Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
National Security and Defence
Issue 6 - Evidence - Meeting of June 14, 2010
OTTAWA, Monday, June 14, 2010
The Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence met this day at 4 p.m. to examine and report on the national security and defence policies of Canada (topic: the role of our Forces in Afghanistan currently and post 2011).
Senator Pamela Wallin (Chair) in the chair.
[English]
The Chair: Ladies and gentlemen, senators, we are gathered for our weekly meeting of the Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence. We are pleased to have with us today Chris Alexander. As all of you will know, he served as Canadian Ambassador to Afghanistan from August of 2003 to October of 2005. He then went on to become the Deputy Special Representative of the United Nations Secretary-General for Afghanistan, and he served in that role from December 2005 until May 2009. He was responsible for political affairs, including elections, disarmament, governance, regional cooperation, rule of law and police reform, as well as cooperation with the International Security Assistance Force, ISAF. He keeps himself completely up to speed on this issue. We are grateful that he is here today so we can hear his perspective. Please proceed with your opening statement.
[Translation]
Chris Alexander, former Canadian Ambassador to Afghanistan and former United Nations Deputy Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Afghanistan: Madam Chair, honourable senators, thank you very much for inviting me to appear before your committee.
[English]
After a decade of partnership and sacrifice, what has been achieved in Afghanistan? The gross domestic product was over $10 billion last year. Per capita income has quadrupled, even for the rural poor. Government, civil society and private-sector institutions are stronger. Culture and media are flourishing. State revenues this year will be over $1 billion. The telecom and construction sectors are thriving. Agriculture, mining and energy are poised for growth.
[Translation]
Three elections have taken place, and most of the militant groups that were involved in the anti-Soviet jihad have been disarmed. National networks of schools and clinics providing basic health care have been set up. A quality national army has been established. Poppy cultivation has been confined to a limited area. The six poppy-producing provinces account for 97 per cent of the national crop. The surface area of fields used for poppy growing dropped from 193,000 hectares in 2007, to 123,000 hectares in 2009.
[English]
These achievements mean little to Afghans in the absence of security. My paper, Ending the Agony, outlines seven moves needed to bring stability. Today, I wish to focus on only one.
There will be no stability in Afghanistan so long as military councils continue with impunity to prepare and launch guerrilla-style attacks in Afghanistan: in Quetta and other parts of Baluchistan province; in Miram Shah and other parts of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas; in Peshawar and other parts of Khyber Pakhtunwa province, newly renamed; and in Karachi and other Pakistani cities.
These networks — whose leadership, fundraising, training, bomb making, supply and planning centres are based overwhelmingly on the territory of Pakistan — constitute the primary threat to peace and security in Afghanistan today. They have only achieved their current scale and capabilities due to covert support they receive from Pakistani military authorities, including the Inter-Services Intelligence, ISI.
In this sense, Afghanistan's conflict is not a cross-border insurgency. It is a proxy war waged indirectly by Pakistan's military against the legitimate Afghan government and its partners.
[Translation]
The support provided by Pakistan's military authorities has directly enabled the Taliban to remain ever-ready for battle.
[English]
The continuation of this support represents the last major obstacle to peace in Afghanistan. Indeed, our collective support — under U.S. leadership — for a government and army in Pakistan now making common cause with the enemies of Afghanistan begs some fundamental questions. It has baffled the Afghans, unsettled President Karzai and forced competent ministers from office.
Everyone who has given Pakistan's leaders the benefit of the doubt, who has believed their denials or who has viewed the Taliban as a homegrown, armed opposition, has, in effect, prolonged the agony.
Indeed, it has become fashionable to ascribe the current military stalemate in Helmand and Kandahar to poor Afghan governance, corruption and lack of capacity. Such analysis badly misreads the situation. The violent Taliban, with their suicide attacks and deadly improvised explosive devices, IEDs, would be unable to stay in the field for long without cross-border support from ISI and other agencies.
[Translation]
This analysis can no longer be ignored in a serious debate, even though the extent of the assistance provided remains hidden from the Pakistani people and the world at large.
So why is Pakistan doing this? Because it is honouring a long-standing alliance, because it still believes in the strategic depth doctrine with respect to Central Asia, because it harbours feelings of angst and hostility towards Indians that are often irrational, and also because it maintains that it has some say in what happens in Afghanistan.
