Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
National Security and Defence
Issue 8 - Evidence - Meeting of June 11, 2012
OTTAWA, Monday, June 11, 2012
The Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence met this day at 4:02 p.m. to examine and report on the status of and lessons learned during Canadian Forces operations in Afghanistan.
Senator Pamela Wallin (Chair) in the chair.
[English]
The Chair: Ladies and gentlemen, I want to welcome you all to the Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence. Today we are focusing once again, and we think for the final time, on lessons learned in Afghanistan. We have been collecting information over the course of our hearings over the last year, on and off.
The Canadian Forces, of course as we know, have been involved in one way or another since 2001. Canada's combat mission in Kandahar ended last year. Canadian Forces are now involved in a massive training mission centred in Kabul, helping prepare Afghanistan's National Security Forces to assume control of defence and security for their country. That mission is set to end in 2014.
We are very fortunate to have with us today Major-General Michael Day, literally off the plane from Afghanistan mere days ago. He is Former Deputy Commanding General of the NATO Training Mission -Afghanistan.
General Day has commanded the Second Battalion of Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry as well as the Joint Task Force Two, whose primary role is counterterrorism. He also has commanded Canadian Special Operations Forces Command, our so-called secret soldiers. General Day has served three times in the Balkans, twice in Afghanistan, as well as in Africa and the Middle East. He will be, after this break, if we would ever let him have one, moving to a new assignment as Director General of International Security Policy at Department of National Defence.
Welcome and thank you for coming to join us today. I gather you have a few opening comments to make.
Major-General Michael Day, Former Deputy Commanding General of the NATO Training Mission -Afghanistan (NTM-A), National Defence: Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen, for the opportunity to talk about the training mission in Afghanistan, our contribution during my time there, and my views of the challenges that continue to be faced as well as the successes that have been gained.
While I recognize that many challenges remain, I can tell you that we are on the right path. We are absolutely moving at the necessary speed to get the Afghan security forces where they need to be in order to assume full responsibility for the lead in the fight against the insurgency they face.
The solution in my view, and I think we all share this, has to be an Afghan one, and will achieve the overarching objective of being equal to preventing Afghanistan from once again becoming a safe haven for terrorists. They will also have the capacity to prevent and defeat existential threats to the government of Afghanistan, which would be central of course to the primary objective.
With these opening thoughts in mind about our success and the path we are on, I will quickly turn to the actual development of the Afghan security forces. My direct responsibilities as the Deputy Commanding General of the NATO Training Mission in Afghanistan was to direct the command and control, the development, generation and fielding of the police, the army, their air force, special forces and the regional support system, essentially responsible for the fielding of all Afghan security forces. The overarching goal of the training mission was to enable the Afghans to take the lead.
NTM-A has, and still has today, three focal points. On the near horizon were those things we did every single day, focusing on assisting the Afghan leadership in producing security forces through the creation of a training system, using both direct mentoring and, where necessary, direct instruction. That ratio between the two has changed over time.
At the far end of the spectrum we assured that our efforts were informed and shaped by a very clear view of the essential elements of what it would take to ensure that the ANSF themselves were enduring and sustainable in a post-2014 environment.
The middle ground or the middle focal point, if you will, was actually our main effort, in terms of time at least, and was a view of this year's campaign season where the operational plan called for the Afghans to increasingly take a lead in security operations this year. As such, we ensured that those force development and force generation activities, which more directly tied to the increasing assumption of lead responsibility, remained privileged in all of our decisions concerning the weight of effort, the allocation of funding and the assignment of our personnel.
Second, I would draw your attention to the time frame and the associated challenges that finite time presented to the training mission and still presents today. If indeed the NTM-A was not just to field the various security elements but to leave behind a system that could sustain itself, there needs to be a dedicated plan for extracting the coalition forces from that equation. Learned dependency leads to learned helplessness, which in turn is one of the first indicators of systemic failure. This transition to the Afghans cannot occur overnight, nor should it occur at the very last minute.
As a consequence, NTM-A has developed, over the last seven months, a plan best characterized by the branding of 50-30-20. This describes the intent to complete over 50 per cent of the non-enduring mission and tasks in 2012, 30 per cent in 2013 and the final 20 per cent in 2014. The concept recognized that a stressing of the Afghan training system early allows for sufficient time to shore up the vulnerabilities that might appear while there remains sufficient time and people to put the fix in. It also recognizes that many nations have indicated an interest in downsizing their contribution as the Afghans assume a greater responsibility. Finally, it recognizes that we would likely inflict failure by exceeding the absorption capacity of the Afghans in 2014, when they are also in the throes of a presidential election and assuming complete responsibility for their own security.
