Canada in Iraq: U.S. General sad to see CF-18s leave Mideast

Written by Matthew Fisher, National Post 

US General would welcome back Canadian fighter jets if they returned.

"IDEALLY, I WOULD LIKE THE CANADIANS TO COME BACK AT SOME POINT."
— U.S. LT.-GEN. CHARLES BROWN

The American general running the coalition air campaign against ISIL jihadists in Iraq and Syria says Canada’s CF-18s, which the Trudeau government ordered home last week, are welcome to return to the fight at any time.

Photo: Getty Images / Don Mackinnon

While Belgium and Denmark brought their fighter jets home, they did so for financial reasons, Matthew Fisher writes. Canada pulled its jets because of a campaign pledge.

“Ideally, I would like the Canadians to come back at some point, but I know that there are local decisions that have to be made in Canada for that to happen,” Lt.-Gen. Charles Brown told the National Post from his headquarters at Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar.

“It is kind of sad to see them go. I realize that for your operators who fly the F18s, your pilots, I think they are a little disappointed because I know if I was one of them at the squadron level and much younger, I would probably be feeling the same way.”

The three- star U. S. air force general, who commands several hundred attack aircraft, spy planes and in-air refuellers spread across half a dozen countries in the Middle East, found out Canada’s new government intended to withdraw its jets from Kuwait while watching CNN.

“It was kind of news to me. I wasn’t watching the campaign to understand all the dynamics,” the former F-16 fighter pilot said. “But I understand. We welcome them back if the opportunity presents itself, if the minds there change and the political leadership changes its mind.”

Judging by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s recent statements, there is virtually no chance of that happening. But Brown noted Canada was not the first country to bring its fighter jets home. Other countries, such as Belgium and Denmark, had done so because of the size of their air forces or for financial reasons.

While it was not “a foregone coalition” that they would return, “it was their intent to come back,” he said.

Canada’s decision to withdraw its fighters was not based on financial considerations. Rather, it was to honour a Liberal campaign pledge to end the combat mission. But having fighter jets drop precision-guided high-tech weapons is a hugely expensive undertaking.

Without saying which countries he was talking about, Ashton Carter, the U. S. secretary of defence, said in January some U.S. allies were “free-riders” in the war against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant because of their unwillingness to commit combat forces to the fight against Islamic extremism.

But he might as well also have been speaking about how deeply disappointed the U.S., Britain and France are at how little Canada spends on defence.

NATO’s target for defence spending is two per cent of gross domestic product. Canada spends less than half that, the least of any major nation in the 28-country alliance. With a budget deficit that will likely grow from nearly zero to as much as $30 billion this year, it is highly unlikely Canada will increase what it spends on defence any time soon.

Nonetheless, the Royal Canadian Air Force’s modest contribution of six CF-18 Hornets has been useful because Canada was “one of a handful of countries” to allow its aircraft to launch airstrikes in both Iraq and Syria, Brown said. “Because of their flexibility ... we were able to act on specific targets and in specific areas.”

It was good for the coalition Canada was keeping two spy planes (CP-140 Auroras) and an in-air refueller (a CC-150 Polaris) in the Middle East and increasing the number of its trainers in Iraq.

“With time we understand this adversary (ISIL) more and more,” Brown said.

“We have gone very hard against them here the past several months at their ability to resource themselves, hitting some of their oil facilities as well as some of their bank facilities and cash collection points. I know for a fact from the ‘intel’ that this is hurting them. When they have difficulty paying their fighters, their morale gets lower.”

Canadian and other coalition aircraft have been “pounding these guys so hard,” ISIL has been unable to launch any major offensives since last spring and is slowly losing territory in Iraq, he said, adding as a result resistance on the ground has been less than had been expected.

256 RCAF ISIS Airstrikes: A Breakdown

By: David Pugliese, The Ottawa Citizen, 

Did the 606 bombs dropped make a difference in the war against ISIL?

Defence analysts claim Canada was punching above its weight in the bombing campaign against ISIL, and that the withdrawal of the CF-18 fighter jets is a major blow to the coalition’s efforts.

