Canada in Iraq: RCAF Ends Airstrikes

Written by David Pugliese, Ottawa Citizen

Published February 17, 2016

Canada’s CF-18 fighter jets stopped their bombing in Iraq and Syria on Monday, days before MPs started debating the value of the new military mission against the Islamic State.

The debate in the House of Commons on the Liberal government’s new Iraq mission started Wednesday. But the six fighter aircraft had finished their mission two days before.

“In accordance with Government of Canada direction, the Chief of the Defence Staff ordered the Canadian Armed Forces to cease airstrike operations in Iraq and Syria on February 15, 2016,” Canadian Forces spokesman Capt. Kirk Sullivan confirmed late Wednesday.

“The Hornets will depart the region in a phased approach in the coming weeks,” he added.

The Liberals unveiled Feb. 8 their revamped “non-combat” mission to battle ISIL in Iraq, including their plan to triple the number of Canadian special forces in the north of the country and withdraw the six fighter jets.

The Liberals had said the fighter jet mission would end by Feb. 22. The last bombing runs took place on the weekend in Iraq.

On Feb. 14, two CF-18 Hornets bombed an ISIL fighting position in the vicinity of Fallujah using precision-guided munitions. Four days earlier, two CF-18s attacked an ISIL weapons cache in the vicinity of Al Habbaniyah. The same day, two CF-18s bombed an Islamic State fighting position north of Ramadi.

The CF-18s flew their first mission on Oct. 30, 2014. They conducted 251 airstrikes, dropping 606 bombs, Sullivan noted. Only five of the bombing runs were in Syria, the rest were in Iraq.

Military officials said Wednesday night that the bombs destroyed 267 ISIL fighting positions, 102 vehicles or other pieces of equipment, and 30 improvised explosive device factories or storage facilities.

Canada will leave an aerial refueling tanker and two CP-140 surveillance aircraft assigned to the coalition bombing mission.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has faced criticism in the Commons for ending the fighter jet combat mission.

But Trudeau has insisted that Canada can make a more meaningful contribution through providing humanitarian aid and training Kurdish security forces fighting the Islamic State. That training will include directing airstrikes and if necessary eliminating enemy positions using other weapons.

That part of the mission hasn’t changed from when the Conservatives committed special forces to northern Iraq in the fall of 2014. But the Liberals have expanded in size of the commitment, increasing the number of commandos from 69 to a little more than 200.

The Canadian military is also looking at sending helicopters to Iraq to help with transport.

In the Commons Wednesday, Trudeau acknowledged the criticism from the Conservatives, who don’t believe the Liberal plan is doing enough to fight ISIL, and the NDP, who are worried Canada could be drawn into a war on the ground.

“We have one party that wants us to do much more in the fight against the so-called Islamic State, and the other party who wants us to do much less against ISIL,” Trudeau said.

But he noted Canada’s allies are happy with the Liberal government’s plan. That plan would see the number of Canadian military personnel increase from 650 to 830.

The Conservative’s interim leader Rona Ambrose said the Liberal plan falls significantly short. “The prime minister is wrong when he says his plan to deal with ISIS reflects Canadian values,” she said in the Commons. “Canadians value standing with our traditional allies, Canadians value helping the vulnerable and the threatened, and Canadians value showing true resolve against a brutal enemy.”

The revamped mission has earned kudos from coalition allies. The Pentagon’s chief spokesman, Peter Cook, praised the mission, describing it as the kind of response U.S. Defence Secretary Ashton Carter had been looking for from coalition members. “The secretary sees these as significant contributions,” Cook told reporters, “and he appreciates the decision by the Trudeau government to step up Canada’s role in the campaign at this critical time.”

Cabinet Reviewing Options to Bolster OP IMPACT

Written by Robert Fife With a report from Campbell Clark, The Globe and Mail 

The federal cabinet is reviewing options to bolster Canada’s role in the U.S.-led coalition against the Islamic State that run the gamut from maintaining surveillance and refuelling aircraft to clandestine operations, military and government officials say.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau promised during the election to pull Canada’s CF-18 fighter jets out of the bombing mission but pledged a more robust training mission for the Canadian military.

Military sources, speaking on background, say General John Vance, Chief of the Defence Staff, has placed at least six options before the cabinet for vetting that include a substantial role for Canadian Special Operations Forces but also for the regular army.

Cabinet is expected to make a decision within the next 30 days.

“We have a lot of choices to make and we have our own means, and we must conduct a rigorous selection with the Minister of Defence, the Minister of International Development, the Prime Minister. We are looking at that very attentively,” the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Stéphane Dion, told The Globe and Mail Tuesday.

Canada has 69 special forces training Kurdish soldiers and 600 Air Force personnel in Kuwait, where six CF-18s are based along with two surveillance planes and one refuelling tanker.

