus amount of food aid being provided directly by international agencies

 

DEVELOPMENT BENCHMARK PROPOSAL 2: Health is Basic

The Committee acknowledges that collecting statistics in remote and rural areas is not always easy, particularly because Afghan researchers – invariably male – are often restricted from interviewing women. However, a large number of development agencies are active in Afghanistan generally, and are attempting to become more active in Kandahar.[83]

Many of these agencies are involved in providing Afghans with the basic health services they need to live: improved hygiene, reduced infant mortality, innoculation against debilitating diseases, etc. For instance, CIDA reports:

·        More than seven million children are being vaccinated against polio through a Canada-supported initiative managed by UNICEF and the World Health Organization

·        Across Afghanistan, infant mortality has declined 22% since the fall of the Taliban[84]

The latter number is a critical indicator of the availability of basic health facilities in developing countries, and this should be one of the benchmarks monitored on a regular basis.

For the purposes of the Government’s semi-annual Afghanistan Report, the Committee suggests that the Government of Canada choose some key health indicators for which statistics can be compiled and regular comparisons made to show whether conditions are improving dramatically, marginally, or not at all.

Some possibilities include:

·        Sustained access to basic nourishment

·        Access to potable water

·        Rates of innoculation against traditionally debilitating diseases such as polio and tuberculosis[85]

·        Infant mortality rate

·        Life expectancy

·        Number of male and female Kandaharis who have access to health care according to their specialised needs

·        Trends regarding violence against women

These might not be the ones, but imagine if Canadians could get regular readings as to whether Afghans’ lives were improving in these areas.

 

DEVELOPMENT BENCHMARK PROPOSAL 3: Basic Health Infrastructure

Afghans cannot rebuild their country if the majority of the population is malnourished or sick. Someone who is sick in bed is also someone who can’t work in a store, or fix a house. Building the health care infrastructure to keep the population healthy means that clinics and hospitals, as well as doctors and nurses, are a priority.

How many communities lack basic infrastructure to improve health conditions? While there probably aren’t any authoritative assessments available yet, the Committee knows that when the Canadian Forces held a “Free Health Care Day” in the village of El Bak, some of the Kandaharis in the line-up had walked for days in the hope of seeing a doctor.[86]

The Committee suggests that a set of development benchmarks be collected through surveys of Afghan perceptions to determine if their community’s basic needs are being met, and whether they view the government as capable of providing these needs. Benchmarks could include:

·        Percentage of Kandaharis who have access to a doctor or health care technician

·        Number of local health clinics and hospitals operating in Kandahar

DEVELOPMENT BENCHMARK PROPOSAL 4: Economic Infrastructure is Critical to Development

Unemployment is the symptom and key indicator of a much larger problem: a dysfunctional economy. The 2008 Afghanistan National Development Strategy (ANDS) estimated the national Afghan unemployment rate to be around 40%,[87] and some studies suggest that it may be even higher in Kandahar province.[88] If the Afghan government is to eventually be self sufficient in providing basic services to citizens, it needs to stand on a firm economic base. Sustained development simply cannot occur within the void of a dysfunctional economy dependent on narcotics where money is concentrated in the hands of powerful armed groups like the Taliban and warlords.

To enable the development of a healthy economy, there must be economic infrastructure in place. The rolling blackouts experienced by Kandahar City residents are not good for business. In the ‘Progress’ section of our report, the Committee mentions some of the improvements made to basic economic infrastructure (roads, dams, irrigation, etc…) through Community Development Councils, NGO projects and military aid projects.

The Government of Canada should look at improvements in economic infrastructure in conjunction with the economic status of Kandahar. Here are some more potential benchmarks:

·        Unemployment Rate in Kandahar

·        Amount of electricity available to Kandahar City, and in the province

·        Number of male and female Kandaharis in skill-training programs

·        Number of kilometres of roads built and restored in Kandahar

·        Number of jobs created by foreign-sponsored development programs

·        Number of male and female Kandaharis receiving microfinance loans

·        Number of farmers switching from planting poppies to traditional crops

 

DEVELOPMENT BENCHMARK PROPOSAL 5: Education

Education is a necessary condition for social and economic development. Education under the Taliban was restricted to boys and focused primarily on the study of the Qu’ran. The United Nations has established that there is no development without the education of women and girls and therefore the education of women and girls is crucial to the development of Afghanistan. The UN has also determined that when women are given an opportunity to pursue their potential, health indicators rapidly improve for themselves, their families and their communities.[89]

The Government’s semi-annual Afghanistan report could make regular comparisons in several areas. Here are some possibilities:

·        Percentage of female and male Kandahari children of school age attending school

·        Number of primary schools operating regularly in Kandahar

·        Number of secondary schools operating regularly in Kandahar

·        Number of trained male and female teachers working in Kandahar

·        Number of new schools being built

 

Governance Benchmarks

 

Overall Governance Goal: A central government in Afghanistan that has progressed to the point that it is responsive to the needs of the people and that it can effectively provide basic services to its citizens.

 

If the Government of Afghanistan does not develop its institutions to the point that Afghans can clearly see that these institutions are in place to serve and protect all citizens ­– rather than enrich and empower elected officials and bureaucrats – then Afghanistan is unlikely to survive as a nation.

After the Government of Afghanistan has demonstrated that it has the wherewithal to meet Afghans’ basic needs, other priorities need to be addressed: eradicating corruption, ensuring free and fair elections and constructing an independent and competitive civil service. In a part of the world where corruption has long been part of the national ethos, choices will have to be made about how much energy Canada will invest in putting pressure on the Afghan Government to fight corruption and how much energy to invest in meeting basic needs. When corruption is a serious barrier to addressing basic needs, the two problems need to be addressed in tandem. When they aren’t, meeting basic needs must remain the priority. 

