:
I do, Mr. Chair. Thank you very much.
Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee.
Thank you for inviting me and my colleagues here once again regarding Canada's mission and engagement in Afghanistan.
[Translation]
As you know, Canada has approached its engagement in Afghanistan from a whole of government perspective. I am pleased to be joined here today by a number of colleagues from some of the departments and agencies which are contributing in a major way to Canada's engagement in Afghanistan.
[English]
The last time I appeared before this committee was prior to your trip to Afghanistan. I am so pleased that all went well during your visit, as I understand it, and most importantly, that you had the opportunity to meet with the dedicated and courageous individuals, both military and civilian, who comprise Canada's team in Afghanistan, and to see first-hand their efforts, their challenges, their environment, and the results being achieved.
[Translation]
They are focused on making a difference each and every day on advancing Canada's priorities in Afghanistan, for which they, and their colleagues who have gone before them, have worked so hard. And they are making a difference.
Your visit and your words of thanks were much appreciated by all involved.
[English]
A voice: The bells are ringing.
Ms. Greta Bossenmaier: Shall I continue?
Since my last appearance before this committee, two new quarterly reports to Parliament have been issued by the cabinet committee on Afghanistan. These quarterly reports have reported on the progress being made on Canada's six priorities and three signature projects.
The latest quarterly report covered the period from April to June 2010 and focused on how priorities and projects are supporting the delivery of basic services to Afghans. As Minister Cannon noted in his last appearance, while the situation in Afghanistan remains volatile and challenging, there have been noticeable improvements in a number of key areas. Allow me to highlight a few.
[Translation]
up to 1,800 hectares of land benefitted from improved irrigation as a result of Canada's work on the Dahla dam;
around 400,000 children in Kandahar province received polio vaccinations during two vaccination campaigns;
and Canadian funding helped the UN World Food Programme provide over 15,000 tonnes of food nationally to over two million Afghans.
[English]
Furthermore, Canada made advancements in the provision of new health measures for two highly vulnerable groups, pregnant women and children under the age of five, with 78,000 women receiving iron and folic acid supplements, and 140,000 children receiving micronutrient powders.
Because of our efforts and the dedication and commitment of Afghans, there are more police and soldiers protecting Afghan communities and Afghan interests. There are more children in schools, particularly girls. Food crops are replacing the production of opium. Basic governance is taking hold, and basic services are being built.
As ever, we must place our results in context. Afghanistan remains a dynamic and difficult environment.
[Translation]
As well, over the past several months, there have been a number of significant events both in Afghanistan and internationally which have contributed to the current situation in the country and the prospects for the future.
At the London Conference in January, the international community and the Afghan government set a direction toward improving governance, building a stronger connection between the Afghan government and its people, and ensuring Afghanistan's long-term ability to meet its security challenges.
That process continued at the Kabul Conference in June which assessed progress from London and developed concrete plans for continuing improvement.
[English]
As well as being the first major international conference hosted and organized by the Afghan government, the Kabul conference also initiated the development of a plan to transfer lead security authority to the Afghan government by 2014. This plan was adopted by the heads of state of the Government of Afghanistan and ISAF contributing countries at their meeting in Lisbon last weekend.
As well during this period, parliamentary elections were held in Afghanistan, the official results of which were announced earlier today. While the international community has taken note of the irregularities and fraud committed, the hard work of the Independent Election Commission and the Electoral Complaints Commission to identify and deal with these problems marks a significant step forward for Afghanistan's electoral institutions. In the coming weeks, a new Parliament will start its work on behalf of the Afghan people, another step forward in Afghanistan's path to improving its democratic governance, and an essential element in Afghanistan's efforts to build stability and sustainable peace.
Also in recent months, while the security situation has certainly remained challenging, the U.S. troop surge has helped achieve progress. The surge has permitted a further refocusing of the Canadian Forces area of operations to critical districts of Panjwayi and Dand.
While the leadership of one ANA kandak, or battalion, trained and mentored by the Canadian Forces has been transferred to support the establishment of new kandaks elsewhere, two new Afghan National Army kandaks arrived in Canada's area of operations in September, and they're now being trained and mentored by Canadian Forces personnel.
Mr. Chair, it's a fact that progress has been challenging. Change has been incremental. But in the midst of conflict and in light of all the obstacles we have faced, we are making progress.