[English]
Most of all, they are doing it because they have been allowed to do so, largely unchallenged by the international community. The policy of high-level reconciliation adopted at London, which has so far failed either to reduce violence or to produce a credible negotiating process, took this policy of appeasement to an unsustainable level.
Pakistan's leaders must understand that there is now only one right choice. The international community should press its case from a position of political strength and unity, bilaterally and in multilateral fora. Attention to underlying grievances should be forthcoming only once Pakistan's support for violence against a UN-mandated mission has ended.
Most Pakistanis do not wish to see further bombs — in their country or in Afghanistan. Most Pakistanis do not identify the Taliban's nihilistic agenda with their national interest. In this regard, General Ashfaque Pervez Kayani, chief of Pakistan's army staff, has a heavy responsibility. He must demonstrate to the world, as he has signally failed to do so far, that his army, the ISI and other units under his operational control are no longer supporting the Taliban, the Haqqani group and other terrorist allies. After all, these forces are strong only in their capacity to intimidate and destroy innocent lives. Without ISI's support, they would collapse like the puppets they have become.
Honourable senators, since 2001, there have been at least four major Loya Jirgas in Afghanistan, ten major international conferences, innumerable debates of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, ministers and Security Council, as well as corresponding strategy papers. None has tackled this issue to date.
It is time to remove the main driver of this continuing conflict. The whole international community should give priority to this issue — without which peace, reconciliation, institution-building and regional economic cooperation will go unachieved.
The Chair: Thank you. It is most interesting to us that the emphasis of your entire remarks today is on the issue of Pakistan. We have heard from so many other perspectives. The recent news, in perhaps the last two days, that the Pakistani intelligence, the ISI, arming and funding the Taliban, that they are considered so involved as to have a seat at the Quetta Shura table. Do you agree?
Mr. Alexander: I definitely share that view; perhaps several seats.
The Chair: Is it your view that the alliance has not looked at this because they want to allow the policy of appeasement to play out, or because they totally misunderstand?
Mr. Alexander: I think we have hoped that other means would suffice — building institutions in Afghanistan, countering the Taliban on Afghan territory. No one expected that the support would continue on the scale it is continuing in spite of all the action the international community has taken together, particularly with the U.S. reinforcing its engagement in the past year.
However, in my view, we have known that this support was the case for some time, at the level of analysts — intelligence agencies from different countries, military, civilian. There has been an emerging consensus on this matter. We have failed to complement that analytical consensus with a political effort, because every time someone has spoken up about this matter, one country has taken grave exception and literally stifled the debate. I think the time for allowing that situation to happen has passed.
Senator Banks: What country?
Mr. Alexander: Pakistan.
The Chair: I think you said this, but before we go to proper questioning, your view is that the Afghan government and the whole issue of governance and corruption taking the fall for bad behaviour across the border?
Mr. Alexander: Exactly: To illustrate that, you know from media reports and probably from your own experience that if you go to a village in southern Afghanistan, perfectly rational people will say the United States is supporting the Taliban, as well as us. Obviously, that is not the case, but, at the same time, that is the way a villager explains the fact that the Taliban are coming, with this kind of support and facilitation, in larger numbers than ever. The U.S. is, in effect, partnering with both countries, and by extension, we all are.
The Chair: We will begin our formal questioning with Senator Dallaire., deputy chair of this committee.
Senator Dallaire: It is interesting that we had two senior officers at the staff college in Quetta for nearly 40 years and then removed them from the budget in 1994 or 1995 because we thought we would never have to use them. Now, we put some back but that has not produced results. With regard to your perspective on the regional implication, in particular Pakistan, I completely support your concerns that the insurgency is a regional problem, not a purely national problem.
That being said, NATO is neither an effective political tool nor development tool. Given your background as a United Nations deputy special representative, should the UN be engaged more significantly in the regional political exercise that we should see instead of some bilateral or NATO-run political exercise?
Mr. Alexander: There is a role for the UN here. One analogy would be the skilful diplomacy between Khartoum, Darfur and Chad over that conflict. Even before the deployment of a larger force, that diplomacy brought confidence to the various sides and moderated the violence, although it is not over.
Shuttle diplomacy by an empowered UN representative would be an attractive option. However, as someone who worked in a mission with responsibility for regional cooperation, I suggest that we need to be aware of one important fact: Pakistan might not accept this role for the United Nations.