Only by looking at the huge challenges faced by the central Government of Afghanistan, operating in Kandahar and other provinces, can we begin to determine what kinds of benchmarks would provide trends in making progress within these institutions.

What are some of the main challenges within Afghan governmental institutions?

1.     There are too few Government of Afghanistan senior civil servants adequately trained to do their jobs.

2.     Corruption is rampant within the Government of Afghanistan and its representatives in Kandahar.

3.     Historically, there has been little connection between Afghanistan’s central government in Kabul and remote districts of the country.

4.     There has never been a centralized “rule of law” in Afghanistan; most centralized “justice” has involved powerful people throwing less powerful people in jail, and most rural justice has been administered locally and based on local traditions.

We need benchmarks to determine whether governance in Afghanistan is genuinely improving, and Kandahar is a good place to measure them. Do Kandaharis believe the gap between themselves and the central government is shrinking? Do they believe central government employees are any less corrupt than they have been in recent years?  Most importantly, is the Government getting better at meeting their basic needs?

 

GOVERNANCE BENCHMARK PROPOSAL 1: Responding to Basic Needs

In Afghanistan, “good governance” means a central government being able to provide the minimum standards for security, development and rule of law. Good governance means having a government which can equip and control the Afghan National Security Forces. Good governance means being able to provide a minimum level of services like sanitation, health and education to each and every Afghan, regardless of their tribe or gender. Good governance means having a central government with the will and ability to respond to the basic security and material needs of all the people.

The central government’s ability to meet these needs will make or break its rule. We Canadians are masters of political polling. Surely we can measure whether support for the Government of Afghanistan increases or shrinks in the coming years. Possible benchmarks include:

·        How the Afghan people perceive the central government and its provincial subsidiaries to be addressing their day-to-day security, economic and health needs

·        Percentage of Kandaharis who perceive the Governor of Kandahar to be responsive to their basic needs

 

GOVERNANCE BENCHMARK PROPOSAL 2: A Functioning Bureaucracy

Bureaucracy is vital to the functioning of a nation. Without competent people to implement policy, no government can function. Bureaucracies are never perfectly efficient, but they need to be as perfectly fair as is humanly possible.

Afghanistan lacks an efficient bureaucracy; and every Afghan knows it lacks a fair bureaucracy. The struggle against corrupt bureaucracy is going to be a slow one in Afghanistan – the rot is deeply entrenched. The only way to measure any progress that the Afghan government is making against corruption will be to measure public perceptions as to whether progress is being made. Possible benchmarks include:

·        Percentage of Kandaharis who feel they have had problems solved by a government bureaucrat over the past six months

·        Percentage of Kandaharis who feel the government bureaucracy has failed them in the last six months

·        Percentage of Kandaharis who believe there has been a noticeable decline in corruption among government bureaucrats

·        Percentage of Kandaharis who believe government bureaucrats are being hired on merit, rather than through nepotism or bribery

 

GOVERNANCE BENCHMARK PROPOSAL 3: Political Representation

In addition to satisfying the material needs of the Afghan people, good governance also means giving people a voice in national affairs. In Canada, citizens have access to their parliamentary representatives in Ottawa, to provincial and territorial representatives and municipal councils. If Canadians don’t think their needs are being met, they can vote people out of office.

Canada’s definition of “good governance” cannot mean imposing our vision of Parliamentary democracy upon Afghans. But, however it chooses to proceed: the Afghan government must demonstrate that it has satisfied the needs of Afghans to the point that a majority of them support it. The Government of Canada proudly points to the fact that Afghanistan has held elections and is a democracy – but how do the Afghans feel about it?

Canada is certainly capable of polling Afghans to determine whether they believe that their ability to have their say and to be listened to is improving. Some benchmarks could include:

·        Percentage of Kandaharis who feel that the current democratic system gives them input into decisions make by Kabul

·        Percentage of Kandaharis who feel that the Governor of Kandahar takes their concerns to the central government

 

Rule of Law Benchmarks

The Chair: You depend heavily on the support of the community and the confidence of the community to be successful in policing in Canada. When the Afghans have had decades or longer of experience with the police, who have exploited them, how can they expect to be successful in policing?

Chief Superintendent D.C. David Beer, Director General, International Policing: That benchmark may be our final one in the long-term strategy, when the Afghan public says they respect and accept their police as a civilian police and as their security umbrella. Once we accomplish that, we will achieve success; until that time, we will not.

The Chair: Can you venture an estimate in terms of time?

Mr. Beer: I will dodge that question with all nimbleness, if I can, but it will take years, many years.[90]

 

In Afghanistan, the rule of law is critical to maintaining security. Even if Afghan National Security Forces finally neuter the Taliban insurgency, Afghans won’t celebrate if they remain threatened by warlords, criminals and corrupt officials. In Afghanistan, rule of law and security are two sides of the same coin – and an essential part of the equation of “reasonable security.”

 

RULE OF LAW BENCHMARK PROPOSAL 1: Afghan National Police (ANP): Paramilitary Organization, Community Police Force, or Both?

In the struggle to achieve rule of law in Afghanistan, the one main limiting factor is the Afghan National Police. The ANP is the pivotal point where security and rule of law come together and arguably, the key to success or failure of the Afghan central government.

In the “Challenges” section of this report, we list the many difficulties that confront the ANP. Underlying its problems is the fact that the ANP does not play the day-to-day protective role that a national police service should ideally be doing on behalf of the central government – discouraging crime, aiding victims of crime, arresting criminals and handing cases over to the justice system.

