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March 25, 2007 

Afghan, coalition forces kill 23 Taliban
KHOST, Afghanistan (AFP) - US-led coalition troop and Afghan forces killed 23 Taliban militants in two separate clashes in south and southeastern        Afghanistan, Afghan army and coalition said Sunday.

A group of armed Taliban attacked an Afghan and coalition base in the Lawara area of Gian district in southeastern Paktika province early Sunday, sparking a three-hour gunbattle, regional Afghan army commander Mohammad Akram Sami told AFP.

"Coalition forces killed 12 insurgents near Fire Base Tillman in Paktika Province last night," said a coalition press statement.

Sami had earlier said they killed seven militants and their bodies were left at the site, while two wounded insurgents were arrested, one of them a Pakistani national.

Coalition forces called in aviation support and indirect artillery fire to support the defence of the fire base, the statement said.

Two coalition and two Afghan soldiers were slightly wounded in the attack and one of the Afghan soldiers was medically evacuated for further treatment at a coalition medical treatment facility, it said.

In a separate incident on Saturday a joint force of Afghan army, police and intelligence killed 11 Taliban militants in Lashkar Gah, the capital of Helmand province, the defence ministry said.

"Eleven enemies of peace were killed in the sweep-up operation," it said in a statement.

The operation in Helmand was launched following a major battle with Taliban militants on Thursday in which 69 insurgents and seven police were killed.

In another incident five Afghan border police were injured in a land mine blast early Sunday in Spinboldak district of southern Kandahar province, police commander Mohammad Raziq told AFP.

Another bomb blast in Khost city, wounded two civilians, a provincial government spokesman told AFP.

South and southeastern Afghanistan have been the regions most affected by the Taliban-led insurgency, which claimed more than 4,000 lives in 2006.

The hardline Taliban regime was ousted in US-led offensive in late 2001.

Taliban loyalists have stepped up their attacks in the past weeks, although military officials reject the rebels' talk of a "spring offensive" as propaganda.
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Australian special forces likely to head to Afghanistan
SYDNEY (AFP) - Australia is close to committing special forces soldiers to        Afghanistan to counter an expected Taliban spring offensive, Defence Minister Brendan Nelson said Sunday.

Nelson said it was likely that elite Special Air Services (SAS) troops would be sent to southern Uruzgan province, a former stronghold of the fundamentalist Taliban regime.

"We believe there is a need. We think that the Taliban will be mounting a very strong offensive shortly," he told Australian television.

"We are very close to making a decision about it."

Canberra, which currently has 400 soldiers in the Central Asian nation, pulled a 200-strong SAS contingent out of Afghanistan in September.

Nelson said he had spoken Saturday to defence force head Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston, who was in        The Hague to discuss troop deployments to Afghanistan with Dutch officials, and the government was close to recommitting SAS troops.

"We believe we have satisfied and settled the command and control arrangements that are necessary for us to do the job," he said.

"And if we do redeploy, and I think it's likely that we will, it will be a special forces task group."

Nelson said he would discuss additional deployments with US Defence Secretary Robert Gates and other defence ministers when they meet in Canada next month.

"We are in Afghanistan because Afghanistan is the crossroads to a modern and a free world," Nelson said.

Australia first sent troops to Afghanistan in late 2001 following the September 11 attacks on the United States.

A 33,000-strong        NATO-led International Security Assistance Force is deployed in the country to tackle a growing insurgency by supporters of the former Taliban regime and to expand the influence of the weak central government.
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Field rations letting U.S. troops down
By Aamer Madhani Chicago Tribune national correspondent March 25, 2007
NATICK, Mass. -- When Lt. Dave Moore visited infantry units in the remote, rugged mountains of Afghanistan late last year, the Navy medical officer was surprised to hear from many soldiers and Marines that they had lost significant weight.

After conducting more than 150 interviews with medics, officers and troops on the ground, Moore concluded that the portable rations called "Meals, Ready-to-Eat"--long derided by troops, but valued by the Pentagon for their indestructibility--were not doing the job, causing the soldiers to shed pounds that they very much needed.

"The standard Meal, Ready to Eat (MRE) does not provide adequate nutrition for dismounted operations in this type of terrain," said an excerpt of Moore's classified report, which was released by the Marine Corps Center for Lessons Learned. "Many Marines and soldiers lost 20 to 40 pounds of bodyweight during their deployment. At least one soldier was evacuated due to malnutrition and a 60-pound weight loss."