For example, in 2006 or 2007, our mission put out the first-ever report on suicide bombing, which was a new phenomenon in Afghanistan at the time. One paragraph in the report quoted a Taliban commander as saying that they train their people in North Waziristan, where they receive the explosives and are sent on their way.
When that quote appeared in the report, Pakistan spoke up and threw its weight around the UN in New York. As a result, the report was taken off the UN website. The mission was disciplined for quoting a Taliban commander in a single paragraph. Thankfully, today, four years later, we are beyond that and on a higher plane of analysis. However, the multilateralization, if you will, of political discussion of this issue will be opposed by some in Pakistan and perhaps by the government as well.
Senator Dallaire: Pakistan, Egypt and Cuba fought an interesting battle at the UN Security Council over an attempt to eliminate the Responsibility to Protect concept, which is a tool that can be applied regionally for political solutions and to establish an equilibrium of debate. Do you see Canada, which was at the inception of that concept, possibly taking more of a leadership role in the political exercise of the region?
Mr. Alexander: Senator, if one looks at North Waziristan or maybe both Waziristans, from the perspective of human security or the Responsibility to Protect, then one comes up with a compelling case for greater international engagement.
I was in those agencies last with General Hillier in 2004, which was a long time before the insurgency rose up again and the suicide attacks began with the scale and intensity we see today. However, people who travel to those agencies say they are the poorest, most isolated and most terrified populations anywhere in that region. The tribal elders have been decimated in some parts of those two agencies — literally eliminated by assassinations. Wealthier educated people have been driven out. The population that does not have the wealth to move stays there and is literally under the thumb of some of the most dangerous terrorist groups the world has ever known. These are the same ones that brought us 9/11 and the most brutal parts of the anti-Soviet jihad, but they have radicalized since then. No one has lifted a finger to counter them, and many have helped them, since 2001.
Senator Dallaire: Where does Canada sit politically in the engagement in that region?
Mr. Alexander: We need to be the catalyst for discussion of these issues. A brilliant report that I have here came out only yesterday, so it has not been distributed to you yet. It is by Matt Waldman, who ran Oxfam in Afghanistan, and is entitled, "The Sun in the Sky: The Relationship between Pakistan's ISI and Afghan insurgents." For the first time, in 22 pages it lays out what many of us have known for years. Why has this relationship not been more talked about and scrutinized? It is because the information on papers like this one are not there. There are no journalists in North Waziristan because they are rapidly sent packing or worse, kidnapped, as David Rohde from The New York Times experienced for several months. There are no professional journalists willing to dig around and tell the truth in Baluchistan, and report to the wider world what is happening there.
The first thing we need to do is shed some light. We can play a role as a political catalyst and a catalyst for discussion of the human and humanitarian needs of these populations, which, in parts of Pakistan, are more acute than what we see in Afghanistan.
Senator Day: Mr. Alexander, thank you for your frank assessment. I want you to talk about the resignation recently of two important members of President Karzai's cabinet: the Minister of the Interior and the Minister of Intelligence. In discussing those resignations, I am looking for your assessment of these actions and whether they will result in a major setback, or whether the actions are the result of growing pains for democracy. The elected parliamentarians seldom sit, and they have no rapport with President Karzai. Explain whether that aspect of governance can be looked upon as growing pains and whether this Pakistani issue you have brought to our attention will have to be resolved by the world community outside the leadership of Afghanistan.
Mr. Alexander: I would pay the highest tribute to both ministers who resigned. They were among the most competent members of that cabinet. In the case of Hanif Atmar, he has been to Ottawa and has worked intensively with Canada. He was the first Chair of the Human Rights Commission and then, head of the accomplished Ministry of Rural Rehabilitation and Development, which brought us the National Solidarity Program. Canada is the leading or second donor to that program. He was then the Minister of Education when we began to support education strongly. Certainly, he was the best Minister of the Interior they have had, and his loss is enormous.
The same is true of Amrullah Saleh, the youngest member of the cabinet. He was extremely professional. He approached us when we were in the UN mission to take human rights training to his security and intelligence service officers. We complain about abuse in Afghanistan, and there are still cases, but for the leader of that organization to take the initiative to improve his human capital is remarkable. In understanding the insurgency, there was no one more qualified.
Their loss hurts. They left because the shared vision of how to overcome this violence and end the conflict has broken or is starting to break in Afghanistan, partly because we do not have a shared vision.