[Translation]
The final concept that I would like to introduce is the tough love approach of clearly dividing our tasks into three categories: must do, should do and could do.
This approach recognizes that we are no longer in the place where more is more. More, in many instances in fact, means more distraction from the things that need to be done in a finite time frame, and the dilution of coalition capacity as well as Afghan capacity.
These overarching thoughts have informed and shaped every decision I have made in recent years and the last seven months in particular.
[English]
Before I conclude, I think it worthwhile to address the third of my three responsibilities, which is of course command of our contribution from Canada to the NATO Training Mission. I have been tremendously fortunate in my career to have an opportunity to spend the majority of my field time deployed and in command. My previous experiences and lessons learned have been crystallized by my observations over our men and women in whom we place pride and trust.
Whether it is the navy chief petty officer who in a land-centric environment found himself a little bit at sea but ended up being the senior enlisted adviser to one of my U.S. two stars; the young special operations trooper who took a normal Afghan commando team and trained them to compete in an international competition in Jordan and placed higher than many Western teams, including U.S. elements, something I have taken unfair advantage of with my friends; or whether it be the work of our soldiers in turning a regional military training centre into a literacy centre, we are all represented with an attitude, an effort and a performance that I believe makes us stand a little taller and prouder.
It is obviously both humbling and rewarding to see what just one individual Canadian Forces member is able to do when given the opportunity. I describe the training mission and Canada's contribution to it as the finishing school for the ANSF, and I do believe that it honours the sacrifices we have made, that our country has made in Kandahar, and that we are creating something that will last. We are helping Afghans develop a capability that will give us the best shot possible of ensuring that the price paid by Canadians to date, Canadian soldiers and their families, is addressed in the best possible fashion.
I consciously steered away in my opening comments from hard numbers, not because I do not think they are relevant, per se, but rather because I do assess that they distract at the front end from the important elements of the debate on the overall capacity of the Afghans themselves. In my experience, the metrics in some cases go as far as to actually occlude the reality, as a numerical treatment of capacity and capability sometimes fails to expose the actual strengths and weaknesses or the opportunities and challenges we face in getting to an "Afghan-right'' solution.
Having said that, of course I am happy to do my best to address any questions or concerns you might have that I have not addressed. Thank you very much.
The Chair: Thank you very much.
In a sense you have touched on this, but I will put it this way: The successes, some of which you have listed, are somewhat counterbalanced by the ongoing stories of corruption. In the concern that many have about the losses and the emphasis on the costs of these missions financially — a question that I regularly get and I am sure you do too — was it worth it?
Maj.-Gen. Day: That depends on the perspective. If the primary goal here was, as was the task handed to the military, to prevent Afghanistan from once again becoming a safe haven to terrorists — because we accepted and recognized the risk that would continue to be presented out of that country if we did not do something, and if you work on the assumption that I do at the moment that we are moving towards achieving that objective, not only achieving the objective but being able to maintain that objective through the Afghans — then the answer is, from a military perspective, unequivocally yes, but that would be a military perspective vis-à-vis the task that we were assigned.
[Translation]
Senator Dallaire: We will need a second round of questions. There are so many questions we could ask the good general. And, of course, we must commend him and his team on the ground.
My question has to do with your methods to mitigate the impact of attrition on the hierarchical structure, on the individuals and their families. How does professional advancement work when it comes to high-ranking members of the Canadian Forces, meaning colonels and upwards?
What level of maturity do you foresee at those ranks, a maturity that could constitute a modern force as part of a new democracy, a constitutional state and a human rights convention?
[English]
Maj.-Gen. Day: Thank you for the question. As clarification, by attrition do you mean loss of life, or do you mean the people leaving the Afghan National Security Forces?
Senator Dallaire: I mean leaving your training.
Maj.-Gen. Day: In the front end, the situation we find ourselves in today, where the attrition for the Afghan National Security Forces writ large is about 1.5 per cent to 1.6 per cent a month, does not sound tremendously good. However, comparatively speaking, we were at about 2.6 per cent this time last year when I moved into theatre. The changes of the quality of life measures that the senior Afghans put in about food, accommodation, the quality of training, the quality of equipment and the quality of leadership, frankly, all have been factors in diminishing that.