Since the ANP is an extension of the Kabul government, if the Afghan people do not feel that they can rely on the police, this is bound to undermine their faith in the effectiveness of the Government of Afghanistan.

The key to future ANP success will be to gain the trust of the public by showing that it is a professional police force capable of responding fairly and impartially to the needs of Afghan citizens – and they need to be equipped and paid as such. If the ANP is to be a useful building block for the Afghan nation, its officers cannot be seen to be corrupt, nor can they be seen to be the agents of corrupt warlords or corrupt governors.

Key indicators toward this goal should include tracking Kandaharis’ attitudes toward their police to determine whether progress is being made. Potential benchmarks include:

·        Percentage of Kandaharis who view the ANP as a corrupt institution

·        Number of civilian reports of extortion from the ANP

·        Number of ANP stations and substations in Kandahar

·        Rates of pay among ANP officers

 

RULE OF LAW BENCHMARK PROPOSAL 2: Reforming the Justice Sector

So the police need to enforce the laws. This raises the question:  –what laws? In our ‘Challenges’ section of this report, the Committee sketched out the multiple challenges facing in the justice sector: insufficient numbers of judges and lawyers, a dysfunctional prison system, disjointed systems of law and limited access to justice. Quite simply, for a variety of reasons, legislation being passed in Kabul is not adequately trickling down. The Committee is not trying to impose a Canadian judicial vision upon Afghanistan, but Afghans must come up with a national legal system that gives its citizens fair access to justice, and Canada should do everything it can to help achieve that end. 

This is especially true in Kandahar province, where there are only eight practicing private defence lawyers and 12 legal aid defence lawyers. The Committee was told that there are six judges in the province and there should be 86. The Committee acknowledges that it will take years before Kandahar can develop an adequate formalized legal capacity. Is the solution to appeal to impartial regional legal experts who understand Afghan languages and legal context – such as judges in neighbouring Pakistan – to help train Afghan judges? Should international observers be present at official Kandahari trials? Maybe or maybe not – but the Government of Canada in conjunction with the Government of Afghanistan should be exploring all possible options, and collecting benchmarks to measure improvements to the system.

Benchmarks could include:

·        Number of lawyers and judges operating in Kandahar

·        Number of successful trials held in Kandahar

 

Anecdotal Benchmarks

Numbers like those the Committee is calling for provide comparisons. Numbers are important, because they aren’t easy to fudge without getting caught.

Numbers, of course, never tell the whole story. For instance, while hard numbers pertaining to casualties and territory controlled will tell a large part of the story as to whether Canada is succeeding in Kandahar, there will be other subtle indicators as to whether conditions are improving.

One of these more intangible indicators is how secure Canadian troops feel in a region. How much risk, for instance, does the military currently feel when soldiers patrol Kandahar City? As LCol Dana Woodworth told the Committee during our visit to the Kandahar Provincial Reconstruction Team, a decision for a soldier to “soft hat” – remove their combat helmet – during a patrol mission could only flow from a lower military threat assessment. That would be a clear indicator of progress.

Many of the insights Committee members gained on our last visit to Kandahar emerged from anecdotes (paraphrased here) from both Afghans and Canadians:

We have noticed more and more refugees who fled the Panjwai-Zhari district are returning home in recent months. A year ago the houses in the hills outside Sperwin Ghar were sitting empty; now they are all full with encampments outside them.

Locals are telling us that a much larger percentage of insurgents they encounter come from outside Afghanistan. The Taliban are still a threat in that area, but fewer of them appear to be Afghans.

The Taliban are scared of us (Canadian Forces) at night… we hear their communications at night – there are some areas into which they will not send their men to operate.

The ANA we have been mentoring in the last six months are much more sophisticated fighters than those the Canadian Forces encountered a year ago.

We’re now getting a lot fewer AWOLs (Absent Without Official Leave) among the ANA.

Anecdotes, of course, are like fishing yarns– they can be selected with care and are easily embellished. Nevertheless, with senior commanders and senior government officials signing off on these six-month reports, we expect them to tell truth to power: to give honest reflections of what is happening in the field. This is in the best interests of Canadian politicians who need to make decisions, of the troops who risk their lives in the field, and of Canadians generally.

Anecdotes are also useful in the areas of development, rule of law and governance as long as they are legitimate indicators of progress being made. Answers to the following sample questions could greatly assist our government and the Afghan government in filling the gaps and, in the end, improving the lives of Kandaharis.

·        How many communities in Kandahar have responded to invitations from Canadian officials to participate in development projects?

·        What evidence have development workers seen that projects have improved lives for Kandaharis?

·        Are Taliban threats to projects increasing or diminishing?

·        Do Kandaharis feel safe sending their girls to school?

·        Are Kandaharis starting to trust in the Afghan National Police?

·        Do the ANP feel safe conducting foot patrols in and out of Kandahar City?

·        Do Kandaharis have problems accessing lawyers when they need to?

·        Do Kandaharis feel that their voices are being heard at the federal and provincial levels?

These are just a few suggestions of the types of numerical and anecdotal benchmarks that the Committee believes that the Government of Canada should be communicating to Canadians on a regular and recurring basis.