When this reconciliation issue came to the London conference in late January, early February of this year, it was controversial in Afghanistan: the idea of negotiating at a high level with the Taliban. It was controversial with women, it was controversial with non-Pashtuns and it was controversial with everyone because people worried what compromises would be made.
However, President Karzai has pursued it. He has a policy of reconciliation. He has tried to reach out to senior Taliban leaders. The ones he was talking to were jailed immediately by Pakistan.
Do you remember this in February of this year?
Senator Day: Yes.
Mr. Alexander: The so-called moderates were taken off the table, proving that Pakistan wants Afghanistan to deal with them and the hard line in the insurgency.
Therefore President Karzai had his consultative jirga to begin negotiations with whoever is left. For some Afghans, I believe including these two ministers, those negotiations are going too far, and they feel the political cost of this potential compromise even more keenly because their people are the ones being killed, injured and maimed — much more than anyone else's, including American forces. I believe there is a point of principle here behind the statements we saw in the press.
The Chair: In relation to the motivation for this discussion on the part of President Karzai, is he being pressured by the alliance as well to go down this road?
Mr. Alexander: He is being pressured with different levels of intensity by different players. The U.K. and, in particular, the previous British government, pushed hardest on this issue. It was their conference in London and this issue was a headline issue for them.
The U.S. has been more skeptical. Other players are somewhere in between. However, we read the reports in the last couple of days that President Karzai may not feel that the U.S. knows how to defeat the Taliban; that is has the capacity. There is a sense of desperation on the president's part — a sudden drive to do a deal so the violence is suddenly curbed by one means or another. If that is the case, it is worrying. I believe there is a sense from the presidential palace in Kabul that the president is no longer confident we are unified in how we want to prosecute this campaign to a successful conclusion, and particularly, not unified on how we deal with Pakistan and the support of a cross-border insurgency.
The Chair: We are seeing a different tone from the British as of today.
Mr. Alexander: Absolutely, and I think the difference will continue to play out. These ministers are new.
With regard to Parliament, Afghanistan's National Assembly, there have been repeated stand-offs and in particular, now one over the cabinet, but many laws are still passing. There has been an unprecedented legislative agenda accomplished since Parliament came into being four years ago. Parliament has sometimes been the leading force for reform, rejecting some candidates proposed by the president that we, in the international community, did not find attractive.
These are growing pains. I do not think there is a crisis there yet. On the contrary, after the presidential elections last year I think there was some rapprochement between the Parliament and the presidency. We will see if they can have all the cabinet approved, which will be a critical test in the coming weeks and months.
[Translation]
Senator Nolin: Mr. Alexander, it is a pleasure to have you here. The Pakistan issue is critical, and in my opinion, it is central to the whole Afghanistan issue. I would like to come back to a political matter that affects Canadians, that is, our military presence in Afghanistan.
The House of Commons has made a decision. Our military is supposed to withdraw in 2011. I have to admit that many of us are opposed to this decision, but it has already been made by the House of Commons.
I think that you stated that some aspect of our military mission would quite possibly end in 2011, hinting at the fact that not all military personnel would return to Canada.
Do you think that Canada should continue to maintain a military presence in Afghanistan, and if so, what form should that presence take?
Mr. Alexander: I tend to view the international mission from an overall perspective, from the standpoint of the international community. Despite the Canadian Parliament having adopted certain positions, the military presence in Afghanistan is continuing to increase with the deployment of American forces, which were not available four or five years ago, when Canada began its mission in the country's southern regions. I was in Kandahar myself when we took over command of the mission from the Americans, who were leaving for Iraq. It was as simple as that.
That being said, I think that the American presence in the south of Afghanistan will be the deciding factor in what we do next. Even in the province of Helmand, American soldiers now outnumber British troops, and this shift will help the mission gain cohesion under US command.
Canada needs to give serious thought to these developments in the southern regions, but also to the Afghanistan challenge as a whole. Canada is the only country to have maintained a constant presence in Afghanistan since the beginning, in 2001. We did not withdraw our troops when the British and the Americans left for Iraq. We have not wavered when it comes to making investments in the area of developing, establishing and strengthening Afghan institutions. I think that institutional investments will remain a top priority. If Canada has the opportunity to show its leadership in this area, it must do so.
Regarding a possible military presence, the Canadian Parliament will have to hold a debate on the subject. For now, the Kandahar military combat mission is slated to end in 2011. However, if Canada wants to remain involved, other options for doing so are available.