[Translation]
Last week, ministers announced Canada's new role in Afghanistan that will build on significant progress in the areas of security, diplomacy, human rights and development.
Canada's new non-combat role post-2011 will be centered in Kabul and will focus on four key areas, namely: investing in the future of Afghan children and youth through development programming in education and health; advancing security, the rule of law and human rights, including through the provision of up to 950 military trainers and support personnel for Afghan security forces; promoting regional diplomacy; and helping deliver humanitarian assistance to the Afghan people.
[English]
Our developmental and humanitarian assistance will be channelled through trusted implementing partners for programs aligned with the priorities of the Afghan government. We will address critical food security and emergency needs through food assistance, disaster preparedness, mine clearance, and education.
[Translation]
Moreover, the rights of women and girls will be a particular cross-cutting focus of all these programs.
[English]
In sum, Canada continues to make real progress in Afghanistan, but this work is not yet complete. The objective remains unchanged: to help Afghans build a more secure, stable, and self-sufficient Afghanistan that is no longer a safe haven for terrorists.
My colleagues and I would be pleased to take your questions.
:
Mr. Chairman, thank you for accepting that suggestion.
I want to thank the witnesses for coming here today.
As you know, we want to do a report that makes certain recommendations with regard to the non-military role for Canada in Afghanistan and also look at the other aspect on training.
The indicated the other day that corruption was the number one issue, in his view, as we've acknowledged around this table for a number of years now. We also note that the government has now indicated that it's going to reduce the amount of aid to Afghanistan.
Now, how do we do capacity-building, how do we deal with the rule of law, how do we deal with some of these issues if in fact corruption is the major issue? Again, I notice that corruption was not in one of the four objectives in the November 16 press conference of the three ministers. How are we going to address this particular issue of corruption?
Plus, what are the objectives and priorities of this task force and what it might suggest to this committee with regard to some of these other issues, such as the Dahla Dam? Are we, or are we not, going to be able to complete that on time? If we're not, what are the issues?
Finally, in terms of the three signature projects we have, can you give us an update on those?
I will leave the remainder of my 10 minutes for Mr. Dion.
An hon. member: Good luck.
Some hon. members: Oh, oh!
Mr. Bryon Wilfert: And as succinctly as possible, please.
Thank you.
:
Just on the issue of building capacity, as well, with a view that we can't provide budgetary support, which is indeed the case--we do not provide direct budgetary support--we have provided, though, several technical advisers to build capacity in various ministries, including the Ministry of Agriculture, the Ministry of Education, and the Ministry of Finance.
On the issue of honouring the Afghan priorities and the building of that capacity, we've worked through the World Bank Trust Fund, the Afghanistan Reconstruction Trust Fund, so we have recognized the fact that you can only build capacity if you're working with the Afghan government and meeting the priorities, and we do that. Unfortunately, it is still the case that the financial oversight mechanisms are not in place, so we work through the trust fund very closely with the Afghans in the various ministries.
On the issue of the signature projects, we're well on our way, and we have no reason to believe that we won't finish the Dahla Dam project, including the reconstruction of the irrigation system, the building of capacity in local water usage and water usage organisms, and the building of community ownership in that project. As well, we've done a lot of capacity building on just the whole agricultural side of things, including experimental farming and the changing of crops, and we have no reason to believe we won't meet that target by December 2011.
On the specific signature project of the building of schools, again, we believe we're well on our way to completing the 50 schools. We have 27 completed. Others are well advanced. Then there are commitments around that signature project, including the training of teachers, the building of curriculum, and again, as I said, the building of capacity in the Ministry of Education. We're on our way to do that.
On the signature project with regard to eradicating polio, we will not be eradicating polio by the timeline, but there are many reasons for that. We've increased coverage of the vaccination--7.2 million kids are immunized--and we have an ongoing program, and it has been stated that we would continue to do that through partners. We won't meet that target of eradicating polio, but we will continue to work on that. Part of the reason for that is actually the transmigratory infection of the virus coming up from Pakistan. CIDA has been working with other donors to elicit their support for addressing the polio issues in Pakistan.
That's the update on the signature projects.
:
I would appreciate that.