---

Conclusions

1. Communicating on Afghanistan

Current measures of communicating with Canadians on issues connected to the Afghanistan mission are inadequate. The creation of the Cabinet Committee on Afghanistan, chaired by the Minister of International Trade, has had little impact. The flow-through to the public has been minimal. Canadians deserve better. Afghanistan is an important, expensive mission. Canadians deserve regular broadcast updates from the Prime Minister. Canadians deserve substantive reports, tabled in Parliament every six months, in which the Prime Minister informs the public on Canada’s goals, benchmarks, progress and challenges in Afghanistan. The current lack of leadership in communicating with Canadians on an issue as important as Afghanistan is glaring. Only one person can remedy that. It is the Prime Minister, and it is in the Government’s interest and the interests of Canadians that he do so.

The Committee has another suggestion in addition to prime ministerial broadcasts and regular reports to Parliament. The creation of a speakers’ bureau would connect ordinary Canadians with people with experience in Afghanistan at meetings across the country. Speakers could include people like:

·        Colonel Serge Labbé, current commander of the Strategic Advisory Team in Kabul

·        Major-General Tim Grant, who commanded all Canadian Forces troops in Afghanistan in November 2006 for three months and for nine months commanded ISAF tactical operations in Kandahar

·        Brigadier General Guy Laroche, most recent commander of our troops in Kandahar

·        David Sproule, former Canadian Ambassador to Afghanistan

The list goes on. It should also include parliamentarians, who then, can keep their constituents informed on the mission.

 Continuing Civil-Military Cooperation

Civil-military cooperation is essential in Kandahar. The Government has wisely appointed Elissa Golberg as the first Representative of Canada in Kandahar (ROCK), so non-military government personnel now report to one person.  The Committee welcomes this initiative, recognizing that a better coordinated Canadian effort is likely to increase progress in development and governance in Kandahar. This has also led to greater harmony between military and non-military personnel working in Afghanistan. Brigadier General Laroche told us that having a civilian counterpart has improved coordination among Canada’s defence, development and diplomatic efforts, and allowed military and non-military personnel to work in tandem to get results from the Government of Afghanistan on a variety of issues.

To improve the level of cooperation, there should be more joint training before deployment. We were told that government officials from CIDA and DFAIT deploying to Kandahar received only a minimal amount of joint pre-assignment training at the Canadian Manoeuvre Training Centre (CMTC) in Wainwright, Alberta. We have since been informed that this situation has improved, but we will be investigating further to determine whether we believe that the new level of training is adequate.

 

 Afghanistan Needs More Canadian Civilians

(a) The Strategic Advisory Team (SAT)

The Strategic Advisory Team in Kabul, currently headed by Colonel Serge Labbé, is working to improve Afghanistan’s fledging bureaucracy, which is key to carrying out reform and delivering services to Afghans. But as the Afghan bureaucracy grows, so must Canada’s mentoring team. The SAT must grow to meet the growing needs of Afghan government departments and agencies. The Canadian government should be expanding the SAT to include experts from all sectors of Canadian society[91], and not only from our military.

Afghanistan’s struggles with corruption, women’s equality, and with organisation and implementation of programs, exist across the Afghan government bureaucracy in Kabul and at the provincial level. Canada is mentoring bureaucrats at the national level. Why not do the same at the provincial level? Canada’s area of military responsibility is Kandahar province. Much of Canadian activity in the province needs to be synchronised with the central government at both the national and provincial levels. It would be useful to have Canadians embedded at both levels especially to help improve communication between Kabul and Kandahar. If the SAT is truly making progress at the national level, then the Government of Canada should start negotiating with the Karzai government for the creation of a provincial SAT to mentor bureaucrats working in Kandahar.

 

(b) ANP Training and Mentoring

The Committee has repeatedly referred to the challenges facing the Afghan National Police, including corruption, inconsistent training and tribal nepotism. We recognize that Afghan police officers are performing new and difficult tasks under stressful and dangerous circumstances, particularly in Kandahar. Realistically, the ANP will probably remain a paramilitary organisation for as long as police are targeted by insurgents.

Still Afghan police officers need to be trained and mentored in civilian policing duties such as investigating crimes, protecting local people from land mines, arresting suspects, as well as upholding and enforcing the law. Canadian civilian police officers are already contributing, but could contribute much more. The RCMP has ministerial authorization to send 50 of its officers to Afghanistan.  It also has the funding to send 150 municipal and provincial police officers from across Canada on overseas deployments.

The Committee would like to see this target met, with a much larger contingent of police officers embedded within the Police Operational Mentor and Liaison Teams (POMLTs) in Kandahar. Canadian police serving in Afghanistan should be paid according to the danger associated with this posting and receive the appropriate bonuses and leave time. The Canadian Government should also draw upon Canada’s pool of recently retired police officers – from the RCMP or from municipal and provincial police forces – to help train Afghan police officers.

 Resources

The Committee is still concerned that our soldiers aren’t getting all of the resources they need to do their jobs, and to do them as safely as possible.

UAVs: The use of Uninhabited Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) for surveillance and reconnaissance gives our troops an immense advantage over the Taliban, but we have been operating with outmoded equipment. The Taliban blend in extremely well, and Canadian troops need a better capacity to catch them setting roadside bombs and preparing ambushes. UAVs also have an important deterrence capability – knowing that someone may be watching from the sky can put a damper on tactical initiatives. The UAVs that the Government is in the process of acquiring for Canadian operations in Afghanistan will not carry weapons. This is unfortunate. It is also unfortunate that the Government has waited so long to replace the Sperwars currently in service. But … better late than never. The Committee still believes that the surveillance capability of a UAV is needed as soon as possible on the ground in Kandahar.