The 2.6 per cent meant, in gross terms, that we were spending about $250 million a year as the NATO Training Mission to offset attrition over and above the growth that we had to go through. In the longer term, it was recognized that was not a sustainable level. We did set the goalpost at about 1.4 per cent to 1.6 per cent depending what part of the ANSF you have. We now have ourselves into that bracket.
There are a number of perspectives. First, there is no shortage of recruits. They are literally lining up at the door, which not only solves the numerical challenge but, frankly, allows us over this past year to have sharpened our pencils in terms of entry standard. Therefore, it is an eight-step process of who is allowed in and who is not. We are very careful about age now, underage and overage. We are very careful about drug testing. They do biometric screening with regard to security clearances in terms of criminal records. Through all of those things, pushing the attrition numbers down, having literally thousands of young men line up at the doors, we have been able to achieve that.
Going forward, the question is: Can they sustain that level of attrition? My experience in Afghanistan over more than 10 years now is that this society is trying to adapt to the circumstances in which it finds itself. There are still the vestiges of tribal life around harvesting, around families and everything else, and it has been a slow process in understanding their leave system. It is not our leave system. Their balance of life when campaign season happens during the summer, when the poppy seasons happen, the harvest seasons happen, all affects when people come and go.
We have seen the senior Afghans jump in on this and determine what needs to be addressed in order to suppress that number to an acceptable level. The initiative has been almost wholly theirs. I am confident as of when I left — not that long ago — that they have a program in place to look at the quality of life piece and the pay piece. The pay is very good for Afghanistan, and as a consequence of their own leadership, we have seen attrition get to a level that I think is not great for any Western military, but not bad for Afghanistan.
The flip side of that coin, in addition to the attrition that must be looked at, is what is the re-enlistment rate? When they finish their basic contract, the average around the world is between 60 to 70 per cent, which would be good at the end of a first basic engagement, three years or what have you. That is the bracket for a worldwide average. The Afghans hit that bracket.
For those individuals who were staying up to three years, between 60 and 70 per cent are signing up for a subsequent contract. They are finding something in that. Whether just because it is a job, whether it is literacy training or because they have a desire to do something good for their country — those tend to be the three reasons — they are finding something that motivates them to stay in.
With regard to professional development, this speaks to my opening comments about leaving the system behind. It is not enough for us to train a cadre of police officers, of pilots, of army guys, et cetera. You need to have a system that perpetuates that and trains them year after year, which requires the development of generational leadership.
We have learned from history that the Soviets pulled out in the late 1980s and 1990s. They left nothing behind: no school system, no training system, no branch schools — none of that. As money disappeared and they did not have a school system, the Afghan National Army, for what it was, essentially melted away.
Part of the NATO Training Mission is not only to train today's soldiers but also to train tomorrow's leaders. That is done much like we do today. There is a staff college, which is remarkably similar to what you would see in the United States, Canada or Great Britain. It hits different levels of officers. The most senior course, much like our national security program in Toronto at the Canadian Forces College, is attended by a combination not only of senior Afghan generals but also senior Afghan civilians. It really is a military strategy piece. We have a sergeant major's academy that teaches the difference between the individual leadership at a section level sergeant responsible for eight guys and for a sergeant-major, who will advise his commanding officer how to run his battalion of 800 guys. All of those schools are in place.
I would say that all recruits training for both the army and the police are run solely by Afghan instructors. The majority of leadership training is run by Afghans. By the end of 2014, they will have assumed 100 per cent of that responsibility. That is not only on the actual leadership side but also on the training side of specialist skills. We have created 12 branch schools — everything from artillery, to infantry, to signals, to engineer, to military police, and the medical system. The Afghans are now teaching in those and taking those leadership positions.
We have a challenge. Absolutely there are cultural aspects to leadership in Afghanistan that are different from our own. I would say that the challenge on our side has been to adapt to what works for Afghans. You hear me use the phrase "Afghan-right.'' They want a strong national army, a strong police and a strong air force. They do not want the Canadian Air Force, or the RCMP or the Canadian Army. They want their own. One thing that we have learned over the series of years is to allow their schools to reflect those cultural values. That is what Afghan-right is about.
Again, it is not to reflect an army that looks like the Canadian army, probably the best trained small army in the world. You will not get there with an illiterate Afghan society; you cannot teach their soldiers to do those sorts of things. However, in this training and leadership system, you will get something that will be sufficient for the need.
Senator Dallaire: Thank you for that short response. It was very complete.
