NATO HQ Brussels 22 Feb. 2006

Speech by Andrew Walton, Commander of NATO’s Disaster Relief team in Pakistan. ANDREW WALTON (Commander, Disaster Relief Team, Pakistan , NATO): That you very much, Carmen. What I'll do is give you a very brief overview of what we did in Pakistan as part of the NATO Disaster Relief Team, and then I'll take your questions as you wish. It's important to understand what it is we went to do out there. At the strategic level the mission was to go out there, conduct a disaster relief operation, in support of the government of Pakistan. So that was our primary focus - what did they want us to do. We liaised very closely with the United Nations, coordinated very closely with them, and indeed with the 28 international organization and non-government organizations that were also present in the earthquake zone, as well as with the Pakistani army, who made up the bulk of the relief efforts. At my level our mission, if you like, was to maintain the air bridge, because the first thing that NATO did was to establish an air bridge from Europe into Islamabad to carry aid. So we kept that going throughout the operation, and then we deployed into theatre with engineering capability, with helicopter capability and with medical capability. The thing we were trying to do, the end state, as we call it, that we were trying to achieve, was the stabilization and winterization of the surviving population within the area we had negotiated with the government of Pakistan that would be our area to focus on, such that they could survive... or endure the winter season that was about to come. Because we saw two disasters. The first one was the earthquake. The second one was the onset of the Kashmiri winter in the Himalayas. And there was a very simple equation that applied, bearing in mind that there was some 80,000 injured and about 3 million homeless. Those that were under shelter would probably survive the Kashmiri winter. Those that were not under shelter would probably not survive it. So that drove us to a shelter construction program as part of the international relief efforts and associated activities, such as the provision of food, the provision of fresh drinking water and so on. The word stabilization, we really established that as a goal to stabilize the surviving population after visiting very close to the epicentre within a few days of arrival. And one of the things that struck me was seeing two small schools on either side of a road, one boy's, one girl's. Not in buildings of course, because those had collapsed, but the kids sitting on the ground being taught by the surviving teachers. And what struck me, and my staff was the fierce determination in the eyes of the adults, the teachers and the parents, that they were continuing this education, even though they'd had an earthquake. And the reason for that was that education is escape from the grinding poverty that is in Kashmir. And at that point we started to understand the importance of underpinning the social fabric of the surviving population. These were people that had not just lost family members, the families, not just houses, but businesses, and in many instances, the very land they owned had now disappeared down the valley. So that's what we're trying to achieve. In terms of timelines, the earthquake happened on the 8th of October and two days later the government of Pakistan asked NATO for assistance. And just 24 hours after that the North Atlantic Council agreed to establish the air bridge, which started working two days after that carrying some 3,500 tonnes of aid over the next three or four months. Ten days after that, on the 21st of October, the North Atlantic Council approved the engineering, helicopter and medical mission, which became the mainstay of the efforts that we made in theatre. And so early in November, some two and a half weeks later we had the first helicopter flights in Pakistan, we had the first hospital elements up and running, and we had the first engineering tasks being performed. So without blowing our own trumpet too much, we considered that getting that force out of its barracks to airfields from a quarter of the way around the globe, unloaded, driven up a very interesting road into the earthquake zone and then set to work is not a bad success for Pakistan. I'm sorry, for NATO. More precisely, the stuff we had out there, I had working for me two components. I had an air component, an air headquarters, and I had a land component, or a land headquarters. The air component was run by the French air force as part of the overall NATO Headquarters. They were running aircraft from Europe and Turkey, specifically from Incirlik in Turkey into Islamabad. We had four German CH-53 helicopters. They're the big heavylift helicopters, and they were taking the aid from the aircraft and putting it up into forward supply dumps in the earthquake zone, and from there delivering it to the very precise points of need, whether that was a village or a hamlet or a house. Later in the operation we used those helicopters to lift shelter building material. I mentioned the importance of construction shelters. And so lifting the cement, the timber, the corrugated iron sheets from lower valley elevations up to the mountain peaks, which were very difficult to reach by any other way. We also had a small Explorer helicopter, which we used for casevac purposes. Thankfully we didn't require that capability for ourselves. We did, however, use it for the Pakistanis who were injured. But specifically we used it to insert mobile medical teams. So the medical staff we had in our field hospital we took daily up into the mountains by air