Countering the IED threat: The Government has promised to purchase medium to heavy-lift helicopters to move troops and equipment in Afghanistan. This is long overdue, particularly when so many Canadian deaths have been caused by improvised explosive devices (IEDs). Travelling by helicopter in Kandahar is a lot safer than travelling by road. However, land convoys will still be a fact of life, for both functional and symbolic reasons. So the Government should also provide more counter-IED vehicles to clear routes and more armoured vehicles to resist IED blasts.

Personnel: The Committee is perplexed that the Manley Panel concluded that Canada only needs 1,000 additional troops to support our forces in Kandahar province. The Committee urges the Canadian Government to keep pressuring the international community for additional NATO troops. We believe that Kandahar province needs at least 4,000 additional personnel to secure Kandahar Province by training ANA troops and by providing force protection to more civilians and Civil-Military Cooperation (CIMIC) teams in the field.

5. Talking to the Taliban

The Canadian Government has been adamant that there can never be any negotiations with the Taliban until the movement “renounces violence.”

Does this ultimatum make sense?

Drawing lines in the sand is one of those child-rearing mechanisms that doesn’t always work in the adult world of conflict resolution. The most satisfying type of ultimatum backs power with moral authority – “Go to your room until you’re ready to behave like an adult.” That sometimes works with kids, who know their power is limited and that somebody else is setting the rules. It gets trickier with resistance movements, who inevitably believe they are going to win in the long run and play by their own rules.

Sometimes, of course, there is no alternative to laying down an ultimatum. Neville Chamberlain tried to negotiate with Adolph Hitler. It didn’t work. It strengthened Hitler’s confidence, and the word “appeasement” was attached to Chamberlain’s name for time immemorial.

So what makes sense in Afghanistan?

On the one hand Afghanistan President Karzai’s offer in late 2007 to negotiate with the Taliban and incorporate them into the Afghanistan government does not appear to have diluted the Taliban’s determination to use as many suicide bombers as necessary to regain power by force.

On the other hand, Canada and its NATO allies may indeed be tougher and morally superior to the Taliban, but the Taliban clearly don’t see it that way. So the conflict in Afghanistan could go on for a very long time if there is no attempt to resolve the issue through diplomacy.

 

Who are the Taliban?

The Taliban movement is made up of a wide variety of people. There are those who subscribe to a radical Islamic ideology and will do anything in their power to harm the central government, coalition troops and any local Afghans who are seen sympathizing with them. These include remnants of the Taliban government ousted in 2002, Afghans who have remained loyal to that government and its cause, and foreign fighters. The latter are largely a mix of Pakistanis educated in madrassas along the Pakistan-Afghan border, Arab extremists and other Islamic extremists from Europe and Central Asia.

At the other end of the spectrum are Afghans who do not necessarily subscribe to an extremist interpretation of Islamic laws and beliefs, but who have other reasons for supporting the Taliban.[92]

Money, for a start. In a country of intense poverty, it is not difficult to buy loyalty, and the Taliban have plenty of money raised from the drug trade and outside sources. Taliban fighters are well paid in comparison to just about everyone else in Afghanistan.

But Afghans have other grievances that strengthen the appeal of the Taliban. Hatred of foreign troops - any foreign troops - is another, exacerbated by the historical fact that foreign troops in Afghanistan, such as the Soviets and British, have brutalized the Afghan population

When one puts oneself in the shoes of an ordinary Kandahari, who has undoubtedly had someone in his family killed over the years by a foreign military, who may well have relatives serving in the Taliban, who may be  desperately poor and missing out on the aid money flowing in, who has seen ample evidence of corruption and ruthless behaviour on the part of those who are supposed to be protecting him, then one recognizes that NATO has a tough row to hoe in stimulating support for the Karzai government or any reasonable alternative.

Not only must NATO hold the Taliban at bay militarily, it will have to play a major role in helping the Karzai government win the support of some very skeptical Afghans. Development is the only hope in that regard. Unless ordinary Afghans start seeing tangible benefits from the international aid effort on a widespread basis – which might lead them to urge the Taliban to either negotiate or even retreat – it is difficult to see a positive outcome in Afghanistan.

Separating Friends from Foe

It is clear that an essential part of Canada’s mission in Kandahar is to enable development and promote better governance. You can’t do that from inside a tank. Promoting social and economic progress requires mixing with the people you’re trying to help, and in Kandahar, that isn’t easy.

We were told by soldiers and development workers that they often do not know whether or not the Afghans working or meeting with them are affiliated with the Taliban. Unless someone informs on insurgents, they are able to blend in with the local population. Canadian soldiers have a tough time separating Taliban from ordinary Afghans.

Even Drew Gilmour, the head of Development Works, an NGO whose projects the Committee visited, said that he is sure that among the hundreds of local workers he employs, some are Taliban. To expect otherwise would not only be naïve, it could lead to unwarranted complacency.

Are there some Taliban supporters who can be won over? We know there are, because there have been incidents of Taliban fighters laying down their weapons and coming over to the government’s side. Every effort needs to be made to win over moderate Taliban supporters who are looking for evidence that there are better options than continued insurgency.

According to some analysts, the Taliban’s targeting of Afghan civilians and development projects has been causing a backlash among the population. Many Afghans are starting to realize that supporting the Taliban are unlikely to lead to peace. Dr. Sean Maloney[93] reports that elders in Panjwai district sent a delegation to Quetta (Pakistan), where the Taliban are headquartered, and told them to stop attacking schools. This seems to have paid off. As of April 2008, there hadn’t been a school attacked in months.

According to Dr. Maloney, this backlash within the populace has led to a split within the Taliban movement as to whether to become more militant or less militant. More confusion in leadership inevitably produces less certainty among followers. At least some Taliban defectors have been taking advantage of the amnesty initiatives that the Afghan Government has been offering since 2004.

