OTTAWA - The House of Commons defence committee says the conflict in Afghanistan will likely go on well past 2009 and Parliament should hold a debate halfway through next year to decide whether to extend Canada's mission in the war-torn country.
The all-party committee's long-awaited reported was tabled on Monday. "If we leave, someone else will have to carry the load," it said. A recent poll found a majority of Canadians wanted to see the army's combat mission end on schedule in February 2009.
The survey by Decima Research, released to The Canadian Press on June 12, found two-thirds of those polled said they would not support an extension.
Only 26 per cent said the military mission should be extended "if that is necessary to complete our goals there."
The Commons committee study, which has been months in the making, said the army's role in fighting the Taliban-led insurgency in the southern region of Afghanistan is largely misunderstood by the Canadian public.
"Critics of the mission have said it is unbalanced and that more diplomatic and development effort is required - and less combat operations," said the committee's report.
"Nearly everyone we met, including military commanders, said more development was needed, but they pointed out that until an adequate degree of security existed, development aid could not flow to the degree desired."
Both the New Democrats and Liberals have made the argument that the existing mission in Kandahar, which began in February 2006, was more about war-fighting than nation-building.
Both the Bloc Quebecois and the New Democrats wrote dissenting reports, with the NDP arguing for an immediate withdrawl of troops from combat operations.
Development aid was slow in arriving following last fall's major Canadian-led offensive - dubbed Operation Medusa - but the committee's report suggested that the Canadian International Development Agency now has a better handle on the situation.
The recent scandal over the alleged abuse of Taliban prisoners captured by Canadians but turned over to Afghan authorities has also further tarnished the views of people back home, the 174 page report concluded.
The committee held hearings in Ottawa, visited military bases in Canada and made a high-profile trip to Kandahar in January. However, the Members of Parliament were not allowed to venture outside of the heavily fortified airfield that NATO uses as its main base in southern Afghanistan.
The committee received most of its briefings from Canadian military and development officials without visiting aid projects - or even speaking to local Afghan officials.
The report noted Afghan "displeasure" with the rising number of civilian deaths, but said that many of the unfortunate cases involved air strikes and that Canada had no combat planes operating in theatre.
As many as 2,400 people, most of them insurgents, have died this year in fighting. A recent Human Rights Watch report said NATO and U.S. military operations killed at least 230 civilians in 2006, but most of the 900 civilian combat fatalities last year were from insurgent attacks.
There has been a lot of critcism and friction over the reluctance of some NATO allies - most notably Germany, Italy and France - to allow their troops in Afghanistan to join the U.S., Canada, Britain and the Netherlands in combat operations in the south.
"We end on a note of humility, acknowledging that many of our close and traditional allies are indeed sharing the burden of combat," the report said.
"Many of them have lost national blood and treasure as Canada has. While we might encourage others to do more, there is no more effective way to bring others along than to continue to play a meaningful role ourselves."