Senator Lang: I find it very interesting that you have put in almost 10 years in Afghanistan in various positions. Perhaps you could give us an overview of how you saw it when you first went to Afghanistan and how it looks today and where we are in respect of building a more civilized society and judicial system for them to be able to take on their responsibilities. Could you give us an overview of that?
Maj.-Gen. Day: I first deployed to Afghanistan in March 2002 as the task force commander for our special operations task force at the time. I have just completed this tour as a trainer. In the first instance in 2002, there was no Afghan involvement in what we did — none. Today, there is no activity in the security domain that if it is not led by Afghans is certainly partnered with them. That is a tremendous journey between those two points.
The stark difference that I see, in most cases, is them taking the lead. The campaign plan for this summer's fighting campaign was conceived, designed and written by the Afghans. It was inconceivable 10 years ago to even think we would reach that stage. Those are the kinds of differences that I have seen.
I used to roll through Kandahar, which was a ghost town like many other places throughout the south. For example, you can walk through Laskar Gah, which you could not have done at this time last year. I could cite a number of difference examples but the most evident change is that they now have the institutional capacity to take on the responsibility for their own country; and they are keen to do so. That is reflected in some of the tensions that we face. They have a particular way of doing things and we have a particular way of doing them. That is a tremendously useful tension and is a sign that they are interested in their own sovereignty and moving forward. This change of not only capacity building but also capability building to allow them to stand on their own two feet is the largest change that I have seen in my 10 years in and out of that country.
Senator Lang: You spoke a little about being able to walk through the streets in one community, which you would not have done last year. That leads me to the next question of peace and security. It is one thing about the training and another thing about Afghans taking responsibility for both the military and the police.
The Western world hears about the peace and security when there is a bombing in Afghanistan. What is your perspective of the day-to-day peace and security in these communities with the changes that have taken place? Can the Afghans go about their business day and night feeling that their security is being taken care of?
Maj.-Gen. Day: To look at Afghanistan as a homogeneous monolithic is very difficult because you have to recognize that you have different threat profiles in different conditions in different parts of the country. I will use the analogy or example of the bombing that you referred to. I have not been in Kabul for 13 months. Being a soft guy, I am fairly familiar with the mechanistic approach to how you would handle a terrorist threat in a large urban area. The last big attack that took place in Kabul in April took them about five months to plan. It was the first time in months that something of any significance had happened in Kabul. It was a complex attack in three different locations. Within 21 hours, the Afghans, by themselves, had isolated the three target sites, contained it and had resolved it; and 21 hours later, Kabul was back to normal.
I am not pretending there are no threats and I am not saying that there is not going to be any violence, but I am not convince that these spectacular attacks are a good metric of what success looks like. They do not represent a threat to the Government of Afghanistan; and they do not represent a growing foothold in Afghanistan of a terrorist network. However, they do represent a growing capacity, if you will, of the Afghan security forces to deal with those threats that are presented.
Some areas are more dangerous than others. The North and the West are tremendously stable — Afghanistan comparisons are important — and relatively quiet, but in the east and parts of the south, you will get a higher level of violence. None of that violence strikes me as anything but, for the most part, a reaction to what the Afghan security forces are doing; what the coalition is doing; and, in some isolated cases, what the insurgency is able to cobble together. Certainly, it does not represent the same kind of threats that were presented even a handful of years ago.
Senator Day: I would like to talk about your 50-30-20 plan to train, in 2012, 50 per cent of the work to be done, 30 per cent next year and then 20 per cent in the final year. I want to confirm that the 20 per cent in 2014 would go to the end of the year.
Maj.-Gen. Day: Yes, it will. As I said previously, we looked at the capacity of the Afghans and the things we needed to complete by the end of 2014. We recognized that based on the series of demands, we just needed to stage this a little bit deliberately and very consciously front-end load the system.
That 20 per cent is almost like cleaning up in the corners, quite frankly. You have observed it over 2012 and 2013 where there are some fragilities and the more technical pieces, where you are relying on having a bit of a longer lead time. Things like the engineering school, for example, will take a little longer, but that 20 per cent is designed by the NTM-A mission and the current mandate is designated to be complete by the end of 2014.
Senator Day: Canada is planning to be out of there in all respects by the spring of 2014, so other NATO countries will be doing this work, then.
Maj.-Gen. Day: Right. As the Prime Minister has announced, the Canadian contribution will be complete by the end of March. We are now working through the detailed planning to make sure we translate that into how we will actually get it done. The NATO Training Mission and its mandate, as well as ISAF's, formally ends at the end of December 2014.