Sources say the wide-ranging recommendations to cabinet include:

• Retaining surveillance and refuelling aircraft in Kuwait;
• Sending up to 150 special forces to train Kurdish peshmerga fighters;
• Using regular Canadian army trainers for Iraqi security forces;
• Training Iraqi troops in nearby Jordan;
• Training Iraqi police and increasing humanitarian assistance;
• Using elite Joint Task Force 2 commandos in black ops in Iraq and Syria like Canada did in Afghanistan.

Military experts say cabinet is almost certain to accede to the Pentagon’s request for Canada to continue to provide its refuelling tanker and Aurora spy aircraft.

Retired Lieutenant-General Ken Pennie, a former commander of the Royal Canadian Air Force, said Canada’s refuelling aircraft allows coalition fighter jets to operate 24-7 while the Auroras are outfitted with sophisticated radar and optical systems to identify Islamic State militants on the ground.

“The enemy forces out there don’t present a really easy target. They are hiding in schools and in hospitals. They don’t move around in large concentrated groups … so the Auroras are really value-added because they can find these targets,” he said.

Retired Major-General David Fraser, a former commander of Canadian troops in Afghanistan, said the proposal to conduct training exercises in Jordan would face opposition from the coalition and within Iraq.

“Politically, it makes a lot more sense to us because you don’t have to worry about Canadian Forces getting in firefights, but from an operational point of view the Iraqis and Kurds won’t like that at all.”

Mr. Fraser said Gen. Vance would almost certainly propose clandestine operations by Canada’s elite JTF2 commandos, although the Foreign Affairs Minister was quick to rule that out.

“We said very clearly during the election campaign that we wanted to end direct combat activities. So if that’s the question, it’s not part of what we are considering doing. But what is left to do is so enormous anyway, we won’t be short,” Mr. Dion said.

Mr. Dion said Canada can play a role in helping to stabilize liberated Iraqi towns and cities by helping to train police and local militias.

Regardless of what the government decides, Mr. Fraser said it’s unlikely to win Canada many accolades from the United States and Western allies whose fighter jet pilots are bombing Islamic State targets.

“If we don’t have our fighter jets, we are not going to have much of a voice,” he said. “We won’t get much recognition. Strategically, at the political level, we are going to lose here.”

Ambrose: Opposition will Push to Keep CF-18s in Fight against ISIS

Written by: Ryan Maloney, Huffington Post 
Rona Ambrose spoke in personal terms about the fight against terrorism in her first speech to the Conservative caucus as interim leader.

And she signaled Wednesday that her official Opposition Tories will push the new Liberal government to reverse its plans to withdraw Canadian jets from combat against ISIL.

Ambrose harkened back to a comment Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made in 2013 just after the Boston marathon bombing, later featured in Tory attack ads.

"The Liberals told Canadians that we should be examining the root causes of terrorism," she said.

Terrorism, she said, is bred from a hatred of "our values" and freedom.

"A hatred of my rights as a woman," Ambrose said. "And my ability to live freely."

Ambrose accused Liberals of seeing the contributions of Canada's air force as a "token effort worthy of a tasteless joke." The jab referenced an incident in October 2014, just before Parliament voted to send the jets to Iraq, in which Trudeau accused then prime minister-Stephen Harper of wanting to "whip out our CF-18s and show them how big they are."

Her quip sparked a few shouts of "shame" from Tory MPs.

"And so the prime minister's first phone call with another world leader was to tell our closest ally that Canada would be diminishing our fight against ISIS and withdrawing our air force, leaving our allies to do the heavy lifting," she said of Trudeau's first conversation with U.S. President Barack Obama.

As Ambrose spoke to her party, Foreign Affairs Minister Stephane Dion was in Brussels for a meeting with his NATO counterparts.

Dion suggested Tuesday that the Liberal plan to withdraw jets from the ISIL fight and ramp up training would be a better contribution to the campaign.

"There are a lot of things where Canada may be a great supporter, instead of delivering two per cent of the airstrikes," Dion said.

According to The Canadian Press, as of Nov. 19, Canada has carried out 199 airstrikes out of a total of 8,289 coalition aids — or 2.4 per cent. The RCAF is now over 200 with strikes at the end of November, and 1 in December.

The foreign affairs minister said Canada's position is "well understood" by NATO allies.

On Wednesday, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry delivered a blunt message at the NATO summit, calling on allies to "step up" in the fight against Daesh — the Arabic reference for the Islamic State.

Kerry said he was "very gratified" allies were bringing more to the effort or planned to increase contributions. He also lauded the leadership of British Prime Minister David Cameron, whose Parliament is set to vote to expand airstrikes into Syria.