Moore's conclusions have raised concern among military leaders, as well as designers of the field rations at the Natick Soldier Research, Development & Engineering Center outside Boston.

Moore stressed in an interview that the service members he surveyed represented only a small portion of those fighting in Afghanistan--infantry troops deployed to desolate locations where MREs and local cuisine were the only options--but nonetheless he concluded that up to 1,300-calorie MREs were falling short.

A nutrition deficit, he added, could potentially result in fatigue, impaired brain function and lackluster performance.

Recognizing reports of weight loss are serious, the Combat Feeding Directorate is planning to ship about 4,000 prototypes of a new meal called the First Strike Ration to Iraq and Afghanistan. Designed for limited use, the ration contains about twice the calories of an MRE.

The U.S. military has used technology to pinpoint targets with smart bombs, and it can deploy thousands of warriors to a flash point within days. But feeding troops well at the tip of the spear remains one of the most elusive tasks for the U.S. war machine.

While mess halls in Afghanistan and Iraq provide the troops at bases three square meals a day, soldiers on the front lines often subsist for long stretches on MREs. These include entrees processed at high temperatures and kept in air-sealed pouches to maintain a shelf life of three years. Other typical components include dehydrated beverage mixes and snacks like peanut butter, crackers and nuts. Dietitians recommend soldiers eat three MREs a day.

At the small military installation in Natick, food scientists and dietitians with the Combat Feeding Directorate, which designs the MREs, acknowledged that weight loss among the troops has become an issue.

Dr. Andrew Young, a researcher at the U.S. Army Research Institute of Environmental Medicine at Natick, said his agency has begun collecting data on the weight of troops in Afghanistan and Iraq. It has already found anecdotal evidence that service members, particularly those in Afghanistan, are losing 20 to 35 pounds on their deployments.

Much of the problem is caused by heavy packaging, Young said. Troops on dismounted patrols often "field-strip" their bulky MRE packs, bringing along only part of the meals, to reduce the weight of their rucksacks and save room for cargo such as ammunition. In the process, they throw away calories, Young said.

"The MRE is designed to provide the caloric needs of the largest percentage of war fighters," he said. "The issue is operational constraints that are imposed on the warriors that prevent them from consuming the optimal calories."

Moore agreed that field-stripping is a problem, but he also blamed bland food and menus that don't meet the needs for high-intensity fighting.

"The MRE doesn't provide enough calories," Moore said in a telephone interview from the Mountain Warfare Training Center in Bridgeport, Calif. "If you're in the mountains, you need 4,500 calories a day. Even if a soldier eats everything in the MRE, which they rarely do, they're going to be running deficient of calories, and over a period of time they're going to lose weight."

High-altitude environments can cause anorexia, but Moore said the troops he spoke with had acclimated. The military has higher-calorie rations available for long-range and cold-weather patrols, but they are significantly more expensive and are not widely distributed.

The MRE, which costs the Defense Department about $7.25 per meal, was introduced in 1980 with a dozen different menus, including a few that soldiers deemed inedible, such as Smoky Franks, which soldiers called the Four Fingers of Death, or Chicken a la King, which was known as Chicken a la Death.

`Meals Refused by Everyone'

When the MRE went to war in the early 1990s, it fared little better with troops on the ground in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Iraq, who derisively referred to the rations as Meals Refused by Everyone.

The MRE developed such a poor reputation that former Joint Chiefs Chairman Colin Powell ordered it overhauled. In 1995, the National Academy of Sciences found that troops were under-consuming their rations by 1,000 calories per day.

"It's not necessarily true, the old adage that they'll eat anything if they're hungry enough," said Gerald Darsch, who heads the Combat Feeding Directorate. "They may eat something if they're hungry enough, but they might not eat the right things." Troops in the field, Darsch added, will often bypass MREs for salty or sugary snacks they purchase at the PX or receive from home.

In recent years, the designers of the MRE have focused more on soldiers' tastes, using menus of restaurants in base towns across the country as guideposts. Soldiers like spicier foods, and there is a greater demand for ethnic entrees, said Judith Aylward, a senior food technologist with the Combat Feeding Directorate. So the directorate introduced such items as chicken fajitas and jambalaya and is soon hoping to roll out a buffalo chicken entree.