Senator Day: I have another question, if I may. We are always limited in time and all honourable senators want to participate, but I would like to talk a little bit about this attrition rate. These are soldiers, Afghan national security personnel you have trained and they do not come back. According to figures that we have, it is roughly 25 per cent per year. You are training a quarter more each year just to keep your numbers steady, and you want to grow. I know there are a lot of things that you are training them.
However, that might not be such a serious figure if the 25 per cent who had been trained and do not come back are being taught leadership, numeracy, literacy and other skills that they can take into society, like many members of the Canadian Armed Forces who decide not to stay but provide very good leadership in other areas. Could you talk to us a bit about that and whether I am right in suggesting that they may have a role to play in society?
Maj.-Gen. Day: Absolutely. I would start off by saying we are past the growth phase for the army. The army was designated to move up to 195,000, which included 8,000 within the air force, so it is 187,000 for the army and 8,000 for the air force. That was scheduled to be complete by October or November of this year. They hit that last month. Their recruiting and training capacity is awe-inspiring. There has not been an army that has tried to grow at the pace and size that the Afghan army has done since the Second World War. We have to put the magnitude of that challenge into perspective. We have grown over 100,000 soldiers over the last 16 months. The attrition rate, albeit a cost, has not prevented that growth.
We talk about the literacy piece and the impact on Afghan society. I like to say we are harvesting the benefits of the Taliban education system which is, quite frankly, zero. If you talk to young Afghan men and go into their compulsory literacy training, every recruit must have 64 hours of literacy training in his own language before they are allowed to graduate. In NTM-A, we hire 3,000 Afghans to teach that literacy training, so there is an injection into that. If there is one common theme it is, "I get to learn to read and write; I will go back to my village and I will actually be something, because I can read and write.''
Whether it is part of the attrition piece or when they finally finish their commitments to the army, this is an element across all Afghan society I have seen that resonates tremendously deep. There is a keen appreciation on how they have been disadvantaged by the Taliban regime and what they need to do to make it up.
I do not want to go as far as to say this is reformation-like change, but you are taking a society and giving them something they have not fundamentally had for decades now.
Senator Day: I think that is an important factor that we miss when we look at those attrition rates.
Maj.-Gen. Day: It is a huge piece. They are leaders in their own community.
The Chair: I want to reinforce that. I have heard from many people that when they go back to their own communities, regardless of what their activity is, they, not the drug lord or the Taliban leader, are now the important person in town because they have those literacy skills. We are giving them to girls as well. It is kind of an amazing piece.
Senator Plett: General, I also want to add my congratulations to the tremendous work our forces have been doing, not only in the last 10 years, but in the training mission. We see how the Canadian Forces are the elite of forces in the world. Thank you very much.
I have two questions. One is a follow-up to what Senator Lang already talked about. One concern I have, and asked others about when they have been here, is that we have set dates. It is 2014 for us, whatever the date is for the rest of the coalition forces and so on. Maybe I am from Missouri on this, but I am not sure that the Taliban — and maybe they have — are starting to go away.
However, we have given them a date and we have said this is when we will all be gone. What assurances are there that they are not just waiting for that date and then they come back, understanding that clearly the Afghan forces are much better at handling things now than they were a while ago. There was a suicide bomb again just a few days ago. It may not have been a large one, but nonetheless it was there again. What assurances do we have that the Taliban is not sitting in the shadows and waiting for the dates we have given them?
Maj.-Gen. Day: I think that is a valid concern. However, I think a review of the situation as I understand it would dispel that at this stage.
First, I continue to say to everyone — as all of us do in the leadership from the NATO side of the house — that individual acts of violence are not metrics that we think really expose the issue. Anyone can bring violence in this country in some shape or form. The question is, does it present a coherent approach? Is it existential to the government? Does it really disrupt things?
With regard to the timeline, the position that we continue in the NATO Training Mission is based on the Secretary-General's comments, which is that the end of 2014 is not the end of NATO's participation; the strategic agreement that came out of Chicago. Our funding commitments through NATO ensure that the Afghan security forces continue to remain a viable capability going forward. Our sense is — respecting of course security and everything else — that this actually resonates tremendously with the insurgency. They were hoping that we would disappear. The continued reassurance and funding proposals to ensure the Afghans have the capability they need are the things that will prevent the Taliban, and the other parts of the insurgency, from being fooled into thinking it is just a waiting game.