As a final comment, Mr. Chairman, I just find it amazing that we have no financial oversight yet we are pouring in money left, right, and centre. It's important, and I want you to understand that I believe that development is absolutely critical, and I believe that taxpayers need to get value for the dollar, but if we don't have the kinds of benchmarks, measurements, or oversights there.... In this case, the Prime Minister said there's a lot of corruption and he's not going to give another dime. Well, he's not going to give another dime, yet no wonder he wouldn't give a dime. If you don't have these frameworks in place, that bothers me. That's what I'm concerned about.
I do appreciate that you're going to bring back some written information. That would certainly be helpful to this committee, Mr. Chairman.
:
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I'm a bit disappointed by the report presented to us today. I recognize the colleague from the Privy Council Office who was here last time. If I remember correctly, we asked for more explanations; we wanted this to be more explicit. However, I see they've regurgitated the quarterly reports. We're reminded of Kabul and Lisbon.
I believe the Privy Council Office insists on wearing rose-coloured glasses. We see the same terms that we've been hearing for years. They talk about little girls going back to school; that's really great. There's talk about soldiers and police officers who protect the Afghan community; they write that governance is very well established and that essential services have been set up; they mention agricultural production.
I've had access to other information that tells us the contrary of what we see in this report. This comes from a study by the Center for Strategic and International Studies. It contains tables that come from NATO and the UN. I didn't make them up. They were presented to the major-generals of the Afghan forces.
It can be seen from this that the war is completely escalating; the curve is rising. All that's in colour. We can read the words, Time is running out, which means that we're short of time. If I look at the maps of Afghanistan in 2005, 2007 and 2009, I see that the yellow indicating Taliban control is expanding. We're regressing; we're losing this war. And yet we read only good things in the report.
The same is true with regard to combat locations. In one of the tables, we see that all combat locations in Afghanistan are constantly expanding. There's also all of Afghanistan and the ability to control the Taliban and insurgents that are expanding as well.
I also have the number of incidents or attacks per month, in recent years. For example, that number increased from 630 in 2008 to 1,369 incidents or attacks this year. Numbers are similar for improvised explosive devices. We can see a peak, with a vertically rising curve, in one of the tables.
I have another NATO report. I went to Warsaw. Here are the programs noted by NATO. This organization uses the following expressions: insufficient quality of leadership, high illiteracy and attrition rates, limited facilities and forward operating bases, incomplete ability to provide combat or maintenance support, a lack of developed institutions, inadequate logistics capabilities, a lack of accountability for funds, equipment and personnel actions, and a historical under-resourcing of the training mission.
I draw your attention to the high illiteracy rate. And there have been some fiascos over there. For example, we sent an Afghan section to conduct an operation and they were caught so unprepared that they had to call in air support. So it took air strikes to get them out of where they were. Everyone had a map, but no one was able to read it. It didn't go well.
In addition, corruption in the Afghan security forces is appalling. Fuel and weapons disappear. The Americans deliver weapons to the Afghan armed forces and those arms are then found in the hands of the Taliban when they are captured. Some are even found in bazaars in Pakistan. It's not going well. The same is true of equipment. There's also a very high rate of substance abuse.
I don't feel like asking any questions. I previously questioned a general who came to talk to us about a subject and I said that what he was telling us was false. I prefer not to ask questions; I can only deplore the fact that no consideration was given to what we asked for last time. They're still not specific enough and they're still wearing rose-coloured glasses.
I'm going to ask my colleague whether he wants to ask a question on a subject that is important to him.
:
My question is for Ms. Bossenmaier.
Women's rights, the promotion of women and so on are generally cited as reasons justifying this mission. That is a factor that has very often been cited.
What strikes me in the copy of the statement you submitted to us is that the subject is almost entirely avoided. And yet it states on page 3 that there are more children, particularly girls, in schools. At the end of this six-page report, there are two brief lines stating: "Moreover, the rights of women and girls will be a particular cross-cutting focus of all these programs." These are the only references. There are no figures or statistics; there's nothing.
How do you explain why the issue of women's rights is virtually missing from a report designed to justify extending the Canadian mission in Afghanistan? Is this attributable to the observation that is gradually being made, that the Karzai government's views on these matters are approaching those of the Taliban? In fact, the situation of women has probably deteriorated in the country.
That's my question, Mr. Chairman.
:
Mr. Chairman, I have a few comments to make.
[English]
My colleagues may also have comments to add.