In 2007, the Afghan Government raised the possibility of negotiations with the Taliban leadership. Taliban leaders have consistently rejected these kinds of conciliatory gestures. That doesn’t mean there isn’t any hope along these lines – even the most fiercely-fought conflicts among Afghanistan warlords have traditionally been settled through diplomacy. In the end, only the Government of Afghanistan and the Taliban will decide whether there is room for compromise.

The Globe and Mail recently quoted Lieutenant Colonel Gordon Corbould, a battle group commander in Kandahar, and Sergeant Tim Seeley, a civilian-military co-operation officer for Canada's Provincial Reconstruction Team, as saying that channels were being opened to moderate Taliban.[94] The Committee believes that this should be encouraged. Soldiers should be talking to all locals, including Taliban, finding out about their needs and using this to our advantage.

But Defence Minister Peter MacKay responded that these officials did not speak for the federal government: "We are not talking to the Taliban. We are not having direct discussions with terrorists. We won't, will not, that will not change," MacKay said.[95]

That is what is known as drawing a line in the sand. It sounds tough, and it sounds morally superior, but when the Government of Afghanistan has publicly offered to compromise with the Taliban, it doesn’t sound all that realistic.

 

6. What We Know – and Don’t

Committee members do not pretend to have come away from our hearings and our trip with a set of immutable conclusions about how things will shake down in Afghanistan, or about everything that has to be done to improve Canada’s chances of success there.

The situation in Afghanistan is highly complex. The challenges facing the country are numerous and multi-faceted. For example, the Committee did not have a chance to focus much on corruption and poppy cultivation. Complicating matters further, other challenges are outside Canada’s control – our presence in Kandahar is just one small piece of the puzzle. 

Here are just two examples of how outside forces may determine whether Canada’s efforts will eventually prove successful, or end up being wasted. They deal with two highly important questions: (a) How useful a role will the United Nations play? (b) Will neighbouring Pakistan, under new leadership, continue to make life difficult for the fledgling Government of Afghanistan?

The United Nations

There has been ongoing criticism of the UN’s efforts in Afghanistan, mostly over lack of coordination within its own development agencies and lack of coordination with outside countries offering security and aid. Things may be improving. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon recently appointed Ambassador Kai Eide from Norway as his new Special Representative and head of the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA). Eide will be responsible for improving the coordination and profile of the international effort in support of Afghanistan. Better leadership could lead to better cooperation on the ground. A stronger development effort needs to take hold in a hurry, and while the Government of Afghanistan may someday be able to do the job, it certainly hasn’t proven itself capable so far. The UN must take the lead.

The Government of Pakistan

Afghanistan’s democracy is fragile, and its most important neighbour – Pakistan – hasn’t been helping.

On February 18^th, 2008 the people of Pakistan voted for a new Prime Minister and Cabinet. President Musharraf has stepped down as head of the Pakistan Military but not as President. Reports surfaced that the new Prime Minister was negotiating with the Taliban in Pakistan, and that a ceasefire had been agreed upon. Unfortunately, a subsequent report claimed that negotiations had broken down.[96]

The international community is obviously keeping a close eye on what is going on in Pakistan. The power and influence this new government has over the different factions within its military and intelligence service remains to be seen. Whether anyone can get a handle on the lawless and independent-minded border region that Pakistan shares with Afghanistan remains an open question. Any degree of progress could improve Canada’s chances of success in Afghanistan and save both Canadian and Afghan lives.

Don’t hold your breath.

 

Final Thoughts

Is the glass half-empty, or half-full? We saw evidence of progress. We also saw evidence of hurdles that are unlikely to go away anytime soon.

The Committee is unanimous in its belief that Canada’s efforts on both the security and developmental fronts to improve the stability of Afghanistan and the well-being of Afghans are worthwhile.

Will our efforts be successful?

We would be misleading if we said we came back with the answer to that question. Our best advice to Canadians is to stay tuned: pay close attention.

The Afghanistan mission has already cost Canadians enormously in terms of both lives and money.

It needs to be scrutinized over and over again to assess whether the glass is filling up or draining away. The tide is unlikely to turn overnight. But eventually more decisions will need to be made about Canada’s commitment, and it is essential that we make the right ones.

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 Committee Recommendations

1.     In order to better improve its communications strategy with the Canadian public regarding Canada’s mission in Afghanistan, the Committee recommends that:

a.     The Prime Minister of Canada speak regularly to Canadians nation-wide, through radio and television broadcasting, about Canada’s objectives in Kandahar and in Afghanistan as a whole; and

b.    The Government of Canada table in both Houses of Parliament a progress report on Canada’s mission in Afghanistan, including Canadian efforts in Kandahar, every six months reiterating goals, outlining benchmarks, progress and challenges. Further, in order for the Government of Canada to ensure that Canadians are informed of the findings within these reports, the Committee recommends that these reports be followed by a “fireside chat” by the Prime Minister through radio and television broadcasting. (see p. 73)

2.     To allow the Prime Minister to show his leadership and commitment regarding the Afghan mission, the Committee recommends that the Prime Minister chair the Cabinet Committee on Afghanistan. (see p. 68)

3.     Since the primary cause of Canadian Forces casualties is improvised explosive devices (IEDs), the Committee recommends that the Government of Canada procure 12 Expedient Route Opening Capability (EROC) systems (12 Husky, 12 Buffalo and 12 Cougar) in order to better protect our soldiers from the threat of IEDs. (see p. 12)