We should be realistic: it is now June 2010. The American presence is still increasing. What will the military situation be like in the fall? What will it be like in the winter, in the spring of next year? What region will be affected the most? What new challenges will arise, and will any NATO member countries be able to rise to those challenges? We will have to monitor the situation as it unfolds.
This is the first year that our counter-insurgency campaign is being conducted properly, with the necessary military backing. However, the Pakistani part of the equation is still something we cannot wrap our heads around.
Therefore, these are all elements we must keep track of. I do not necessarily think that Canada should continue doing what it has been doing for the last five years, but we can get involved in several other ways, provided that the country is prepared to hold a serious debate on the subject. Your committee is pointing us in the right direction. We have wasted time debating this topic nationally for various reasons.
We have stopped focusing on the major issues. I think that if we get back to the major issues, Canada's role will become clear rather quickly.
Senator Nolin: Considering the experience we have acquired over the years — and you actually witnessed Canada's participation in Afghanistan — do you not think that we should continue to share with the international community this experience the Americans are lacking? They are just about to take over. Regardless of the number of Canadians in the field, I am convinced that if we were to question, among others, General McChrystal, we would quickly conclude that Canada should continue having a significant presence in Afghanistan. Do you agree with this?
Mr. Alexander: I do agree. Our presence is very appreciated by all of Afghanistan, starting with the Afghan people, and we have demonstrated the strength of our commitment.
Senator Nolin: My thoughts exactly.
Mr. Alexander: It goes without saying that we should remain dynamic and active on the international scene, and committed in Afghanistan. I think that everyone agrees on this issue. However, the direction our commitment will take is difficult to determine at this juncture without engaging in a debate on a more global scale.
Senator Nolin: Among other things, there is the training issue to consider. Witnesses have convinced us that domestic training is not very effective.
Mr. Alexander: Yes, that is true.
Senator Nolin: We need Canadian soldiers like the ones currently embedded in combat units. That is when training is most effective. This would be one of the options.
Mr. Alexander: This is an attractive option, but let us keep in mind that 2011 is no longer a key date or a deadline that applies only to Canada. President Obama has not stated that the American presence will decrease after 2011, but he did say that they might transfer security responsibilities to Afghans in several provincial districts after the set date. We can already see that the Afghan army and police are now training much faster. Their quality is improving, even though in Kandahar, there are nowhere near the police force or the military skills needed for countering the toughest elements of the insurgency. In the northern and the western regions, as well as in Kabul, the Afghans are already taking on more responsibility.
[English]
Senator Meighen: Welcome, Mr. Alexander. Following up on that line of questioning from Senator Nolin, I am not a military man, and I suspect you are not either, but from your experience, can you make a distinction between withdrawing from combat and providing military protection to people engaged in training or development missions?
Mr. Alexander: Yes; there are units that engage in combat — that patrol, that take part in counterinsurgency operations, special forces as well, that seek to close with the enemy — and there are others that have other tasks, which can be on a base, or close protection, not in combat situations but to move around with civilians who do not ordinarily face an armed enemy. There are different roles, but I think we would all be reluctant to see Canadian forces deployed to Afghanistan for the first time with the dreaded caveats, with the inability —
Senator Meighen: Back to Bosnia.
Mr. Alexander: And back to Afghanistan, for many other countries. We spent a lot of time criticizing dozens of countries in Afghanistan who insisted on sending their troops only to this region or only to perform this task and not to be available for the full spectrum of tasks.
Canadian forces are, as you have all recognized, among the only ones with the depth of experience — in combat, in peace support, in peacekeeping, across the board — to do it all. If we use them but limit that function, we are doing them and probably ourselves a disservice.
That issue is a hypothetical discussion for the time being. However, it is an issue of principle for any deployment.
The Chair: We have heard from other witnesses on that issue.
Senator Meighen: Yes, we have. If I am not mistaken, the level of attacks in Kabul has escalated in recent months. What does that tell you? Does that tell you that it is an act of desperation by the Taliban, or is it a demonstration of their increasing strength?
Mr. Alexander: It is not increasing strength, but you have to understand: The Taliban, where they sit, in Quetta and other places, are surrounded by media, political supporters and a public opinion that leads them to believe they are on the verge of victory. Unfortunately, this situation is the case in almost any conflict with two opposing sides: They do not fight unless their morale induces them to fight.