Each year, food scientists, nutritionists and dietitians from Natick head out with a unit in field training to test new menus. They ask the troops what they like, and they literally "Dumpster dive" to see what was eaten and what was thrown away.

Aylward and a colleague recalled that some of the test rations they were certain would be winners--stuffed cabbage and shepherd's pie--flopped when brought out to the field.

Aylward said producing items with a long shelf life remains the biggest hurdle.

"The items we hear they want the most are pizza and breakfast foods," Aylward said. "We can't produce a shelf-stable pizza, and the retort [high-temperature processing] affects the color and consistency of the egg dishes."

Seeking to address the weight-loss problem, the directorate is planning on widespread distribution of the First Strike Ration by this fall. Unlike the MRE, it requires no heating.

It includes a shelf-stable sandwich, and its various components contain more carbohydrates, protein and caffeine. The First Strike Ration, about a half-pound heavier than the MRE, is smaller and contains about 2,500 calories. But the ration is only meant to be consumed for three consecutive days, according to rules set by the Army surgeon general.

C. Patrick Dunne, a senior adviser to the Combat Feeding Directorate, said it is inevitable that troops will eat too little in the field, adding that the First Strike Ration has been fine-tuned to minimize weight loss and slow the impact on performance for troops.

Dunne added that strides are being made in high-pressure processing that could improve the tastes of certain foods.

In the meantime, Dunne said tweaks need to be made in diets of soldiers working in highly demanding situations.

Optimized carbs

"What can we do ... to compensate for the fact that over a period of time we know the [troops] are going to be under-consuming?" Dunne said. "We optimized the carbohydrates to keep the brain functioning, and we optimized the proteins so you don't degrade the muscle mass."

Moore, the Navy doctor who reported that troops in Afghanistan are losing weight, said he is looking forward to the rollout of the First Strike Ration. The situation could be improved, Moore added, if scientists could figure out how to make the chow more palatable.

"If I were going to design the perfect MRE for austere conditions, I'd put more carbohydrates in them and try to improve the taste, which I know is hard to do," Moore said. "The people at Natick have done an awesome job with the MREs. They're so much better than when I started in the early 1990s. But we know that guys eat more and drink more when something tastes good."

- - -

Unwrapping an MRE

U.S. troops in the field are expected to survive for up to 21 days by eating MREs--Meals, Ready-to-Eat. Each MRE contains up to 1,300 calories, but experts say some troops require more.

 SAMPLE MEAL

 ITEM CALORIES TOTAL FAT SODIUM

 in grams in milligrams

 Penne pasta with spicy vegetable

 sausage, 8 ounces 780 4.5 240

 Peanut butter, 1.5 ounces 200 21 250

 Crackers, 1.3 ounces 115 6 180

 Raisins, 1.5 ounces 15 0 140

 Lemon poppy-seed pound cake, 1 piece 220 11 270

 Also: Apple cider mix, fruit drink mix, condiments, plastic spoon

 Source: U.S. Army Natick Soldier Research, Development & Engineering Center
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NATO forces shoot Afghan child, run over another
Fri Mar 23, 3:13 PM ET
KABUL (AFP) - A distraught Afghan father buried his 12-year-old son Friday after the boy was shot in the head by        NATO troops in the latest in a series of civilian deaths involving international forces.


The NATO force admitted to the shooting late Thursday but said its soldiers had fired in self-defence after a civilian van had ignored verbal warnings to not approach a security cordon around a broken-down armoured vehicle.

Confirming the killing, the Afghan interior ministry said the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) troops opened fire on a vehicle "which apparently tried to overtake the troops or may be the car was too close to the troops."

But the boy's father, named only Zemarai, denied trying to overtake the convoy while driving seven of his relatives home after visiting family.

He also said he had been several hundreds metres (yards) away and was not aware of warning shots, which troops are required to fire before taking aim.

"All of a sudden they opened fire at our vehicle," he said angrily from his home, filled with wailing mourners for the funeral of young Zaryalai.

"The first three bullets hit my car and the fourth one hit my 12-year-old son on the side of his head," the father said, his voice breaking with emotion.

The boy made no sound and Zemarai only realised the child was dead when he stopped the vehicle.

The incident was on the eastern route out of the city, a road which sees most of the suicide attacks in Kabul as foreign troops frequently used it.