to insert them into villages, to allow the villages to come to them, and they were treating a couple of hundred people per day. And that really paid dividends for us. And lastly, in response to a UN request, we set up a fuel farm, helicopter refuelling facility if you like, in the earthquake zone, to make sure that the helicopters could stay in the earthquake zone from dawn till dusk, instead of having to come back a hundred kilometres or more to refuel. On the land side we initially had two light engineering companies, one from Spain, one from Poland. Now they're combat engineers, destruction engineers if you like, as opposed to construction engineers, but they are very flexible and they were in theatre very early. This is important because it was a visible sign of NATO's intent to get stuck into the area. It's easy to talk in Europe, but what the Pakistanis wanted to see was stuff on the ground. They were a very early visible sign of that. We also had a heavy engineering company from Italian forces which were essential to remove the huge quantities of debris and rubble that blocked the movement of aid, that blocked the movement of commerce, of people and indeed, blocked our way as well. And lastly, we had an Arctic engineer squadron from the U.K., all of them mountaineer trained, very comfortable operating in the snow and ice that was prevalent at the higher levels and working in fairly tricky conditions that would be difficult for other people to work in. And then to support all of that, we had the field hospital from the Dutch, augmented by Czech, French, British and Portuguese medics. Now one of the things we realized when we got into theatre was the cultural sensitivity of the Kashmiri population. The women there will not be treated by male doctors. And indeed, for about the first 30 days after the earthquake the majority of the female population was untreated. So as a result their injuries were pretty horrific. But such was the sensitivity that they would rather die than be treated by a male doctor, and their menfolk would rather they die than be treated by a male doctor. So we asked NATO specifically for a lot more female medics, which duly came out, and that was a terrific success, being able to address an area that had been left untreated for such a long period of time. And I think we were... people were grateful that we had understood that sensitivity. We also had water purification teams to turn some fairly foul water in the rivers out there into fresh drinking water, and we have what we call civil-military cooperation teams to explain to the Kashmiri population what it is we, NATO, a military organization are doing, bearing in mind that the majority of people don't actually know what NATO is, in Kashmir, not surprisingly, and so we needed to explain what we were doing and why we were doing it and how we were doing it. So how did we do? I mentioned the air bridge. We carried some 3,500 tonnes worth of aid, food, tents, blankets, heaters, medical equipment over some 170 sorties. In terms of water supply we could provide with our water purification teams fresh drinking water daily for about three and a half thousand people. But I was concerned that we would withdraw that and so we established a freshwater spring which could provide fresh drinking water for about eight and a half thousand people a day. And so that stays on. That's sort of an enduring legacy, if you like. In terms of emergency living shelters, the high altitude ones... by high altitude I mean above 5,000 feet, but typically 5,000, 6,000, 7,000, 8,000 feet, where it was quite different to work, we built some 113 of those. Each of which can be used for, I would say, 10 , you'd probably get 20 people in them. So that, I felt, was helpful. We built some 42 school structures and another 10 medical centres in the lower valley areas to enable this underpinning of the social fabric to take place. And we cleared about 60 kilometres of roads. Now when I say we repaired roads I think most people would assume that we are filling in potholes. Far from it. One of the effects of the earthquake was that it had undercut the one road that ran through our area. And if you wanted to entertain yourself you could get out of your vehicle and look at a think strip of tarmac with about that much subsoil and then nothing underneath it for about 30 metres, and so a lot of that needed to be repaired, because along that road the aid was flowing and some fairly heavily-loaded lorries of 20 tonnes or more. So a lot of repair work to be done. And of course, clearance of landslide, mudslide and snow. That was... the landslides were big business early in the operation. That then died away in the middle part of the operation, but as the winter set in, snow set in, the rain set in, because the ground is now geologically unstable, we saw a lot more rockslides again, so that became big business, as did simply clearing the roads of snow. In the hospital we treated some 5,000 patients in a static facility and we treated a further 3,500 patients through the mobile medical teams that we put up into country. I mentioned the helicopter earlier. We also used four-by-four vehicles. We even used mules at some point, when it was a little slow getting up there. And we handed over responsibility for that to Pakistani medical authorities, who in the intervening time had gotten themselves back on their feet, bearing in mind that their facilities had been destroyed, many of their medics have been killed in the earthquake as well. And lastly, on the helicopter activity, we refuelled some 1,100 helicopters in the fuel farm we set up. Not just military, but military and