The ones that come to Kabul are generally trained in North Waziristan, the eye of the storm we discussed earlier. They have been coming to Kabul since 2006 for these spectacular attacks. Amrullah Saleh, the former security intelligence chief, with his team of thousands of professional colleagues, has prevented many more of those attacks that might otherwise have taken place. However, you are right that they have made it through a bit more often in recent weeks. Why is that? I think the expectation of reconciliation weakens the defences, to some extent. A form of hedging can take place in the police where they say, we will have to deal with these guys anyways, so we better not be too hard on them now or too ruthless.
Then there was a political calculation that this peace jirga, the consultative jirga that took place a few weeks ago, was a threat to the Taliban's agenda. They do not want peace. They do not want a negotiation. They do not want a piece of the pie in Afghanistan. They want to destroy the pie. They see that Kabul's defences are better than ever, but they train, obtain a bigger bomb, bribe different people to get inside, and they occasionally have some success. Living in Kabul is still pretty safe by the standards of that region.
Senator Meighen: I think most people find the situation in the northwest frontier area of Pakistan, and the fact that the ISI and other elements within Pakistan are supportive of the terrorist training and operations that go on there, do not understand it. In your view, if Pakistan wanted to shut those elements down, genuinely wanted to put an end to them, could Pakistan do so? As a subset of that question, it would be helpful, no doubt, in my view, if the United Nations took a stand there. However, is it not so that the world's only superpower is the only country that could really shut it down if they are prepared to suffer the consequences of severely upsetting the Pakistanis or some elements within the Pakistan government.
Mr. Alexander: To answer the first question, yes.
To answer the second question, I think political means will be the decisive ones with Pakistan. We have not even begun to deploy the political tools available to us to have a serious discussion about this issue. Take the sanctions that apply to members of al Qaeda and the Taliban today. Some of those members are dead, and a few have reconciled. For eight years, that list was not updated. It is starting to be worked on now. Virtually all the people on that list are thought to be, or known to be, living in Pakistan.
Pakistan, to some degree, is in violation of those sanctions. Read the report of the sanctions committee of the United Nations over these past eight or nine years and try to find one statement of that obvious fact. That is the kind of knot we have twisted ourselves into. The UN will not do that alone. I know the people who sit on that committee, and I frequently disagree with them. They live in New York and have much less sense of what is happening and what the cost is in lives. It will take a group of member states with a multilateral approach to the UN in New York to change this situation. To be realistic, until 2006-07, the cross-border dimension was successfully denied or obscured by the Pakistanis. Then, some of the Taliban turned against, and caused a series of crises in, Pakistan, so one could not afford to bother them with this issue for a while. Toward the end of the Bush era, more pressure in bilateral relations was applied by the U.S. that primarily involved four-star American generals engaging four-star Pakistani generals. I do not know how many senior Pakistani officers you have met, but they are a charming species, and the charm worked. I think it is wearing off on the U.S. In time, as General McChrystal pursues his campaign, the U.S. will find it increasingly attractive to be in good company having these difficult conversations with Pakistan.
Senator Banks: Mr. Alexander, describe as concisely as you can the endgame interest of Pakistan.
Mr. Alexander: I do not think they have an endgame. I think their goal is to prevent a regime from consolidating in Kabul, which they perceive as hostile to their interests.
Senator Banks: Which interests?
Mr. Alexander: Their national interests.
Senator Banks: Why is that?
Mr. Alexander: The Taliban were their boys, as Benazir Bhutto said in her memoirs. When the Taliban fell from power and grace in 2001, it was deemed a strategic tragedy and loss of influence for Pakistan: not ordinary Pakistanis in the streets but people in the army, in the government and, certainly, in their intelligence services. To add insult to injury, President Karzai came to power. He lived in Pakistan for a long time but was educated in India. The forces behind him had been with Massoud in resisting the Taliban over those five or six long years. Who was the main supporter of those forces to literally take power in Kabul in 2001? It was India.
They think that by supporting the Taliban, they are displacing Indian influence. By extension, they see all of us as place holders or proxies for India, not because we are doing India's bidding but because, as long as we are there, India can have this influence that they clearly did not have when the Taliban were in power.
Every serious discussion with senior Pakistanis, including those in Washington recently, ends with this issue. They argue that the Indians have too many consulates in Afghanistan and they are destabilizing Baluchistan. Are the Indians not launching suicide bombs from Waziristan into Pakistan, they ask These allegations are absurd, but you can see how deeply the obsession runs.