The force, nervous of suicide attacks, has used the media and notices attached to their vehicles to warn other vehicles to keep their distance after dozens of civilians have been killed in similar incidents.

Meanwhile, ISAF said in a statement late Thursday that one of its convoys had hit and killed a child in the eastern province of Khost. The child had darted out from the side of the road, it said.

In a statement after the incident in Kabul, the 37-nation alliance said it "deeply regrets the loss of life and injury to civilians."

"It is unknown why the vehicle failed to stop when clear signals were given, and a full and thorough investigation into the circumstances of the incident has commenced."

In one of the worst incidents involving civilians and foreign forces this year, eight people were killed when US troops opened fire after a suicide bombing near the eastern city of Jalalabad March 4.

The US-led coalition said the civilians were killed in the attack and subsequent gunfire, but witnesses said they were all killed by the foreign forces. The results of an investigation have yet to be announced.
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Pak-Afghan businessmen agree to boost cooperation
PESHAWAR, Mar 24 (Pajhwok Afghan News): Businessmen from Afghanistan and Pakistan signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to serve as 'ambassadors of peace' and promote trade and investment between the two countries.

The MoU was signed by head of the Afghanistan International Chamber of Commerce Azarakhsh Hafizi and Sarhad Chamber of Commerce and Industry (SCCI) president Liaqat Ahmad Khan in Peshawar on Friday.

The business communities resolved to become 'ambassadors of peace' between the two brotherly countries and announced to set up a joint chamber of commerce and industry to promote bilateral trade.

The proposed Afghan - Pak Chamber of Commerce and Industry (APCCI) is meant to further the development of bilateral economic relations by providing regular forum to businessmen from both countries to meet, discuss and explore opportunities in trade, investment, transfer of technology and furtherance of all other economic activities.

Speaking on the occasion, Azarakhsh Hafizi, who was also nominated as APCCI co-chairman, said Afghan businessmen were more interested in trade with their Pakistani brethren than any other nation of the world. He, however, said that despite their desire, circumstances were such that they had to trade with countries other than Pakistan.

"Even mineral water in Afghanistan arrives from France despite Pakistan's ability to provide the same at very low cost. Likewise, we have enormous amount of iron but Pakistan opts to get it from other countries," he said.

Hafizi said Afghanistan was forced to trade in a number of edibles with European countries, which were not even liked by its people.

Senator Illyas Bilour, the founding chairman of the APCCI, termed the development as a milestone for the trade between the two countries. He said the business community in Pakistan laboured to develop good relations with the neighbouring countries and establishment of Indo - Pak Chamber of Commerce and Industry in 2000 was an example in this regard.
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Deal with Taliban dented govt's image: Analysts
KABUL, Mar 23 (Pajhwok Afghan News): Voicing concern over the 'secret deal' with Taliban for the release of the Italian journalist, analysts say such compromises may pose serious threat to the restoration of peace in the country.

The government had agreed to set free five senior Taliban members in exchange for the safe release of Italian journalist Danielle Mastrogiacomo, who was kidnapped in Helmand province on March 4.

Political analyst and official of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission Mohammad Qasim Akhgar said the deal was tantamount to giving concessions to Taliban.

"The government created a big problem for itself by entering into such a deal with the Taliban," said Akhgar, who believed it would encourage the militants to continue their kidnapping spree.

Mirwais Yasini, member of the Wolesi Jirga, said the government should not enter into a dialogue with the Taliban. He was of the view that the government must not accept any domestic or foreign pressure in this regard.

But Waheed Muzhda, another analyst, says the government agreed to accept the Taliban demands to ensure its ties with the government of Italy and other European allies.

He said it was possible that Italy and some other countries withdrew their forces from Afghanistan, if the government failed to ensure safe release of the journalist.

Member of the Wolesi Jirga Sardar Mohammad Rahman Oghli was of the view that the deal was accepted by the government to continue its cordial relations with Italy. At the same time, Oghli said, such deals must be avoided in future.

Spokesman for the US embassy in Kabul Joe Mellott said the policy of their government was not to accept demands of the terrorists.

Speaking on the same issue during a press conference the other day, President Karzai's spokesman Karim Rahim termed the deal an "exceptional arrangement" and said it would not be repeated in future.