civilian, large, small, heavy and light. Anybody who wanted fuel could come and get that. And all the tasking that was given to us was completed. So that's what roughly a 1,000 people did, the number we had over there, did over a 90-day period. Bearing in mind that that 90-day period also included the deployment and the withdrawal as well. So in terms of where we are right now we have withdrawn from the Kashmir region. We were out by the 1st of February and that was the end of the 90-day period that we agreed with the government of Pakistan that we would go in there. The various engineering projects we started are complete. The field hospital, as I mentioned, we have handed over responsibility to the Pakistanis who are now up and running again. We've left behind a lot of tentage for them to use. We've left behind about three tonnes worth of medical supplies, drugs, sutures, that sort of thing. We've left behind the Arja spring, which is this freshwater capability, and as a separate bilateral arrangement between the government of Germany and the Pakistan and between the French government and Pakistan, we've left behind two German CH-53 helicopters and the refuelling facility. So in sum NATO responded to a request to help in this disaster relief, a direct request from the government of Pakistan. We established and maintained this air bridge, which brought a lot of much-needed aid from Europe into Islamabad. We deployed the appropriate engineering, medical and helicopter capability into theatre, handed over responsibilities at the end of the mission to the Pakistani authorities, and have now withdrawn. So that, ladies and gentlemen, really gallops you through what we did and how we did it. And I'd be pleased to take your questions. Q: (inaudible)...I'm from the German News Agency DPA. I was wondering what would you identify as the unfinished business of the crisis? Obviously you've left, but the dire conditions continue (inaudible)... What do you think... what you didn't accomplish because you had this three-month deadline to leave Pakistan? And secondly, do you think that the tasks that are left, that the Pakistani army can actually take a role and do it on its own? Thank you. WALTON: Okay, in terms of finished business there are three phases that follow a disaster such as this. The first is search and rescue to get people out of the rubble. That's not something NATO can do. It takes specializations that we simply don't have and it needs to happen in a timescale of about 10 to 14 days, so that's not an area that NATO does. The next phase is relief. This is really trying to stabilize the situation, trying to get people back on their feet. And the third phase is reconstruction, where you start to rebuild the things that have been broken. Reconstruction is very much something for the host nation to do. It's a national responsibility, and so that middle piece, the disaster relief, is something that NATO can reasonably contribute to and we were part of an international relief effort. This wasn't NATO alone. As we got to the end of our 90 days it became pretty apparent that we were reaching the end of a relief effort and we were embarking upon a reconstruction effort. It's not something you can measure with micrometer, but it was pretty obvious that there was a culture of dependency starting to be established, which suggested that it was appropriate for us to leave to allow people to start to move into that reconstruction phase. If I give you some examples, within the relief camps that were set up and to which we contributed, 90 percent of the population have access to fresh drinking water. The norm in Kashmir is 38 percent. The level of disease, which you would expect after a disaster like this, was lower than at any point in Kashmir over the last five years. So we were already establishing conditions that were better than pre-earthquake norms. What we were aiming to do was to get them back to pre-earthquake normality. Not western standards normality, but pre-earthquake Kashmiri western style... pre-earthquake Kashmiri standards. And we started to see that all over the earthquake zone. We recognized it, the UN recognized it, the government of Pakistan recognized it. So in terms of unfinished business from a NATO perspective of doing disaster relief, we'd just about come to the point at which it was appropriate to withdraw. (inaudible)... there's a lot of work to be done for reconstruction, but that right is a national responsibility. And your question on the Pakistan army was... Q: Well, I just imagine that the relief effort had not ended, but you're saying that you left at the time that the humanitarian effort had to be replaced by reconstruction. That's obviously not a Pakistan army job, that's a government job (inaudible)... WALTON: I think it's up to the government of Pakistan to decide whether they wish to use the Pakistani army to reconstruct devastated buildings, or whether they want to use civilian construction companies. But to be honest, it's their call. Q: Just to follow up, I mean, and don't take it personally, but you said something there which is a little bit shocking in terms of humanitarian relief, and I know this is a little bit outside of NATO competence, but you're saying the conditions started to be better than what they were before the earthquake, and so you felt it was the appropriate time to leave, to withdraw. Now I mean, so if I understand correctly you're saying you're giving people better conditions and it's time to withdraw so that they can go back to previous worse conditions? WALTON: That's a wonderful question. One of the things we tried to establish when we got into Kashmir