Lt.-Gen. Marc Lessard talks to reporters at Kandahar Airfield on Thursday Sept. 24, 2009. The commander of Canada's troops overseas says it was a tough summer in Kandahar.Lt.-Gen. Marc Lessard said things had regressed in the Panjwaii district, the hottest spot in Canada's newly focused area of operations in the province.Bill Graveland/The Canadian Press
The contours, staffing and timing of the Canadian training mission in Afghanistan have not been settled and probably won't be until early next year, the commander of Canadian forces overseas said.
Lieutenant-General Marc Lessard, head of the central military command, or CEFCOM, said a fact-finding team was in the country last week and is expected to propose various options before Christmas.
The seven-member team is to analyze what training skills are required, what rank of officers will be needed and the timetable for the deployment of trainers. The options apparently will include a proposal to have at least some of the 900 Canadian officers and support staff work outside the main NATO training facility in Kabul.
"The emphasis is to be on Kabul but not solely Kabul," Gen. Lessard said, meeting with reporters after the latest of his frequent visits to Afghanistan.
Canada had planned to pull combat troops out of Afghanistan in 2011, but earlier this month announced a limited number of troops would stay on in a training role. The government has pledged to provide trainers and support staff to the NATO-led coalition after Canadian troops start withdrawing from Afghanistan next July. But government officials have suggested that all the trainers would be in Kabul.
Plans are more advanced for the transition from Canadian to American responsibility for districts within Kandahar province next year. An American brigade will replace the Canadian troops as they start heading home.
But the prospect of leaving while other NATO countries are still fighting is viewed by some soldiers with mixed feelings, the general acknowledged. "What we tell them is … that we are not just leaving, but we are doing a handover," he said.
Leaders of NATO countries have set a target date of the end of 2014 for bringing their troops home and handing over responsibility for security to the Afghan army and police units. Some, including U.S. President Barack Obama, have also talked about starting to withdraw forces as early as next year.
But military planners have also warned that some foreign combat troops may be needed beyond 2014 to break the Taliban insurgency or at least keep it from threatening the Western-backed Kabul government.
A similar warning came last weekend from the International Crisis Group, a respected foreign-policy think tank that condemned what it called a "rush to the exit" by political leaders in the NATO-led coalition.
In its latest analysis of the Afghan situation, the group said that NATO has done too little too late to build state and security institutions that can survive after foreign forces leave.
"Despite endless pledges to restore the rule of law, efforts to provide Afghans with rudimentary justice have barely started," it said. "The international community has repeatedly failed to acknowledge the link between stability and justice, though it has long been evident that grievances against predatory government actors are driving the insurgency."
The NATO exit strategy is based on transferring security to the Afghans district by district where the Taliban insurgency is weakened and the Afghan government has managed to establish its authority.
But expanding the reach of the already weak central government in Kabul has proved to be one of the more frustrating aspects of the war, as Gen. Lessard made clear.
In the areas where the Canadian forces operate, there has been little progress on building and, indeed, staffing local government offices, he said.
In Kandahar's Panjwai district, for example, the local governor essentially operates alone. The weak central government in Kabul is not represented by local ministry offices or government workers. Incentives - offers of higher pay and secure housing in a protected compound - have not convinced Afghans to take up government jobs under threat of Taliban retaliation.
The general said the same problems were evident, and the same incentives were much discussed, in 2008, when he was the top NATO military commander for the southern region.
"There is momentum," he said, "but there is a long way to go."