Zubair Babakarkhail
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Musharraf at the Exit
Washington Post By Ahmed Rashid LAHORE, Pakistan
In the rapidly unfolding crisis in Pakistan, no matter what happens to President Pervez Musharraf -- whether he survives politically or not -- he is a lame duck. He is unable to rein in Talibanization in Pakistan or guide the country toward a more democratic future.

Since March 9, when Musharraf suspended the chief justice of the Supreme Court, Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry, public protests have escalated every day -- as has a violent crackdown by the police and intelligence agencies on the media and the nation's legal fraternity.

The legal convolutions about Chaudhry's dismissal boil down to one simple fact: He was not considered sufficiently reliable to deliver pleasing legal judgments in a year when Musharraf is seeking to extend his presidency by five more years, remain as army chief and hold what would undoubtedly be rigged general elections.

Musharraf's desire to replace Chaudhry with a more pliable judge has badly backfired. After just 10 days of protests, lawyers around the country have made it clear to the senior judiciary that they will not tolerate further legal validations for continued military rule or tolerate Musharraf remaining as president. At least seven judges and a deputy attorney general have resigned in protest.

Across the country, in law offices, in the media, among the opposition parties and other organized sections of civil society, the feeling is growing that Musharraf will have to quit sooner rather than later. After eight years of military rule it appears people have had enough.

Moreover, Musharraf is losing control of three key elements that have sustained his rule but are now either distancing themselves or turning on him completely. The first is the ruling Pakistan Muslim League Party, which has acted as the civilian appendage to the military but faces an election and knows that going to bat for the unpopular Musharraf will turn off voters. Party leaders and cabinet ministers are already distancing themselves from him.

The second element is the country's three intelligence agencies, which are at loggerheads over control of Musharraf, Pakistan's foreign policy, its political process and the media. Military Intelligence and the Inter-Services Intelligence are military agencies, while the largest civilian agency, the Intelligence Bureau, is now run by a military officer. Ironically, Inter-Services Intelligence, the most powerful agency in the country, has been the moderate element urging Musharraf to open up the political system to the opposition parties. The other two agencies are the hard-liners and are urging Musharraf to adopt even tougher measures.

The third loss for Musharraf has been the unqualified international support he has received since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Anger in the U.S. Congress and media, and particularly among members of the Republican Party, toward Musharraf's dual-track policy in Afghanistan -- helping to catch al-Qaeda members but backing the Taliban -- is making it difficult for President Bush to continue offering Musharraf his blanket support.

That was the tough-love message that Vice President Cheney delivered to Musharraf in Islamabad last month: Unless Musharraf goes after the Taliban, the Bush administration can no longer protect him.

Any loss of Western support will be critical to the army, which is on an arms-buying spree and depends on annual U.S. military aid of about $300 million. Musharraf has balanced the pro- and anti-American factions in the army's officer corps, but if both sides see him as a lame duck, unable to deliver the goods or stabilize the country, their support will dwindle.

Musharraf is now too weak to pursue policies that could keep his back-stabbers in check, restore his credibility at home and abroad, and pursue his agenda of remaining in power for the next five years.

It is far better that he revert to the promise he made when he seized power in 1999: to return the country to democracy. His best course of action would be to say he is not a candidate for president, hold free and fair elections, allow the return of exiled politicians, restore full political rights and gracefully depart with his legacy, which is considerable, intact.

It is in the interest of the United States to support such an exit strategy. The military can no longer counter the phenomenal growth of Islamic extremism in Pakistan through offensives alone. What the country needs is greater political consensus and a popularly elected government, and to replace the extortions of the mullahs with the return of day-to-day parliamentary politics. The army created a political vacuum in which extremism has thrived. Pakistan needs a return to civil society and government.
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Symposium hears Afghan aid leaving rural areas behind
Ottawa Citizen 03/24/2007 By Mike Blanchfield OTTAWA
Contrary to "rosy descriptions" given by Canada's government, virtually no reconstruction is taking place in rural southern Afghanistan because aid workers dare not confront a "traumatic" lack of safety, a leading U.S. academic said Friday.

"There is reconstruction around the city, Kandahar City, and then in places like Panjwaii and Zahari District," Seth Jones, a political scientist with the Washington-based Rand Corporation, told a major symposium on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"There is nothing, virtually nothing, that goes on anywhere else in the province. In other words, governance has not reached the rural areas of the south," he added. "The key point here is that basic government services have not reached most of the rural areas in Afghanistan."