Conservative MP Kellie Leitch has said the pullout makes Canadian military personnel look like “cowards” on the world stage. Other Conservative MPs argue the end of Canada’s contribution to the bombing means the country is no longer being taken seriously by allies.

But with more than 32,000 bombs dropped on Islamic State forces so far, most of those by U.S. aircraft, did Canada’s 606 bombs make a difference?

Canada’s six CF-18s stopped airstrikes in Iraq and Syria on Monday, ending their involvement in that part of the war, which began in the fall of 2014.

Outside this country the response to the mission’s end has been muted, if noticed at all.

Canadian military officers privately acknowledge Canada’s impact on the bombing campaign in Syria has been almost nil.

Since Canada joined that operation in April 2015, CF-18s conducted only five raids on targets in Syria. The U.S. has dropped around 11,000 bombs on targets in Syria. Canada’s contribution in Syria was to drop 27 bombs total.

Iraq, military officers argue, is a different matter. They note that U.S. officers have lauded Canada’s contribution to the air campaign in that country.

But not everyone in the U.S. has been won over. Republican congressman Devin Nunes, the chairman of the House Intelligence committee, characterized the removal of the six Canadian jets as largely inconsequential. “Canada’s withdrawal from the bombing campaign won’t have a large effect on our military operations” against ISIL, he told the Guardian newspaper in late October.

The Liberal government has cited the low number of bombing raids as part of its reason for the withdrawal.

“There are a lot of things where Canada may be a great supporter, instead of delivering two per cent of the airstrikes,” Global Affairs Minister Stéphane Dion explained during a recent tour of NATO headquarters.

Military sources say the increase in Canadian special forces in northern Iraq has been particularly welcomed by the Pentagon, because the U.S. has more than enough fighter jets for the airstrike campaign and what has been lacking is the capacity to train and advise local forces.

For the air campaign, the U.S. was particularly interested in keeping Canada’s two Aurora reconnaissance aircraft because it needs more of that type of surveillance capability. The same went for Canada’s Polaris refuelling aircraft. The Liberals agreed to both those requests.

In Canada the debate continues. Defence analysts and pundits still point to the recent exclusion of Canada from a coalition war strategy meeting as proof the removal of the CF-18s was a blow to the country’s international reputation.

Behind the scenes, the RCAF is moving to ensure its contribution is recognized. It has briefed “stakeholders” — those defence analysts and retired military officers who appear on TV and are quoted in the news media. The RCAF message is that the CF-18s were used by the U.S. to attack ISIL leaders in moving vehicles or on other more difficult missions.

Although these claims can’t be verified independently, the stakeholders are now starting to repeat them in media interviews.

Ultimately, it may not be the bombing of armoured vehicles and fighting positions that speeds up ISIL’s demise.

World economic events have recently started to hinder the group’s operations by damaging its finances. ISIL earns an estimated $50 million per month by selling oil on the black market — money it needs to keep its combat operations going. But the significant drop in the price of oil has started to cut into that funding.

Reports coming from ISIL strongholds indicate that salaries for troops and support staff have been significantly cut or stopped altogether, and that rations have dwindled.

Canada’s CF-18s, however, did not take part in the attacks on oil convoys and infrastructure, because the U.S. determined they were not needed.

Canadian Forces spokesman Capt. Kirk Sullivan said a number of factors determined the frequency and location of Canadian airstrikes. “The U.S.-led coalition assigns tasks to coalition nations in consideration of operational capabilities, the provision of support to Iraqi security forces’ operations, the tactical level situation, and the availability of ISIL targets,” he added.