4.     To provide the deployed Canadian Forces troops in Afghanistan with a better intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance and target acquisition capability, the Committee recommends that the announced interim purchase of Uninhabited Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) be accelerated to ensure their deployment in Afghanistan by September 2008. (see p. 13)

5.     To provide Canadian Forces in Afghanistan with better in-theatre mobility, the Committee recommends that the announced operational deployment of medium/heavy lift helicopters in Afghanistan be accelerated to September 2008. (see p. 14)

6.     In order to address the shortage of Canadian Forces soldiers and to preserve, for a longer period of time, the personal relationships developed among Canadian Forces soldiers on the ground and the local population, the Committee recommends that the Canadian Forces consider lengthening the normal operational rotation in Kandahar to a tour of nine to twelve months depending on the role of the personnel involved. (see p. 42)

7.     In order to increase the effectiveness of Afghan National Police training and mentoring in Kandahar, the Committee recommends that the Government of Canada send 50 RCMP officers and 150 civilian police officers from provinces and municipalities across Canada to Kandahar to be embedded in the Police Operational Mentor and Liaison Teams. (see p. 38)

8.     Additionally, the Committee recommends that the Government of Canada recruit and deploy up to 500 recently-retired police officers from across Canada to Kandahar province to further enhance Canada’s role in the training and mentoring of Afghan National Police in Kandahar. (see p. 95)

9.     In order to help improve morale and lower corruption within the Afghan National Police and encourage more Afghans to join and stay within the force, the Committee recommends that the Government of Canada financially assist the Government of Afghanistan to ensure that Afghan National Police officers have the appropriate equipment to fulfill their tasks and are paid a salary that is similar to that of Afghan National Army soldiers. (see p. 31)

10.                        Canada’s military cooperation with the local Afghan people is critically important to the success of our mission. The Committee therefore recommends that the Government of Canada increase the number of Canadian Forces Civil-Military Cooperation (CIMIC) teams deployed to Kandahar province. (see p. 41)

11.                        In order to encourage more Canadian non-military government employees and government contractors to deploy to Afghanistan and especially Kandahar, the Committee recommends that the Government of Canada raise the pay, bonuses and leave time for those who volunteer. (see p. 38)

12.                        In order to enable more development and governance efforts, the Committee recommends that the Government of Canada continue to apply pressure on its NATO allies to provide 4,000 additional combat troops to assist our troops in securing Kandahar province through mentoring the Afghan National Army and by providing force protection to civilians and Canadian Forces Civil-Military Cooperation (CIMIC) teams. (see p. 39)

13.                         Given the success of the Strategic Advisory Team’s experts in mentoring bureaucrats in Afghanistan’s federal government departments and agencies in Kabul, the Committee recommends that the Government of Canada form a similar Strategic Advisory Team to mentor Afghan officials at the provincial level in Kandahar. (see p. 39)

14.                        The Committee recommends that the results outlined in the Government of Canada’s semi-annual reports on Afghanistan be audited by the Auditor General.

15.                        The Committee recommends that the Government of Canada allow Canadian Forces soldiers and Canadian Government Officials operating in Kandahar to talk with members of the Taliban movement if communication encourages disarmament and/or ensures the security of development projects within the province. (see p. 97)

16.                        The Committee recommends that the Government of Canada play a more significant role in justice sector reform in Kandahar by assigning legal experts from Justice Canada to mentor local lawyers and judges in the province. (see p. 38)

 

Some honourable members have reservations with aspects of recommendations 2, 6, 12 and 15.

 

The Committee stands by all of its recommendations from its February 2007 report: Canadian Troops in Afghanistan: Taking a Hard Look at a Hard Mission.

 

The report can be found at the following website:
/common/Committee_SenRep.asp?Language=E&Parl=39&Ses=1&comm_id=76 

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Glossary of Terms

ANA – Afghan National Army

ANDS – Afghan National Development Strategy

ANP – Afghan National Police

CDC – Community Development Council (Afghan)

CIMIC – Civilian-Military Coordination

CIVPOL – Civilian Police

EROC – Expedient Route-Opening Capability

EUPOL AFGHANISTAN – European Union Police Mission in Afghanistan

FDD – Focused District Development

FOB – Forward Operating Base

IED – Improvised Explosive Device

ISAF – International Security Assistance Force

ISI – Inter-Service Intelligence Agency (Pakistani)

KPRT – Kandahar Provincial Reconstruction Team

NATO – North Atlantic Treaty Organization

NGO – Non-Government Organization

NSD – National Security Directorate (Afghan)

ODA – Official Development Assistance

OEF – Operation Enduring Freedom (United States)

OMLT – Operational Mentor Liaison Teams

POMLT – Police Operational Mentor Liaison Teams

PRT – Provincial Reconstruction Team

ROCK – Representative of Canada in Kandahar

SAT-A – Strategic Advisory Team Afghanistan (Canadian)

UAV – Uninhabited Ariel Vehicle

UN – United Nations

UNAMA – United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan

UNAMID – United Nations Assistance Mission in Darfur

UNDP – United Nations Development Program

UNICEF – United Nations Children’s Fund

UNHCR – United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees

WFP – World Food Program

Canadian Departmental Glossary

CIDA – Canadian International Development Agency

CF – Canadian Forces

CSIS – Canadian Security Intelligence Service

CSC – Correctional Services Canada

DND – Department of National Defence

DFAIT – Department of Foreign Affair and International Trade

RCMP – Royal Canadian Mounted Police

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Appendix a:
2007 recommendations

The following are the recommendations of the Committee’s 2007 report: Canadian Troops in Afghanistan: Taking a Hard Look at a Hard Mission

 

Former Recommendations

 

The Committee Recommends That:

1. The Government of Canada continue to apply pressure on its NATO allies to provide additional troops to assist in the training of the Afghan National Army through the use of Operational Mentor Liaison Teams.