However, he also said contributions didn't have to include "troops engaged in kinetic action."

Opinion: Canada Should Keep CF-18's in Iraq

If you have not already discovered my personal bias from reading this blog when it comes to the military, and the use of force - well this post should finalize where I stand.

This post is my opinion - and my opinion alone - and should not be attributed to any other news source, or author that I have re-blogged at any point in time.

I blogged back in September that support for the continued deployment Air Task Force Iraq was needed. This post came before the 2015 Election that saw the election of a Liberal Majority government in Canada. I have no qualms about the outcome of the election - but with it came the promise to withdraw Canada from the US-led Coalition bombings of ISIS in Iraq and Syria.

I fundamentally disagree with this stance. ISIS needs to be degraded and ultimately defeated. While I can admit the air campaign has been extremely slow to show progress, it is making progress.

Need evidence of this success? Take a look at late last week - before the Paris Attacks. Air support was key in helping Kurdish and Peshmerga forces in retaking Sinjar, and helping gain control of the highway linking Sinjar, Iraq and Ah Raqqah, Syria - the defacto capital of ISIS.

Sinjar had been in the control of ISIS for the past year, and it has now been liberated. Mosul, is also almost completely liberated thanks to air support - an area where Canada has been highly active.

While the rest of the world is using fierce tones denouncing ISIS, and standing behind France militarily - Canada has remained largely quiet. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau gave his condolences to the French people, and said Canada stands with France - but ignored the question about whether or not the attacks would change Canada's plans to withdraw from the air campaign. Giving Trudeau the benefit of the doubt (still within his first 100 days) - ISIS had not yet claimed responsibility when he gave his statement - but it has been close to 72 hours since the attacks, and ISIS has now claimed responsibility, and Trudeau has not spoken to the media since 8:30 PM EST Friday.

A member of his staff spoke without being named on Saturday and said the attacks have not changed the Liberal Party's plan to withdraw from the air campaign. Today, it was reported that Finance Minister Bill Morneau seconded this statement - the first official member of the Trudeau Cabinet to do so.  Personally, how or why the Finance Minister has any input on matters of National Security seems odd. Why was the statement not made by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, or National Defence?

Morneau did say that Cabinet is looking at alternatives to how Canada can contribute to the coalition. He said that Canada is committed to the coalition, just not in the air campaign. That is largely what the coalition is about - bombing ISIS because no one wants to deploy ground combat forces. Trudeau called for an increase in Canada's training mission, mainly to Kurdish forces in northern Iraq, but that he would ensure CAF special forces members were further from the front lines.

While I am fully insuport of deploying more training forces - as Canada has a specialty in training foreign forces, we should keep our CF-18s in the fight. Yes, they have only contributed to less than 2% of airstrikes, but that is because they are less 2% of the fighter jets involved in the fight. Despite this, according to the Combined Joint task Force, Canada contributed to 4.9% of the 141 airstrikes since November 3rd.

According to DND as of 14 November 2015, Air Task Force-Iraq conducted 1747 sorties:

• CF-188 Hornet fighters conducted 1119 sorties;
• CC-150T Polaris aerial refueller conducted 305 sorties, delivering some 18,024,000 pounds of fuel to coalition aircraft; and
• CP-140 Aurora aircraft conducted 323 reconnaissance missions. 

That does not include the airstrike by two CF-18s yesterday near Haditha, Iraq. This was a very small contribution on Canada's part - all six CF-18s should have been out bombing yesterday. France deployed 10 fighters and dropped 20 bombs on ISIS, mainly around Ah Raqqah, Syria.  Canada has a few times bombed in Syria since the expansion of its mission. Yet the coalition is thankful we have expanded our role. The British Parliament still refuses to expand into Syria. The difference is in Britain the Paris Attacks have re-ignited the conversation on how to engage ISIS. 

I do not know if France will envoke Article 5 of the NATO treaty - but if they do, Canada might be required to do more than  just train Kurdish forces. Article 5 states that an attack on one member is an attack on all - and all are required to come to the defence of that member. France called the Paris attacks an "act of war." The two houses of the French Parliament are set to meet today for only the third time in the history of the French Republic. many expect the State of Emergency to be extended for 3 Months. We wait and see what else comes out of the meeting. 

No one will place blame on Prime Minister Trudeau for going back on his Election promise to end the air campaign in the wake of the Paris Attacks. Canada should keep our CF-18s in Iraq - at least until the end of the current mandate of March 2016, and reassess the situation at that point. 

If you feel the same way, push your MP to voice a concern, and keep Canada involved in the fight against ISIS. 

My thoughts and prayers go out to all those affected by the barbaric attacks in Paris on November, 13, 2015.  - Soliderité