The rights of women and dealing with women's issues in Afghanistan have run through I would say all of our initiatives, if not most of our initiatives that we have to date in Afghanistan, through all of the priorities, whether it's the security situation increasing and trying to improve the security situation in Afghanistan, so that it will have a positive impact on the lives of Afghans, but also and in particular on the lives of women.
On the education work we have done, you've heard around this table before the statistics that deal with the number of young girls in school in 2001 compared to the number of girls in school today. Our education efforts--again, improving the education opportunities for all Afghans--have had significant impact on women.
In terms of our focus and the efforts we've had in health, and in maternal health in particular, again, it's affecting and improving the opportunities for all Afghans, but again for women there are significant advances.
Micro-financing is something that we've reported on in our quarterly reports in regard to the number of micro-finance loans that have been provided to Afghans. Again, a majority, or a large proportion of those, have gone to women so they can have increased opportunities from an economic perspective.
So I would say that a wide range of various initiatives and of programs there have been focused on women and have actually produced results for women. My colleague from CIDA might want to provide some additional commentary, because CIDA has done a lot of work in terms of programming for women.
:
I think Ms. Bossenmaier has covered it well, but the numbers are fairly staggering. On the micro-credit loans, 66% of those have been provided to women. We've been forwarded results as to what impact that has had.
On issues of education in particular,
[Translation]
one-third of the six million students are girls and now have access to education, whereas they had none in 2001. It's not just a matter of giving girls access to education, but also of targeting all teacher training for women. Now 30% of teachers are women, and that enables girls to go to school.
We've also provided transportation. We always talk about girls' safety: we've ensured transportation for girls so that they can go to school.
[English]
On the issues of health, it has been targeted to things like obstetric care in the Mirwais hospital. The stats on the issues of literacy and health care for women are quite staggering. What we can say is that we've decreased those stats with regard to childhood mortality.
I'm quite comfortable in saying that when you can establish not only the 50 schools and the training of the teachers, but the 4,000 community learning centres, the literacy programs, and the vocational programs, we have in fact left Kandahar province and the rest of the country a little bit better off with regard to the state of women.
Moving forward, we have said that in our approach to all of our programming, which will be focused largely on children and youth, education, and humanitarian assistance, there will be a specific focus on the fate of women. I would be remiss not to add that with much of the $35 million that was provided by Canada on preparation for the elections and the building of institutions, we provided training to female candidates that reached 70% of the female candidates who ran for Parliament.
We've also provided female parliamentarians with the tools that we take for granted here, including offices, phones, and the ability to actually participate in the parliamentary process. We have been fairly stalwart in targeting our programming largely to women, from economic development to education to health, and we will continue to do that as we move forward--and I'm glad to provide details.
Thanks to all of you for being here.
I'll share my time with Mr. Kerr.
My friend across the way has a filter, apparently, through which he listens to the bad news and cherry-picks that, but he filters out any of the good news. Clearly, there's a lot of bad news in Afghanistan--there's no doubt about that--but it is not all bad news.
I direct this to Admiral Davidson.
We've talked about the increase in IED incidents and contact with the Taliban and so on. Isn't that a natural byproduct of putting about 100,000 extra boots on the ground? Of course there are going to be more incidents and more activities; it's part of the surge and part of getting a grip on the situation. Is that a fair statement?
:
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Thanks to all of you for being here today.
There's a lot to cover but very little time in which to do it, so I'm going to wrap some stuff together, if I may.
Knowing that we've been I think quite successful in the combat role to date, while I realize that this is changing, I think any rational person would agree that to stay there and continue the training and the commitment in Afghanistan is critical if we're going to carry on with this transition.
There are a couple of things. I'll first mention the crops versus opium. I want to tie that in with getting to where we have to get to, given all the corruption we've heard about, which is getting off the dependence on the drugs and the vulnerability of incomes and so on. How important is that to tying it in with continuing the training mission so that the Afghan authorities can in fact control this problem and continue to work on things like the human rights issue? That's kind of roundabout. I guess we're still in the very early transition to real and long-term crop sustainability and also to making sure that we deal with those human rights issues. I'm just wondering how that ties in with making sure that we stay there until the mission is finished in terms of training.
:
I can speak to the humanitarian development side of things, which was a program of about roughly $220 million this year--$633 million over the last three years--and it is estimated to be roughly $100 million in the years coming.