 

2. The Government of Canada send up to 250 additional Canadian Forces instructors when an increase in the number of Afghan National Army trainees in Kandahar requires an expansion of the Canadian Operational Mentor Liaison Teams.

 

3. The Government of Canada provide up to 60 Canadian police trainers in addition to its current contingent of approximately 6 officers (soon to be 10) to help train the Afghan National Police and its Auxiliary.

 

4. The Government of Canada significantly augment the $10 million contribution announced by the Minister of Foreign Affairs in January 2007 to provide uniforms and, for future years, to improve benefits and salaries for the Afghan National Police.

 

5. The Government of Canada, in order to minimize civilian casualties, continue with the “gentle approach” of providing advance warning to civilians of forays against Taliban fighters, as successfully used in Operation Baaz Tsuka.

 

6. The Government of Canada should announce that while it understands that Canada’s involvement in Afghanistan is long term, it will be forced to reconsider its commitment unless NATO, within the next 12 months, puts into place in Kandahar a significantly larger and fully-engaged stability force.

 

7. In the next year and in subsequent fiscal years, until NGOs are able to safely function in Kandahar, CIDA provide from its budget $20 million directly to the Canadian Forces for their use in local development projects by Afghans.

8. The Government of Canada advise the Karzai government that it must, within the next 12 months, present to NATO a comprehensive, transparent and effective plan to reduce corruption as a condition of Canada’s continued long term commitment in Afghanistan.

 

9. To effectively stop Taliban infiltration, the Government of Canada, with its NATO partners and Afghanistan, establish a defensible buffer zone in Afghanistan on the Afghan side of its border with Pakistan.

 

10. The Government of Canada increase agricultural and

commercial assistance to help Afghan farmers in their transition from growing poppies to cultivating legitimate alternative crops.

 

11. The Government of Canada, in conjunction with Afghan authorities, should engage our special forces and RCMP intelligence gathering expertise in an accelerated program of interdiction, targeting drug lords and their distribution systems in order to quell the trade of narcotics

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Appendix B:
Taliban Night Letter

The following is a translated copy of a ‘night letter’ the Committee saw during our 2008 visit to Kandahar. Letters such as these are distributed by the Taliban, are meant to intimidate local Afghan workers to not work on Canadian-led aid projects such as the building of the road in Ma’sum Ghar.

 

(Provided courtesy of the Department of National Defence)

 

 

 

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Appendix C (a):
Map of Afghanistan

Afghanistan
Source: the Canadian International Development Agency

Appendix C (b):
Map of Kandahar

Kandahar

Source: the Canadian International Development Agency

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Appendix D:
Tribute

The Committee offers its gratitude to the Canadians soldiers who have given their lives in the cause of peace while serving in Afghanistan.

 

 

 

Jonathan Sutherland Snyder, Captain Richard (Steve) Leary, Captain Michael Starker, Corporal Terry Street, Private Jason Boyes, Sergeant Jérémie Ouellet, Bombardier Michael Hayakaze, Trooper Étienne Gonthier, Corporal Richard Renaud, Trooper Eric Labbé, Corporal Hani Massouh, Warrant officer Jonathan Dion, Gunner Nicolas Beauchamp, Corporal Michel Lévesque, Private Nathan Hornburg, Corporal Mark Ruckpaul, Major Christian Duchesne, Master Corporal Mario Mercier, Master Warrant officer Simon Longtin, Private Jordan Anderson, Corporal Cole Bartsch, Corporal Colin Bason, Master Corporal Matthew Dawe, Captain Jefferson Francis, Captain Lane Watkins, Private Stephen Bouzane, Corporal Christos Karigiannis, Sergeant Joel Wiebe, Private Darryl Caswell, Trooper Darrell Priede, Master Corporal Matthew McCully, Corporal Anthony Klumpenhouwer, Master Corporal Patrick Pentland, Trooper Allan Stewart, Master Corporal David Greenslade, Private Kevin Kennedy, Private Donald Lucas, Sergeant Brent Poland, Corporal Christopher Stannix, Corporal Aaron Williams, Corporal Kevin Megeney, Corporal Robert Girouard, Chief Warrant officer

Albert Storm, Corporal Darcy Tedford, Sergeant Blake Williamson, Private Mark Wilson, Trooper Craig Gillam, Sergeant Robert Mitchell, Corporal Josh Klukie, Private Glen Arnold, Corporal David Byers, Private Shane Keating, Corporal Keith Morley, Corporal Mark Graham, Private William Cushley, Private Frank Mellish, Warrant officer Richard Nolan, Warrant officer Shane Stachnik, Sergeant David Braun, Corporal Andrew Eykelenboom, Corporal Jeffrey Walsh, Master Corporal Raymond Arndt, Master Corporal Kevin Dallaire, Private Vaughan Ingram, Sergeant Bryce Keller, Corporal Christopher Reid, Corporal Francisco Gomez, Corporal Jason Warren, Corporal Anthony Boneca, Corporal Nichola Goddard, Captain Matthew Dinning, Corporal Myles Mansell, Bombardier Randy Payne, Corporal William Turner, Lieutenant Robert Costall, Private Paul Davis, Corporal Timothy Wilson, Master Corporal Braun Woodfield, Private Jamie Murphy, Corporal Robbie Beerenfenger, Corporal Robert Short, Sergeant Ainsworth Dyer, Corporal Richard Green, Private Marc Léger, Sergeant Nathan Smith, Private

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