From my understanding of reading the intelligence reports, the message is that they actually get that. They cannot outweigh us anymore. There will be a continuing NATO presence and funding. This is part of the motivation we must look at in terms of which parts of the insurgency need to be involved in reconciliation, and which put down their weapons because there is no benefit to be gained.
Senator Plett: What percentage of teachers, trainers and the national army are women? What is their attrition rate? I think you said 60 per cent. I think I understood 60 per cent is the figure they are using for people re-signing. Is the number for the women about the same? Specifically, what percentage in the national army are women and how many of them are doing the training as well?
Maj.-Gen. Day: I will comment on both the army and the police because I want to show a difference in how it addresses the cultural aspects of this.
The army is 195,000 people strong as I have alluded to previously. They are something north of 230 women only. I do not express it as percentage because it is not a meaningful number. The hard number is actually more interesting.
There is absolutely a cultural aspect to this. By the way, I joined in the 1980s and 1990s, and the Canadian Forces have gone through this path over the decades, et cetera. How much more so is that a challenge in Afghanistan? They recruit junior female officers, including pilots. This is very slow and it will continue to be slow.
I mention the police because there are well over 1,000 female police, out of the 157,000 police, because the Afghans can see an operational role. With the army, they are not yet at the point where they see the value. It is difficult to explain to that culture that you cannot afford to ignore 50 per cent of your population and not benefit from all of the intelligence and the effort. To be reflective of your society, if you ignore 50 per cent, it does not work. In the police, they get it because of the operational requirement, on the borders, to do the inspections and searches and, in the police stations, for the female police officers to speak to women in the town and what have you. When they are faced with the harsh reality of an operational need, they are actually pretty decent at that and getting better. However, there is still a cultural aspect to that; it is not universally accepted. It will take Afghanistan a long time to incorporate that into the fabric.
Senator Mitchell: I would like to emphasize the point that Senator Plett made and respond to it. There is a lot of evidence that you do not really get Third World development until women are educated, so it is so important to do that. It is such a challenge for a place like Afghanistan. My question is about young women. Recently, there was a report about the Taliban poisoning schoolgirls. I wonder how widespread that is and how serious a threat it is if it is true. Is it just an act of desperation, not reflective of real authority or real power on the part of the Taliban?
Maj.-Gen. Day: The only view I have on that report is probably the same newspaper article that you saw, so I am not sure that I could give any sort of meaning to that.
I would like to come back to the comment about Third World development. You are absolutely right. There is a broad appreciation across all of the senior leadership that it is a necessary piece, but we also recognize that it does not happen overnight. This is generational change that we are looking at.
Back to the schoolgirl piece, I have learned a couple of things in terms of how things are reported by the Afghan press. I do not mean in this particular case because I have no specific knowledge of it. It does not necessarily tend to be inspired by the rigour that one would hope to see or that we would see here in the Western press, so sometimes it does get a little bit of traction and lift that is not always there. The example I will give on poisoning is that we had a reported poisoning case in one of our training facilities. It hit the press, and it was "We will blame these people; this is what they did.'' We went in pretty hard and did a medical assessment in terms of how sanitation was being affected. It was just poor sanitation in the kitchen. I am not saying it does not happen, but I am always leery of first reports until I actually unpack that issue myself.
Senator Mitchell: Hopefully that is good news that that is not occurring in that way.
You touched on the police. First, could you confirm whether the development of the police has not made the progress that the army has in the sense that we hear that there are still corruption issues? Second, how is the judicial system evolving, and is there a stronger relationship between the police and the judicial system? Is it getting to be more objective and trustworthy?
Maj.-Gen. Day: You are absolutely right to say that the police are behind in terms of development. However, in the last six to seven months, although they remain behind, their rate of progress is actually faster than the army's. In terms of how to make progress in the army, progress is still taking place but at a slower rate. The leadership of the Ministry of the Interior, under Minister B.K. Mohammadi, who used to be the Chief of General Staff in the army, has pushed a tremendously aggressive agenda. He is very assertive. Within the NATO Training Mission, we recognize that the fastest moving pillar in my command — the support piece — between the army, the air force, the police and the special forces was the police. They may have been behind. I think they are still slightly behind. The complexity — heaven forbid a soldier would say this — of being a police officer may be greater than the complexity of being a regular soldier, but they are making tremendous progress. They have a long way to go.