Review of RCAF anti-ISIS Air Campaign

BY STEWART BELL AND MATTHEW FISHER
The National Post

It is kind of sad to see them go. I realize that for your operators who fly the CF-18s ... I think they are a little disappointed because I know if I was one of them at the squadron level and much younger, I would probably be feeling the same way. We are pounding these guys so hard, once the folks on the ground show up, what you have is a skeletal force in different locations. —Lt.-Gen. Charles Brown, Commander, Air Force component, U.S. Central Command

The strikes varied from something that was very intense to others that were more routine. There were a lot of moving parts that involved a lot of co-ordination. There has never been a dull moment. This was one of the best moments of my career.
— unnamed RCAF pilot

Mosul had been in the grip of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant for almost five months when Canadian CF-18 Hornet fighter jets began appearing over the northern city — the largest occupied by the armed extremists. The CF-18s conducted one of their first airstrikes near Mosul on Nov. 17, 2014, hitting an improvised explosives device warehouse. Over the 15 months that followed, Canadian warplanes would target the Mosul area more than anywhere else. As the CF-18s prepare to return home after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s decision to pull them out of the fight against ISIL, a Postmedia analysis of the campaign shows that almost a third of the Canadian airstrikes targeted Mosul.

Up to 10 times a month, Canadian pilots flying out of a scorching hot airfield in Kuwait struck ISIL in and around Iraq’s second-largest city, targeting everything from bunkers and artillery to vehicles and car bomb factories.

While the political debate continues over Trudeau’s decision to ground the CF-18s in favour of more training, the analysis of Canadian Armed Forces airstrike data answers a more pragmatic question: what exactly did Canada’s fighter jets do?

Figures show that the six CF-18s conducted more than 230 airstrikes — all but five of them in Iraq. The vast majority targeted what the military described as fighting positions. The attacks were concentrated around Mosul, Sinjar and Ramadi.

The latter two cities have been retaken by Iraqi forces but Mosul remains the glittering prize. The once culturally rich city on the Tigris River has been ravaged by ISIL, which has imposed its militant brand of Islamic law through executions, child recruitment and ethnic cleansing.

Crosses at churches have been replaced with black ISIL flags, and the 1,700-year-old Christian population has fled after being ordered to convert to Islam. A buildup around the city has been underway for months, in anticipation of a planned ground assault.

“To retake Mosul on the ground there has to be months of preparation before that in terms of airstrikes and other forms of planning,” said Thomas Juneau, an associate professor at the University of Ottawa’s Graduate School of Public and International Affairs. “It’s logical to target IS capabilities, IS defences, IS weapons depots in the Mosul area.”

Canada was not alone in its focus on Mosul — it was also the city most frequently struck by the coalition as a whole. “What our six (planes) have done has been a very small part of a big campaign,” said Randall Wakelam, an associate history professor at the Royal Military College of Canada.

The U.S.-led air coalition began to take shape in August 2014, after ISIL swept into Sinjar, committing one of the worst war crimes of the conflict. The videotaped beheading of U.S. journalist James Foley further cemented international resolve to defeat the Islamist extremists.

Canada joined the air mission in Oct. 2014, when Parliament voted to join the coalition. “We must do our part,” said then-prime minister Stephen Harper. But opposition parties stood against it, with Trudeau arguing that Canada should play a humanitarian role rather than “trying to whip out our CF-18s and show how big they are.”

The airstrikes aimed to halt ISIL’s expansion, shrink its territory and erode its capabilities, said Juneau, who called Canada’s participation “as political as military in the sense that it was a way to contribute to the legitimacy of overall operations.”

Within days of the vote, the CF18s left Cold Lake, Alta., for a base outside Kuwait City.

The first Canadian airstrike came on Nov. 2, west of Fallujah. The planes recorded six strikes that month and nine in December, but by January they were conducting almost daily bombing runs.

In Mosul, ISIL set fire to parts of the city to throw off reconnaissance aircraft, and mixed among civilians. “We follow laws of conflicts but they hold meetings in mosques, hospitals and schools,” said Col. Sean Boyle, who commanded Air Task Force Iraq between April and October 2015. “It makes it a much more complicated mission.”

The CF-18s sometimes flew missions alone and sometimes alongside coalition partners. Boyle recalled a Canadian-led attack on a training camp near Mosul by CF18s, Saudi F-15s and planes from four other nations. “We worked seamlessly. We were on the same page,” said Chief Warrant Officer John Short, who spent six months on the air campaign.

