Natynczyk on Colvin

Defence Minister Peter MacKay, left, and Chief of the Defence Staff Walter Natynczyk, right, confers with Vice Chief of the Defence Staff Vice-Admiral Denis Rouleau, centre, as they appear at the Commons defence committee on Parliament Hill on Thursday. (Fred Chartrand/Canadian Press)

Gen. Walt Natynczyk says he probably saw correspondence from Richard Colvin in 2006, while he was Gen. Rick Hillier's vice-chief of defence.

But he says he didn't even know who Colvin was, and didn't relate to a Colvin. "Because it's a name, you get these messages, they're called a C4, it has a gazillion addresses on the top," he told reporters after his appearance before the defence committee on Thursday morning in Ottawa.

"There was nothing that I saw that crossed my desk in '06 that certainly got my attention or I would have walked into Gen. Hillier's office and said, 'Hey, we have something here we have to work on.'"

Natynczyk said that because of the problems in the past with the Somalia crisis, the Canadian Forces are very careful about holding themselves to the highest standard.

"I think about the past in the 90s and, as a result of that we hold ourselves to account, I am personally responsible for what our men and women do in theatre."

Natynczyk said Canadian soldiers treat Taliban soldiers "very humanely," and that Canadians should be very proud of what their men and women do.

"If we think that something is happening that is inappropriate in accordance with Canadian law, or international law, or law of armed conflict the Geneva convention, that's a tripwire and were all over this."

He said reports by the Globe and Mail about prisoner abuse in 2007 caught the attention of the military leadership.

He said it's tough for soldiers to be in Afghanistan in a combat zone, dealing with heat, dust and fatigue and fighting the Taliban that are trying to kill them. "I won't apologize at all for what they do and how they do it," he said.

"If there is a trip wire, it would be all the way through the chain of command. We'd move out on it as we did four times."

Natynczyk was asked whether he expected a request for more troops in light of NATO's assertion that Afghanistan is not just America's war, while keeping in mind that Canada's combat role ends in 2011. He said that he had not received a request.

"We're at a point now to just be able to sustain what we are doing, to be able to ramp up or ramp down is pretty difficult, in terms of troops and where they are in training and so on. From my standpoint we haven't seen a request for pluses because I think, from our allies, they appreciate what we've done already."

He said it was "terrific" that U.S. President Barack Obama is sending 30,000 more U.S. troops to Afghanistan.

"Were seeing reports out of the south that additional forces will be flowing into the south in the next six months with an emphasis on the south. That's terrific because indeed as goes Kandahar, so will go Afghanistan."