You mentioned corruption. No one should pretend that you are going to erase overnight 30 years of survival that has been based, in part, on corruption. What you look to have is diminishing levels, where it does not interfere with their job and where people can look at the policemen and have confidence in what they do. That confidence is tied, in part, as you describe, to the linkage to the judicial system. The judicial system, as I say to people, has a long way to go, but it is better this year than it was last year. It was better last year than the year before.
The continuum of investigation to arrest to prosecution to incarceration is actually a pretty well understood continuum in Afghanistan. My sense is that they are increasingly good at that. Are they at the level where we would want them to be? No. Are they at the level where they need to be? No. Are they on their way to getting there? Absolutely, unequivocally, yes. The question then becomes one of sufficiency, and how we move forward on that.
The idea of law enforcement policing versus paramilitary policing, and the big difference between fighting and policing, is beginning to shift pretty significantly, both in the north and in the west where the conditions are favourable. We are seeing progress. I do not want to spin this as all good. There are parts that are still ugly, but progress is being made.
The Chair: General, many members of this committee were in Washington last week because we try to annually talk with our counterparts there, and, of course, we know that the big NATO meeting just occurred in Chicago. Here is a related question. My sense is that — and we have been hearing this on our trips — there is a new respect for Canada because of our operations in Afghanistan. One does not get the sense that they are just telling us that because we walked into the room. We do really appear to be back at the table of international players as we are thinking through all these issues about what is next, what operations might be and what our larger alliances have to look at. Is that your sense, and how do we keep that alive?
Maj.-Gen. Day: It is absolutely my sense. It is difficult, of course, because I have a slightly prejudiced view, wanting to believe that that is true.
The Chair: We all do.
Maj.-Gen. Day: I want to believe that our 10 years of contributions and the sacrifices that we have made have actually garnered something. I look at the NATO Training Mission itself as a good, illustrative example. We are the second largest contributing country, but that actually includes the reality that the American contribution, because they are the majority funders and run the infrastructure, is mostly a back office staff function. When you look at the ratios of contributing nations on the ground in the training institutions, in the schools and in the training centres, Canada's contribution is far and away the largest. I look at the whole military training centre, the fielding centre, the signal school and the three regional military training centres, all run by Canadians. Not only have we had a fundamental effect on Afghans, but we have also led this coalition of 37 countries. The appointment that I held and that Major-General Jim Ferron, a Canadian who has followed me, now holds is command of all Afghan training development. My sense is that we have absolutely reached that pivot point of moving from combat to training to finishing school, if you will. You cannot fight and militarily defeat an insurgency; that is insufficient. You need to give the indigenous population — the Afghans in this particular case — the wherewithal to do it, and Canada has kind of hit that piece. My sense is that, certainly within military circles, we have both a gravitas and a say that is a direct reflection of our contribution to Afghanistan in the last 10 years; there is no doubt.
Senator Manning: Thank you, general. I join my colleagues in thanking you and your colleagues for your efforts in Afghanistan over the past decade. You have talked about Afghan life and the major differences that have you seen in the decade that you have been there. You touched on many of the improvements, and we have heard of those before and are delighted to know that our efforts are producing results. You have been candid in your answers in relation to the concerns that are still there today and regarding improvements that need to be made.
Could you touch on what you see as the major challenge in Afghanistan today for the people of Afghanistan more than for the NATO people who are there? For the people of Afghanistan who are preparing for a future in which they will be operating and controlling themselves, what do you see as their biggest major challenge?
Maj.-Gen. Day: I do not have unbridled confidence but rather cautious optimism that the Afghan security forces will be equal to the task that we think they need to perform. Therefore, I do not believe that to be the central concern of the normal Afghan citizen. I think their concern, going through 2014, remains the same as most citizens around the world at the moment, and that is their economy.
The contribution of the international community to Afghanistan is what has allowed it to make the shift that has taken place. On many fronts, that is about security, but that in and of itself will not actually allow for the current system to remain in place. The economy and the Afghans' ability to find a way forward themselves, whether it be to leverage their own national resources or to find some sort of economic base that looks after their cares and concerns and shifts from worrying about security to about education, about medical care — it is all those things.
I have talked to senior Afghans over the last 13 months. They are as worried about that as anything else. Rightly or wrongly, the metric for success needs to be carefully measured here. It is not an absence of violence. It is not Canada; we are not trying to create Switzerland here. The metric will be: Do the Afghans think that tomorrow will be better than today? Is today better than yesterday?