is what is normality. I mean, we can see the devastation around us, but what is normality? Normality is not three meals a day. Normality is not being disease free. Normality is not having fresh drinking water. Normality is not having shoes on your feet when you walk around in the snow. Now that doesn't mean to say that from a western standpoint I think that's good or clever. But that's not my call. My task was to put them back where they were, acknowledging that if I had a magic wand I'd raise everything a degree higher. So it might sound harsh, but in a way understanding that their expectation was to have one meal a day, whereas you and I might prefer to have three, it was very important to us to understand this normality. Because if we do go too far, and this sounds like hard love if you like, if we wean them onto our way of existing then how on earth do you get them to go back to those when we have to leave at some point, whether it's 90 days or 9 months. So we acknowledge that his is not an easy decision, but equally we acknowledge that it was the right time for us to go because of the pre-earthquake normality. Q: Mark John from Reuters. What did this operation teach you about NATO's suitability for doing this sort of thing? Both in terms of doing things that perhaps you thought the Alliance couldn't do before that. And also did it highlight any tasks that it was not really suited for? WALTON: Disaster relief is actually a specified mission for the NATO Response Force, so this is something we'd thought about. I differentiate... I've come across this before, the intermingling of the two terms, disaster relief and humanitarian assistance. In my mind they're two very different things. Disaster relief is an unexpected event. Disaster happens. You didn't know it was coming, so it's short notice. Something has to be done. And using my description earlier of search and rescue as the first thing to be done, then relief, then reconstruction, it seems to me that the sorts of capabilities that are needed in that relief phase will almost always include engineering capability to clear up the mess that's been left; medical facilities, because those are probably overwhelmed; and helicopter facilities because movement is likely to be difficult. And those are capabilities that NATO has and that the NRF has. And therefore if we're asked to help why would we say no? So I think this is a mission that... is particularly appropriate. Humanitarian assistance on the other hand can be something that lasts years, if not decades. The people might join the three-year point, stay for a long time, and I don't think that is something that NATO is perhaps particularly well suited to at the moment. It might be later on, but right now I don't think that is something we would be particularly comfortable with. So disaster relief, yes, and I think we are well-suited for it. Humanitarian assistance is something different. Q: So like on the helicopter you mentioned... I know that some of the commanders were saying that they were lacking the lighter, more agile helicopters at some certain stages in the operation. Can you bear that out? I mean, did that actually have an impact? WALTON: It wasn't something I was particular aware of. Across the international helicopter force, if you like, we had everything from the big Chinooks right down to the very small helicopters. We as a NATO force were particularly well placed because we had the CH-53s, which carry a lot. They're big helicopters, they're heavylift helicopters. We also had the Luxembourg Explorer helicopter which is purpose built for rescuing people. It can take a couple of stretchers, and it is small. So we could put that into places that we couldn't put the big helicopters. But it is really only for things like casualty evacuation that we need that capability. If I tried to do that with the CH-53s or with somebody else's Chinooks we'd cause more damage than we'd save. So from a NATO perspective we had both types. We had what we needed. Q: (inaudible)... Mine is a general question, not directly related to your force, but the thing that I find interesting is, (inaudible)... how many people you were responsible for and how big the population was (inaudible)... Would it not have been more sensible to move these people into a more benign area? In other words out of the upper hills? Rather than start trying to chauffer them and cart all that stuff out? WALTON: That's a very good question. The area that we were responsible for was something called the Bagh Tehsil, Bagh being the name of the town and Tehsil being another word for district. In there were about 233,000 people. Not all of whom were directly affected by the earthquake, but many of whom were, of course. We... at a conservative estimate, we affected the lives of about a 100,000 people—I can say that quite confidently—and probably a lot more, due to the amount of aid that we took and the activities that we undertook once we were in theatre. And bearing in mind that we had a force of about a 1,000 and we had 90 days of which getting in and getting out was part of that, that was... I think that's probably fairly reasonable. In terms of moving the population they were very reluctant to move. Some did and relief camps were established as far away as Islamabad, which is about 120 kilometres as the crow flies. But most people on coming lower down, many of the people who were in the higher mountain areas would not come down because they are absolutely tied to their land. And for them to leave their land would be to lose it, even though there's nobody else around. This is the culture. And so whilst we thought it was a good