Senator Banks: If sanctions by the U.S. or efforts in diplomatic circles were to be brought to bear in their fullest sense, what is the danger with respect to Pakistan? Into whose arms would the Taliban be driven? What would happen in Pakistan? What would "we" stand to lose?
Mr. Alexander: If Pakistan reduced, and preferably stopped, its support and if Pakistan bought into the idea of a real peace process for Afghanistan, this insurgency would end quickly. The Taliban would come to the table, a few spoilers would try to prevent negotiations but they would be dealt with by both sides.
Senator Banks: If we say to Pakistan, no more arms, no more money, no more support, and you are not welcome at the table, what would happen?
Mr. Alexander: As of today, they would say: what arms; what finances? We will have to move beyond that response through some process that involves writing papers like this one.
The Chair: The issue is nuclear power.
Mr. Alexander: There will have to be discussions in multilateral fora. Pakistan will say that if they are pushed on this issue, other forms of cooperation, including those issues, might become more difficult.
This mission has become so important for all of us. So many lives and billions of dollars have been invested. It must become a priority in our relations with Pakistan. There is also an incentive for them. We cannot go into the detail but, since 1947, the countries have not had a good relationship. The Afghans dispute the border and have held out the hope that the Pashtun areas in Pakistan might become part of Afghanistan once again. If a person was sitting in a staff college in Quetta, Rawalpindi, that kind of talk would make them nervous and incline them to have proxies in Afghanistan. Beyond the issue of support for insurgency, there needs to be facilitation of deeper bilateral improvements between Afghanistan and Pakistan. This kind of confidence-building has happened in many parts of the world. It is not beyond the capacity of the international community to make progress in this region as well.
Senator Banks: It has been found that there are inestimable values in mineral wealth in Afghanistan. This wealth changes everything and can be either the greatest thing that ever happened to the world or, if the government of Afghanistan is incapable of handling it properly, the disaster of all time. Which will it be?
Mr. Alexander: Both scenarios are possible. I regret to some extent the dramatic way in which it was reported, and the kind of aroma of "Great Game" and "Scramble for Riches" that came across in those reports. This is not new. The Soviets explored the geology thoroughly and the United States and others have been exploring it since then.
Indeed, the Chinese beat out a Canadian company for one of the ten largest copper deposits in the world South of Kabul, which is being developed. The lesson is that all the countries around Afghanistan have mining industries, and some have hydrocarbons. Afghanistan has not had mining industries because of 30 years of war and two centuries of having buffer status between British India and the Russian Empire.
Senator Banks: It is not a surprise that the minerals exist.
Mr. Alexander: Exactly; we should take solace from those reports because it proves that Afghanistan does not have to be an economic basket case. If there is stability with roads and rail, if there is more education and investment, if there is the rule of law on an increasing basis, then there will be wealth in that country sufficient to pay the bills and to make a more prosperous society sustainable.
[Translation]
Senator Pépin: In one of your papers, you say that international armed forces must resist the temptation to take control of areas where they really do not have the skills and abilities to do so.
What is the most useful contribution that the Canadian Armed Forces can make to the civilian component?
Mr. Alexander: That is an interesting question. I think that at the time I wrote these papers, I had in mind the whole issue involving the PRTs, the Provincial Reconstruction Teams, which have played an important and valuable role in Afghanistan. The Canadian PRT in Kandahar has made some outstanding contributions.
However, we cannot maintain the status quo forever because, eventually, the Afghan government will have to take over the roles that are currently being handled by the PRTs. The roles I am talking about are reconstruction and coordination of development, and the coordination of efforts to strengthen the institutional capacity of the police and other agencies.
We need to come up with a plan for transferring the PRTs' responsibilities to central authorities and to Afghans according to a timetable we will set with the Afghans. In Kandahar, this will take more time than in the northern regions of the country, where stability is already in sight.
Canadian forces have shown in Afghanistan that they do possess some skills and abilities needed in the civilian sector that even civilians sometimes lack. I was very impressed by their ability to provide policy advice to the Afghan government's ministers at a time when neither NATO, nor the United States, nor the development agencies of any countries were able to do so.
I am talking about the famous policy advice team put together by General Hillier that played a very important role for three years before being restructured in order to encourage a civilian presence. Our mission in Afghanistan will be successful if the State is functioning well.