Almost without exception, my sense is that Afghans believe that, but they are tremendously worried about what will happen if the international community does not continue to fund and support them. They have that experience, because that is what happened when the Soviets left.
Senator Dallaire: General, regarding the management of a ministry of defence for the military side, the management of a ministry of the interior for the police, plus bringing in the intelligence capability and guaranteeing that funds are available to buy spare parts and allocate resources, who has taken on the responsibility to build that capacity? It will be a significant guarantor of sustainment. Also, is it possible that you will move more reservists from Canada, those who have civilian skills, into those jobs?
Maj.-Gen. Day: The NATO Training Mission was about training and fielding the army, police, air force, et cetera. As a bilateral arrangement, however, the Americans, with Canadians and British, were involved in ministerial development. We had over 400 advisers split between the two ministries of defence and the interior to get after exactly what you have described.
It is not good enough to create an army in the field if you cannot continue to sustain it institutionally. There must be decisions that identify priorities, the procurement piece, and decisions that just talk about the security ministries and how they might work together in ensuring that there is at least an understanding of roles and responsibilities.
Those are all manned by a combination of three kinds of people. There are the regular force officers such as myself. I would deal with both ministers almost on a weekly basis. Then you have the reserve officers who, as you know from your experience, come with a tremendous different skill set. They come in with experiences that you cannot replicate in the regular force. What does it take to start up an institution of a company? How do you deal with those sorts of contracting issues?
However, we also had through the Department of Defense in the United States, what we call the MoDA program, which is Ministry of Defense Advisors. They would ship in civilians from across their government who understood what it took to run a ministry. I can teach general officers and senior officers general officer duties, such as how to plan campaigns and how to work with our public service colleagues, but I cannot pretend that my experience has allowed me to develop some of those other skill sets. Therefore, we have brought in senior executive service from the government of the United States, as have the Brits, and they have brought in that civilian perspective.
There is a very detailed plan. It is focused on the functions, not the personalities. Therefore, as people get shifted around, their function does not go with them; it stays within that office.
We appreciate, again, that as we start to step down post-2014, although there may be a continuing presence, the reality is that they have to run it themselves. We need to get them ready to run it themselves today. Therefore, there are several hundred advisers with places of work in the MOD and MOI every single day. That is what they are focused on.
Senator Dallaire: The lessons learned of this massive build-up of a national capability are being captured, I am sure, for the pedagogical future of the Canadian Forces. Can it not be transferred to other imploding or failing states that want to build their national capacity? I will give the example of Sierra Leone, which wants to build its own military and its police. We have only nine people there. Do you not see that we could, after 2014, take that incredible experience, not just let it die on the vine, and shift it to many nations and regions, such as South America, where this capability could be a significant force?
Maj.-Gen. Day: Absolutely. I would say we should not be waiting until 2014 to learn the lessons in the military, and we are not. There is a full-time cell in the Canadian contingent that I commanded whose sole purpose is to grab lessons learned and ensure that they are incorporated into what the Canadian Forces do.
That takes a couple of forms. It looks at the mechanistic or procedural things we do and the planning and preparation that leads to those. It also looks at issues of transition and shifting: "We came in and we wanted to do this. We ended up doing this. What was the shift? How did we have to learn from that?'' I required every senior officer, after they left, to write me personally about lessons learned. That was passed back to the army. Those skill sets are actually invaluable.
However, from my experience in having been to a number of different places in the world, we always must think about it as a conceptual development in that we have to be culturally aware and sensitive. One thing I have found with veterans from other countries who have served in other theatres — much like me — is that you can never use the phrase, "When I was in Iraq'' or "Bosnia'' or "Africa.'' That will immediately distract you, because the Afghans, first of all, have a very clear idea of what they want, which we cannot forget; and, second, they are a tremendously historical and traditions-based society. What works for them would not work somewhere else in the world.
I think that there are tremendous lessons learned. The lesson I have learned most especially dealing with their senior leadership over this last year is to make "Afghan right.'' If they do not own the solution, it is not a solution. However, the skill sets, the preparation and the things we have done in terms of ministerial development, standing up schools, standing up an army, supporting and sustaining a system are invaluable and have to be imported to future missions.
The Chair: What a brilliant note to end on. Thank you very much. As each and every one of us has said individually, we cannot thank you enough for what have you done. You have been in some key places at crucial times. I know you all function as a team, but we also need to thank you for your very specific efforts. Thank you so much.
(The committee adjourned.)