idea for people to move away from areas of clear danger, the Kashmiri region is unstable anyway, geologically unsound. This is an earthquake zone. Earthquakes do happen. They still choose to be there. Because their animals were there they wouldn't move away. Because they owned the land they wouldn't move away. So we went to them. Hence the mobile medical teams to treat them, and hence the helicopters to deliver aid to them. And hence the high altitude shelter construction capability to build shelters at high altitudes. We had to go with what we were given and they wouldn't move. Q: (inaudible)... Ambassador Nuland, the US ambassador told us that the Pakistan mission was a reality check on using the NRF, hinting in a way, I suppose, that there were hitches which needed to be worked out. What are the lessons you've learned for the NRF? Specifically the NRF in the future? I mean, what (inaudible)...? WALTON: I've got to know what she means by reality check, so I can't comment on that. What did we learn? We learned that we've got it about right. As is normal after every operation we look at how we could have done it better. And if I should try and quantify that for you I would say that this was 95 percent roaring success and 5 percent we can do it better. Could we get there a bit faster? We probably could squeeze a day or two off the deployment timelines. The way we did business in theatre, to be honest, is about right. It's difficult to see how we could have done that better. The costs of the operation and who pays for them, that's an area for debate that the North Atlantic Council will take up, so I'm not going to comment on that. But that's an area that we could... that deserves some attention, shall I say. But in terms of having the right stuff in the right place at the right time I think we got it right. Q: Paul Ames from the Associated Press. Kashmir, as you know, is instable more than just geographically. I just wondered whether... what was your reception from the local political (inaudible), and whether you had any security concerns. WALTON: Security concerns, clearly we were very aware of the area that we were going into, and it is a very interesting area for a number of reasons. There are training camps there, there are nuclear sites there. There's the line of control. There are Kashmiri separatists and militants. So it's an interesting area to go into. The government of Pakistan provided us with force protection, very capable, very professional, very proficient, and so in terms of did we feel threatened, no we didn't. We actually felt very well protected. The reaction to us by various groups within Pakistan varied. The first thing to understand is that Pakistan generally doesn't know what NATO is. And so the first thing we had to do was to explain it to them. And many of their questions were based on genuine curiosity about what we do and how we do it. Much of their information came from our websites, and so they were asking questions about that. But once we had explained what it was we were there to do and also explained what it was that we were not there to do, we got on extremely well. So we didn't have any concerns about people threatening us. We did have quite a job to explain to them what it was we were there for. Q: Nick Fiorenza, Jane's Defence Weekly. I want to pursue the question about lessons learned. I mean, we've been hearing about the strategic lessons learned about airlift and political, whatever, funding issues. But I was more interested in some of the tactical lessons. Now, one of the things we've heard here is that the NRF exercise, LIVEX in Cape Verde in the middle of the year, can be scaled down because of some of the lessons learned, and I'm not quite sure how that can be the case. And then the other question I wanted to ask, do you think it would have been easier to deploy out there had there been Status of Forces Agreement with Pakistan? Of course, that Status of Forces Agreement is being negotiated in relation to support of ISAF, but if it had been in place, I don't know, would it have made things easier? WALTON: Okay, the relationship between the operation we did in Pakistan and the LIVEX exercise coming up, until we did this operation the NRF was theoretical, and so the LIVEX was designed as a proof of concept, can we deploy this lot somewhere, make it do things and then bring it back again? And we just did that in Pakistan. And the lesson that comes out was we got it about right, and of course, we're going to tweak it and refine it, but the lesson was we got it about right. And therefore we can scale back LIVEX to a degree. Now clearly, it's still good training for the forces that will take part, and therefore the exercise will go ahead, but it doesn't have quite the same edge to it as it did before because we know that the processes, if you will, are about right. In terms of Status of Forces Agreement, I think it goes almost without saying that if you're doing a disaster relief operation, and if you're doing it on short notices to move, to an area in which you do not have a pre-existing relationship then you will not have a SOFA. So that is something that we just have to deal with. The government of Pakistan gave verbal assurances from the outset that a Status of Forces Agreement containing the sorts of things that we would typically want to put in it, would be made available. Now you could say, okay, so you take a slight risk, and you don't wait for the piece of paper, but you get on with it, which is pretty much what we did. And then the Status of Forces Agreement was signed and it contained everything we needed. So I think it's really just acknowledging that