On the programming that we've funded in the last year, about half was to Kandahar province. There's no question that we achieved many results, which I have outlined. We believe that these projects will be sustainable into the future, but we will not be programming directly in Kandahar province. We'll be focusing on continuing to draw from those lessons that we learned throughout Afghanistan and focusing on two areas of concentration where we think we've had a tremendous impact.
The first is education, where we've been the lead donor in many respects in developing approaches, building capacity, and ensuring results. Also, we will continue to work on humanitarian assistance. We are going to continue to develop that programming, and we will do so in consultation with our partners in Canada and working to the national priorities of the Afghan government, which has basically redefined or focused what those priorities should be pursuant to the Kabul conference.
That's not to say that we haven't achieved great ends with the economic development side of things and the other issues, but--
:
Thank you. I have two minutes, according to my clock.
The Chair: Well, I meant--
Mr. Paul Dewar: Chair, what we have established is that before the announcement of the government last week to extend the military mission, there was a plan, which we have access to and which was put out last August, that we were going to have $550 million on this civilian-only mission. Now we have established that there has been a cut to that program, so that instead of $550 million for a civilian-only mission we'll have only $300 million.
I guess the question I was trying to establish was what the government and cabinet were directing the public service to do. We can't get information, and that's unfortunate. Maybe the question should be, are we going to be cutting back on diplomacy? I didn't hear about that. If so, where are we cutting back on diplomacy? It is one of your initiatives, but I didn't hear any discussion about how much money there is and exactly what you'll be doing. Could we establish that?
Ms. Bossenmaier and Admiral Davidson, through you, I want to thank you and the people you represent for the great work you and your colleagues are doing in Afghanistan. I had the privilege of visiting there with this committee last June, and we got a good overview of what Canada is doing in Afghanistan. I have never been prouder to be a Canadian than I was when I saw the work that our brave young men and women, on both the civilian and the military side, are doing to make Afghanistan more democratic and the world a safer place. I felt proud, and I feel a lot safer today knowing what I saw there with the progress that's being made to improve the stability of that region.
Ms. Bossenmaier and Ms. Ducros, you mentioned Canada's project to support women seeking election to government. I learned while I was there that the proportion of women in Parliament, as of the last parliamentary election, was 27%, which compares pretty favourably with Canada. Fifty per cent would be better, but we'll get there. Could you describe for us, in greater detail, exactly what the project is and how you support women seeking elected office in Afghanistan? Could you tell us the results of the elections that were announced today?
:
Yes. Thank you very much for that question.
We did multiple projects. UNDP elected an overall body that dealt with preparing the elections, so there were projects that included building the capacity of the IEC and providing things like women searchers, so that women would be able to go and vote, to access public awareness campaigns, and to access independent polling booths, so that women could vote on the institutional side for election day.
On the specific issue that you referenced with regard to training of candidates, there were a couple of projects. One of them was on training candidates on how to message, how to present, what to do in order to get elected, and who to target. That reached, as I said before, 70% of the candidates. I should say that it was also noted by Staffan de Mistura, a representative of UNAMA, who thanked Canada in writing for the contribution they made in order to provide access to the system for women, both in allowing them to vote and in providing training.
There were earlier projects in the workup to this election. They included things like providing them with the ability to work, should they be elected. There were various groups of projects, but they reached an overwhelming number of candidates through different mechanisms. There was also a public awareness campaign throughout the country. I'd be glad to provide the committee with the details of the breakdown as to what we did on that project.
:
I'd add a couple of things. I might just add one comment to the end of Françoise's answer to your earlier question. Among the things we've done is that we've provided to the Afghan Minister of Justice a technical expert on legislative drafting, an expert on women's rights and Islamic law, so they can draw on that expertise in their own work.
With respect to training of the Afghan National Police, Canada currently has 50 police trainers in Afghanistan. I can give you a very specific list of the types of things they're currently doing there.
They provide first responder training to the Afghan National Police, who are the first responders to incidents involving improvised explosive devices, or IEDs. They provide training in searching and handcuffing. They provide training in searching buildings and vehicles. They provide training in establishing and maintaining vehicle checkpoints. They train people to do city and district police station surveys. They train police in vehicle repair. Also, substation and Afghan National Police headquarters improvements have been facilitated through them. They also provide first aid training.
I think your question deals also with some of the challenges that remain, and certainly there are many. One of them is attrition rates within the Afghan National Police. We're working with them to find ways to lower attrition rates. The work that's done, for example, to provide them with direct pay is a way of improving their satisfaction with their jobs.