In Sinjar, where ISIL massacred, enslaved and expelled the Yazidi minority, CF-18s struck 31 times as Kurdish forces fought to retake the city. The central city of Ramadi was the third most commonly targeted with two dozen airstrikes; Iraqi forces recently took control of Ramadi, proclaiming it their first major victory against ISIL.

The targeting reflected the fact that “we are the air force for the various opposition forces,” said professor Stephen Saideman, the Paterson Chair in International Affairs at Carleton University’s Norman Paterson School of International Affairs.

Although Parliament voted last March to extend the air mission into Syria, the CF-18s struck only five times in that country — twice in the ISIL stronghold of Raqqa. The most recent sortie into Syria was Jan. 27, the target an IED factory near Palmyra.

The airstrike data suggest that preventing IED attacks was a priority for the mission. The military reported striking dozens of IED factories, storage facilities and vehicles rigged with explosives — a favourite ISIL weapon.

The tempo of Canadian airstrikes peaked from May to July 2015, the data show. During that period, CF-18s conducted 69 strikes. The pace slowed during the federal election, but Trudeau did not ground the CF-18s immediately after his October federal election victory. Almost 60 airstrikes — about quarter of the total — occurred after he was sworn in.

The air campaign has been notable for the absence of confirmed civilian casualties. That may be partly due to the lack of an independent media presence on the ground, but the airstrike data also suggest pilots were cautious.

Eight out of 10 times, Canadian fighter jets returned from their sorties without having dropped any bombs. “I reviewed every single strike with pilots, sometimes frame by frame,” Boyle said. “To the best of our ability we can confirm that there are no civilian casualties.”

He said the guided munitions, which ranged from 500 to 2,000 pounds, were “very advanced” and accurate 99 per cent of the time — although “one or two times” the bombs were duds that struck without detonating.

By contrast, the Russians — who were accused this week of bombing a hospital in Syria — have shown less regard for civilians. “The Syrians are sometimes dropping bombs from helicopters,” Boyle said.

On Feb. 8, Trudeau announced he would end the air mission Feb. 22. Saying that “our efforts should better reflect what Canada is all about,” the prime minister said his government would instead focus on aid, diplomacy and training Iraqi forces.

On Wednesday, the military announced the mission had actually ended on Feb. 15. The Canadian Joint Operations Command Headquarters said this week the CF-18s had contributed to efforts to “halt and degrade” ISIL.

Canada’s final tally: 1,378 CF-18 sorties and 251 airstrikes on 267 ISIL fighting positions, 30 IED factories and storage facilities and other targets. ( The official totals vary from Postmedia’s because some of the military’s publicly released data record multiple airstrikes as a single strike.)

“To date as a result of coalition efforts ISIL can no longer manoeuvre freely in large numbers,” said spokesman Capt. Kirk Sullivan. The ISIL leadership and its economy have been targeted, and morale is declining, he said.

Among those returning home will be military lawyers who were part of the targeting process that ensured Canada’s rules of engagement were followed.

“The coalition has been able to stop the advances of ISIL, their freedom of movement and their supply chain,” said a CF-18 pilot who flew 41 missions over Iraq last year and is now back in Canada. “This was one of the best moments of my career.”

Statement by an named RCAF CF-18 pilot who took part in OP IMPACT:

I flew 41 combat missions over Iraq. The strikes varied from something that was very intense to others that were more routine. There were a lot of moving parts that involved a lot of co-ordination. The air space was quite busy. We either flew as Canadian elements of the coalition or as parts of a large coalition package. I have the pleasure of serving the government where and when asked. This is a huge responsibility and it is a pleasure to deploy. Operating the equipment itself was an inherent challenge in the Middle East. There were heat and other effects. (Preparing the aircraft to fly) is a rigorous process. I am confident there was no collateral damage before, during and after our missions. Checking for collateral damage is an important part of what we do together. It starts before the mission takes place. It is an extensive, rigorous process that does not end until the release of the weapon. To the best of my knowledge there were no problems with any of the airstrikes during the entire mission and specifically, during my deployment.

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.”