Liberals under fire for Iraq Mission Secrecy

By: Lee Berthiaume, The Ottawa Citizen

OTTAWA • The Liberal government is under fire for a lack of transparency around Canada’s mission in Iraq, which entered a critical stage this week with the attack on Mosul.

Conservative defence critic James Bezan honed in on the issue during a news conference on Parliament Hill on Tuesday, saying the military held more briefings and provided more information while the Tories were in power.

National Defence provided 12 technical briefings on what Canadian troops were doing in the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) during the first year of the mission, which coincided with the Conservative government’s last year in office.

Those updates included specific details, such as the number of troops on the ground in northern Iraq as well as how many times those soldiers had called in airstrikes and engaged in firefights with ISIL forces.

Yet briefings largely dried up during the mission’s second year, which is when the Liberals were in office. The most recent, held two weeks ago, was only the third since the Liberals were elected last October.

A senior military officer revealed during that briefing that Canadian troops have been spending more time on the front lines, and engaged in “sporadic” firefights with ISIL during the spring and summer.

But he refused to say how many firefights Canadians have been in or how many Canadian soldiers are on the ground — even though that figure was already included in public documents tabled in the House of Commons at the end of September.

THERE IS STILL INFORMATION AFTER A BATTLE’S TAKEN PLACE THAT CAN BE SHARED.

Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan defended the tightened grip on information, saying it was necessary to protect Canadian troops and the operation to free Mosul, which has been billed as the most important battle to date in the fight against ISIL.

“It was actually around Mosul, everything that we did,” he said of Canadian activities over the past few months. “If it was in a different location, it’d be a different story. I have to trust in the military when it comes to the type of information that’s provided.”

Bezan said operational security is essential, “but there is still information after a battle’s taken place that can be shared with Canadians to inform us on exactly what is happening in the battle for Mosul.” The government owes it to parliamentarians, Canadians and the soldiers’ families to be more open, he added.

Canada has more than 170 special forces troops working with and assisting the Kurds in northern Iraq.

Their mission has been billed as non-combat, though the government says they can shoot in self-defence. Military officials say they have also shot to defend allied forces and, in some cases, civilians.

But some critics have accused the Liberals of tailoring the definition of combat to fit with promises made during last year’s election campaign.

Defence analyst David Perry of the Canadian Global Affairs Institute said he didn’t think the current mission constituted combat, “but the things people were construing as combat are happening more often.”

Perry said there has been a clear shift under the Liberals in terms of transparency.

“The Harper government last winter got very liberal in discussing special operations forces activities, because the past practice was effectively to say almost nothing. And they got verbose,” he said. “So this government has kind of turned it back towards the norm.”

Operational Security for Special Forces Collateral Damage

By David Pugliese, The Ottawa Citizen

It wasn’t that long ago that the news media was prohibited from showing the faces of any Canadian military personnel taking part in the Iraq mission. Official photos from the mission were issued only after the faces of mechanics, pilots and other military personnel were blurred out. Journalists were told they were not allowed to take photos showing the faces of CF members involved in the Iraq conflict.

The reason?

The threat of retaliation from the Islamic State against a military member or their family was very real.

When Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s office inadvertently released a video showing the faces – albeit from a distance – of Canadian special forces the Liberals rose in the House of Commons and accused the Conservatives of putting Canadian lives at risk.

Harper’s office later issued an apology and removed the video imagery which was shot while the prime minister was visiting Canadian special forces in northern Iraq.

That was then.

Now it seems there has been a significant change of heart on operational security when it comes to the Iraq mission, and in particular, when it comes to Canadian special forces deployed to a war zone.

Chief of the Defence Staff Gen. Jon Vance recently took a tour of the front lines in northern Iraq with journalists in tow.

The media were not only allowed to photograph Canadian special forces but interview them as well (CANSOF personnel have been interviewed and photographed before by the Citizen, CBC, Global TV, CTV and other news outlets but on training missions and with various caveats attached…these latest interviews and photographs/video were taken in an active combat zone).

So what has changed?

The Islamic State is still a resourceful and significant enemy….or at least according to the Canadian government and Vance himself.

Military sources say the difference this time is that the Liberal government is keen on showing that Canada is indeed contributing to the Iraq mission, even though the Trudeau government pulled the CF-18s out of the coalition bombing campaign.

Vance was more than happy to accommodate the Liberals and so the military proposed the media tour of the front lines, highlighting Canadian special forces, sources added. It was all done in close co-ordination with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s office.

CANSOF operational security was simply collateral damage, sources say.

(Photo below screen grab from CTV news report about Canadian special forces in Iraq. The video was taken during Gen. Vance’s recent visit to special forces).



My Ottawa Citizen colleague Lee Berthiaume has more details here in his article:

http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/canadian-politics/military-defends-letting-media-show-pictures-of-canadian-special-forces-in-iraq



There are those inside the Canadian Forces who argue that OPSEC is too rigid for Canadian special forces. And still others who say it isn’t tight enough; that no faces should be shown or interviews granted….ever.

Whatever the case, the Genie has now been let out of the bottle.

In the wake of this new development on OPSEC, it should be interesting to see how the Canadian Forces will go about justifying operational security for future missions. If it is willing to show off its special forces in an active combat zone, where the enemy is a resourceful terrorist group that has shown it can strike at targets in the West, then it could prove very difficult for the Canadian Forces to rightfully claim OPSEC for other similar, or lesser operations.