Jones offered that assessment after spending two weeks in Kandahar in January, speaking to the military as well as aid officials from the government agencies of the U.S. and Canada, USAID and the Canadian International Development Agency.

Jones stayed at Kandahar Air Field, where Canada's 2,500 troops are based, and he travelled the province on what was his 12th trip to Afghanistan to conduct research for an upcoming book.

After speaking with USAID and CIDA officials, Jones said he learned "the security concerns are so traumatic in these areas that they do not get deployed."
Jones was a featured speaker at a symposium Friday sponsored by the Centre for Security and Defence Studies at the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs at Carleton University in Ottawa.

Jones made it clear that he was "deeply impressed" with the work of Canadian troops, and that they are making development possible in areas under their control within Kandahar City and the Panjwaii and Zahari districts, where they have been particularly active -but nowhere else.

Jones's assessment appeared to contradict testimony Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay gave to the Commons foreign affairs committee Tuesday.

"Thanks to the skills of professionalism and courage of our soldiers, the nascent peace stretching over the country has now been extended to large parts of Kandahar province," MacKay told the committee.

MacKay, who spent several days in Afghanistan in January, said he has seen "real progress" but he did not specify whether that was in Kandahar or in the capital of Kabul, further north.

"Canadian assistance is providing food, water, and basic necessities. It's also going to schools, villages, and communities, to micro credit for individuals, especially women so that they can start small enterprises and businesses of their own. I've seen this progress myself ... on two trips that I made to Afghanistan, most recently in January," said MacKay.

NDP MP Alexa McDonough, who recently made her first trip to Afghanistan with a parliamentary committee, told Jones in a discussion that followed his presentation that his observations "more or less confirm what a lot of us have been desperately trying to get an answer to" from the government about the pace of reconstruction specifically in Kandahar province.

OTTAWA - Contrary to "rosy descriptions" given by Canada's government, virtually no reconstruction is taking place in rural southern Afghanistan because aid workers dare not confront a "traumatic" lack of safety, a leading U.S. academic said Friday.
 
"There is reconstruction around the city, Kandahar City, and then in places like Panjwaii and Zahari District," Seth Jones, a political scientist with the Washington-based Rand Corporation, told a major symposium on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"There is nothing, virtually nothing, that goes on anywhere else in the province. In other words, governance has not reached the rural areas of the south," he added. "The key point here is that basic government services have not reached most of the rural areas in Afghanistan."

Jones offered that assessment after spending two weeks in Kandahar in January, speaking to the military as well as aid officials from the government agencies of the U.S. and Canada, USAID and the Canadian International Development Agency.

Jones stayed at Kandahar Air Field, where Canada's 2,500 troops are based, and he travelled the province on what was his 12th trip to Afghanistan to conduct research for an upcoming book.

After speaking with USAID and CIDA officials, Jones said he learned "the security concerns are so traumatic in these areas that they do not get deployed."
Jones was a featured speaker at a symposium Friday sponsored by the Centre for Security and Defence Studies at the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs at Carleton University in Ottawa.

Jones made it clear that he was "deeply impressed" with the work of Canadian troops, and that they are making development possible in areas under their control within Kandahar City and the Panjwaii and Zahari districts, where they have been particularly active -but nowhere else.

Jones's assessment appeared to contradict testimony Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay gave to the Commons foreign affairs committee Tuesday.
 
"Thanks to the skills of professionalism and courage of our soldiers, the nascent peace stretching over the country has now been extended to large parts of Kandahar province," MacKay told the committee.

MacKay, who spent several days in Afghanistan in January, said he has seen "real progress" but he did not specify whether that was in Kandahar or in the capital of Kabul, further north.

"Canadian assistance is providing food, water, and basic necessities. It's also going to schools, villages, and communities, to micro credit for individuals, especially women so that they can start small enterprises and businesses of their own. I've seen this progress myself ... on two trips that I made to Afghanistan, most recently in January," said MacKay.

NDP MP Alexa McDonough, who recently made her first trip to Afghanistan with a parliamentary committee, told Jones in a discussion that followed his presentation that his observations "more or less confirm what a lot of us have been desperately trying to get an answer to" from the government about the pace of reconstruction specifically in Kandahar province.
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