We've also been helping improve police stations, because police officers tend to spend an awful lot of time in the stations. They're almost second homes, in some cases, so we try to improve their working environment.
:
Thank you very much for that information.
Let's get to the bottom of things. I don't believe that anyone here questions the quality of the work that our military members and civilian personnel are doing with immense courage in Afghanistan. We don't doubt that a number of your programs are working well and achieving results. The question is whether we are dealing with a money pit. That's what's happening; that's where Canadians disagree.
For example, we're building schools. However, if the ambient culture there is hostile to the idea of girls going to school, even if we build them, what will happen to those schools later on? That's what Canadians are wondering.
You say we're teaching them to control crops and so on. The UN tells us that the cultivation of poppies has resumed with a vengeance. So what's the point for us in doing that if, in any case, most of their incomes go to drug-trafficking?
The same is true for everything we're teaching them about the operation of institutions, the legal system and so on. Everyone tells us that there's a culture of impunity, that we're still looking for the first human rights criminal to be prosecuted in Afghanistan. That's the issue.
So giving us a long list of all your programs can't give Canadians a sense of security.
My question will focus directly on training issues. If my information is correct,
[English]
We are spending--NATO is spending--$12 billion a year for training. That $12 billion means that it is more than the budget of the Government of Afghanistan. So if it were a matter of money, I guess it would be solved already.
There's a lot of concern that we are training people that don't stay very long. Some of them even go to the Taliban. Also, they don't really want to fight. After all, we are speaking about the people who have been able to win against the Soviet Union. If they were really willing to win against the Taliban, they would not need so much training.
[Translation]
We're talking about a country where young people are able to dismantle and reassemble a kalashnikov.
What is the current retention rate among the Afghan military members that we are training? How many Afghans do we have to train in order to have 10 who stay in combat?
Sadly, there have been some examples of trained personnel who have been insurgents and who have infiltrated, but those are a very few and isolated cases and ought not to be the basis on which we judge what we're trying to achieve with the training.
I understand your question. Being that they fought the Soviets and won, why do we need to train them? What occurred then and what we are essentially fighting is a counter-insurgency. It's a very small percentage of the population is doing the fighting. They're doing the fighting using mechanisms such as IEDs and ambushes and those kinds of things.
What we're trying to do in terms of building a capacity and an institution in Afghanistan is to build a professional armed force that has the capacity to control its own country in the long term and also the capacity to generate its own forces. In other words, we need to train them to the level where they can train themselves. We need to give them skill sets in areas like counter-IED. Today, that's a very complex skill, so it's very costly to teach it and to give them the equipment they need.
We need to give them skills in how to plan missions on a large scale. If you want to counter an insurgency, you have to put people on the ground and you have to hold the ground. That means you have to be the guy who's standing there on a corner. You're not the insurgent. You're not fighting from behind the rock. You're standing out on the street corner providing security for people. That's a different skill set. It requires that they be able to operate in groups, mutually support each other, learn how to communicate, and learn how to call in air support. It requires that they learn to coordinate all the various elements of the force so they can achieve the effect. It's a very complex business.
You look at the Canadian Forces and the complexity of our own business. We're trying to produce a modern force, and you cannot produce a modern force with a lot of experience in a short period of time.
:
It's true that they've focused on IEDs, but
[English]
I think it's important to note that the reason they're doing it--putting more emphasis on it--is that they can't fight in the field against the number of forces that are there. If you look back to 2006, Canada went into Kandahar province in 2006. We went in there with a single battle group, and we were therefore representing the bulk of the forces that were in Kandahar province at the time. We encountered Operation Medusa. At that particular time. the insurgents were starting to mass. They had the strength of numbers. There had not been a significant NATO presence in the area or, indeed, an Afghan government presence in the area, so they started to mass.
When we went across that wadi to attack them, when the Canadian army did that crossing, they went with 40 personnel--one platoon's worth--of the Afghan National Army. Today there are thousands of Afghan National Army personnel standing shoulder to shoulder with us and getting out there. Because of that, because of the surge, the insurgents are no longer able to stand and fight, so yes, IEDs are a weapon of choice. Ambush is a weapon of choice. They don't stand and fight. But these are all individual incidents. If you compared the incidents and the complexity of them to before, that would be a factor as well.