we won't have everything in place that we would have for a predetermined operation, that would take six months to plan, say, if you've only got five days, and providing you acknowledge that you're invited into a country then the Status of Forces Agreement is nice to have, but probably not essential in the first several days. Q: Sir, I was wondering, two questions. You mentioned that force protection was done by the Pakistani army. Can you tell us a little bit how that came about? And second, well (inaudible)...if you've had any restrictions of any kind while you were operating there. Obviously you were there for a specific reason, but maybe the Pakistani army had (inaudible)... imposed some restrictions. And then a more general question, do you think now the relationship between NATO and Pakistan can be further deepened? I mean, do you have any indications (inaudible)... that you can further the relationship? That's a more political question, but did you military counterparts in Pakistan... have there been some indications? WALTON: Okay, force protection, this was something that was offered to us by the government of Pakistan who were acutely aware, as we were, that we were going into an area that was stable in more ways than geological, to steal that earlier phrase. And we were very pleased to accept it. They gave us a company of rangers who are their equivalent to special forces. These guys were very well equipped, very well trained, very professional. We were watching how they did business and we thought they were very good. One of my concerns was that they would not like having to do a nursemaid job for us. In fact, quite the opposite. They were extremely proud to be doing the job, which surprised me frankly. But they were very proud to be doing the job, because they felt it was contributing towards the earthquake efforts. So the force protection came about because it was offered to us and it was therefore appropriate for us to accept it, and they did it very well. In terms of restrictions, no. I mean, clearly there were sensitive areas, such as the nuclear sites that they have there, but we didn't try to go into those for obvious reasons, and so it didn't become a problem. So no, we had no restrictions. Anywhere we wanted to go we went and there just was no difficulty. We found them extremely generous hosts. Very helpful, in helping us to understand the context in which we were operating. They understand Kashmir rather better than we do. They were very helpful. And lastly, on the NATO-Pakistan relationship, I can't say how NATO will develop its relationship with Pakistan in the future because that is, as you rightly say, a political question. But I would make the observation that we left behind an image of NATO as a capable, professional, and above all, trustworthy organization. Not my words, the words that were played back to us. And I think that's very helpful for the future, whatever the future might bring. Q: We heard reports here that some people... some Pakistanis thought the NRF was being sent to hunt down al-Qaeda. I mean, did you come across that, and how did you specifically deal with that fear? WALTON: Yes, we did come across that, along with several other flights of fancy. It's all related to most people did not know what NATO does. And so there was some speculation in the media there, which I'm sure would not happen here, about what NATO was there to do. And that included NATO was here to hunt the Taliban and al-Qaeda. So we explained that well, with engineers and medics and helicopter crews, A, that's not the sort of force you'd use for that. But no, we're not, we're here to do this disaster relief work. But by being extremely open, I mean, there was nothing we were doing there that was hidden from anybody, including the international media, as well as Pakistani authorities, I think we fairly quickly overcame those understandable reservations about us as a brand new organization in their country. And particularly the fact that we left when we said we were going to leave, I think was very helpful because it showed that we were not there for ulterior motives, if you will. MODERATOR: No more questions? Q: Spanish News Agency EFE - the Spanish Defence Minister, Mr. Bono, visited the mission in late December and he had there some not fully nice words about NATO bureaucrats and their financing of the mission, did any of that affect (inaudible)... and did the issues of the financing of the mission delay the launching of the mission? WALTON: The Spanish Defence Minister is a national representative who is completely free to say whatever he likes, whenever he likes to whoever he likes, and that's absolutely right and proper that he does so. Nothing he said had any impact on the mission at all. Financial issues did not delay the launch of the operation at all. And the Spanish contingent, by the way, did a stunningly good job. They were very good. MODERATOR: The last question. Q: Do you think this operation helped the ISAF operation, especially the extension to the south and east of the country? WALTON: We made the point that there's absolutely no linkage between what we were doing as a NATO disaster relief force and ISAF, for the simple reason there is no linkage between the two. Genuinely there's nothing... I have no linkage with ISAF or anything going on in Afghanistan. Having said which, I think what we showed was, if you like, the soft face, the caring face of NATO. Now whether that has an effect on how we are perceived in Afghanistan is difficult to tell. But I think it would be reasonable to say people watched what we did in Pakistan and will draw conclusions about NATO as...