I have mentioned several departments that are already functioning fairly well, but there are still about a dozen departments whose level of development is inferior to that of their more advanced counterparts. The Canadian Armed Forces are potential expertise providers that should be considered for this exercise. This issue should already be part not only of our Canadian debate, but also of the multinational debate taking place within NATO and the United Nations.
[English]
Senator Manning: Mr. Alexander, my question concerns the leadership of al Qaeda and the Taliban for the past couple of years. In recent months, some of the leadership in Kabul or wherever were disposed. When one is disposed, three more appear. In the past, we have seen the influence of the leadership on the population of Afghanistan and Pakistan. You indicate that some of the most powerful leadership is in Pakistan. What is your view on the present leadership of al Qaeda and the Taliban?
Mr. Alexander: They are more radical than their predecessors, younger, more inclined to use suicide attacks and other forms of asymmetric warfare, which we normally class as terrorism. The impact is not as much on victims as society as a whole.
I commend this paper to you as a recent analysis of how this group now appears. It has a flat structure. Commanders are sent into Afghanistan and told not necessarily to communicate with each other because it is too dangerous; they might be seen. Individual initiative is encouraged. If leaders cannot perform one operation, good ones will have a list of two or three other targets they can pursue, including civilian targets.
This analysis tallies with everything to which I was ever exposed inside Afghanistan. The councils are made up not only of the Taliban — sons of the Afghan soil who happen to have been thrown out of power in 2001. Three or four members on some of these councils come from — the Afghans say the ISI — an organized, disciplined, military structure that is part of, or associated with, the Pakistani state structure. Money, orders, capacity-building and training comes, for the most part, from Pakistan. The Taliban, as a result, have a love-hate relationship with the ISI.
They love it because they would not be able to hang on and continue their fight without them. They hate it because they are Afghans and they cannot stand being dependent. Even the recent memoirs of Mullah Zaeef — My Life with the Taliban — the former Taliban ambassador in Islamabad, confirm how tenuous the relationship is. I think the relationship needs to be broken.
The Taliban needs to be enticed away though for most members, this is probably impossible because their families all live in Pakistan. If they try to edge away, they are put under pressure. Alternatively, support needs to be stopped. The latter is probably the more likely possibility.
Senator Manning: Pakistan sometimes seems to be stepping up to the plate to address some of the issues and concerns. You talked about the leadership in Pakistan. However, it seems that if Pakistan steps up to the plate, violence increases. I realize that is all part of the course of the Taliban and al Qaeda. How do we address that situation?
You made an interesting comment earlier about the people versus the leadership of Afghanistan. How do we marry those two factions? To address the concerns of Pakistan, everyone has to be on the same wavelength.
Mr. Alexander: A little good faith will go a long way. The basic problem is this: Pakistan pursues a double policy on a large scale by going to international conferences and agreeing with the United States and others that reconciliation is good; supporting the Afghan army is good; et cetera. Pakistan has paid hundreds of millions of dollars for the reconstruction of Afghanistan.
At the same time, Pakistan covertly supports the insurgency. This is when things become complicated. Pakistan fights one part of the Taliban and supports another part. They are linked. It is hard to wall off these two policies from one another. That situation leads to all kinds of paradoxes, contradictions and confusion.
One policy that favours stability in both countries will go a long way. However, Pakistan will embrace the policy only if they are confident India is not the principal beneficiary — preferably not the beneficiary at all — and that their long-term relationship with Afghanistan can improve as a result.
The Chair: You spoke at the beginning about dramatic changes in gross domestic product and income. We heard about health, education, shifting political winds and the optimism of some military leaders. Do you think this change is possible?
Mr. Alexander: There is momentum in Afghan economic life in society. There is bustle in the cities and real momentum to what the international community is doing, which is unprecedented in the last ten years. Without that momentum, there is no hope, because the Taliban are a large, formidable presence in the country.
However, Afghans see what is possible if they remain loyal to the project started ten years ago. Where they feel most let down, from the government down to the village level, is on the bona fides of their neighbours, particularly Pakistan. If that relationship begins to improve, the buy-in of Afghans to the project will grow by leaps and bounds. The institutional developments we have begun to see in the past two years will accelerate.
The Chair: Thank you. Our time has come to an end too quickly. We appreciate your presence.
(The committee continued in camera.)