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.

New CAF Commander for OP REASSURANCE

DND Press Release - February 19, 2016

Department of National Defence / Canadian Joint Operations Command

OTTAWA – The new commander of the Operation REASSURANCE Land Task Force, Major Éric Beauchamp, assumed command from Major Simon Côté today in Warsaw, Poland. Hosted by Canada’s Ambassador to Poland, Stephen de Boer, the ceremony at the Canadian embassy was presided over by Colonel Pascal Demers, Canadian Defence Attaché.

The Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) presence in the region demonstrates Canada’s commitment to work with NATO allies and react rapidly to international crises as part of Allied assurance measures to promote security in Central and Eastern Europe.

Canadian Armed Forces simulated casualties are loaded onto a UH-60 Blackhawk medical evacuation helicopter during Exercise ALLIED SPIRIT IV at the Joint Multinational Readiness Center Training area in Hohenfels, Germany on January 30, 2016 during Operation REASSURANCE. Photo: CAF Combat Camera

 

ARCTIC RAM: CAF expanded Northern Presence

Members of the CAF during part of ARCTIC RAM-16. Photo: CAF Combat Camera

By: Braeden Jones Metro Published on Wed Feb 17 2016

Less than a decade ago, the Polar Continental Shelf Program (PCSP) compound northwest of Resolute on Cornwallis Island, Nu. could support about 62 people—today it can handle as many as 240 people.

“We’ve expanded four-fold in a very, very short time,” said acting PCSP Chief of Arctic Logistics Tim McCagherty.

Rapid expansion came thanks to cooperation integral to all operations in the high Arctic.

“If you’re not all working together, nothing happens,” McCagherty said. “Nobody stands alone in the Arctic.”

In this case, the cooperation is between his the PCSP—backed by Natural Resources Canada, Environment Canada, and the Department of Fisheries and Oceans—and the Canadian Forces Arctic Training Centre (CFATC), via the Department of National Defence (DND).

In 2007, the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) received “the Canada First Defence strategy,” which mandated an increase in CAF Arctic presence and sovereignty defence.

“When (that) came up… the military turned around and said, ‘Okay, we’ve got to do an assessment of where we should place (a base of operations), and what should this facility do,” said Lt.Col Luc St. Denis.

The PCSP was established—albeit smaller—conveniently in the middle of the Canadian Arctic, and has one of the longest runways this far North, bar few, allowing for the kind of air projection vital to responding to sovereign threats almost anywhere North of Churchill.

McCagherty and company also offered 53 years of experience and an extensive network of contacts, pre-negotiated agreements, an established HF radio network and fuel caches.

“When we looked at all the factors, we needed mobility, we needed reach back to the south, we needed a central location and we needed good contacts,” St. Denis said of why CAF partnered the PCSP. “It was a win-win.”

He also said “training capability” was a primary need, hence the facility plan.

A planned expansion to the PCSP compound around 2009 allowed St. Denis an opportunity to propose the partnership, when he had his mandate and a $60 million budget to achieve his goals.

“I said… ‘I’ve got money, you’ve got the blueprint, what if we did a cut and paste, flipped it over and doubled the capacity to respond to my need?” St. Denis said.
He took the plan to DND in September 2010, it was approved by April 2011. Construction began the following summer and the ribbon was cut for the multi-departmental facility in 2013.

“That is something else,” St. Denis said. “The reason it worked is because of the partnership.”

McCagherty agreed with that sentiment.

“It’s kind of the case (of), ‘if you don’t bail and I don’t row, the both of us are going to sink in the boat,” he said. “So everybody has to work together and that relationship has been spectacular with the CFATC.”

From research to logistics

Today, the PCSP functions as a logistics provider. Originally founded in 1958, it was a base of operations for scientific research in the Canadian Arctic.

Now it provides support to more than 140 camps from the Resolute base, and has operated in more than 2,000 locations in the Canadian Arctic, touching every island there is.

It plans 18 months in advance by accepting submissions from researchers, public and government departments needing logistics support to work in their back yard. It provides flights, guides, accommodations and supplies to suit needs, and finds synergies between different operations to reduce costs.

The CFATC is managed by the Army, supports northern training to Army, Navy and Air Force members, and stages the CAF Arctic operations.

Change Needed in Canadian Defence Policy - Should we be looking at Australia?

Published in today's National Post, Matthew Fisher has written an interesting article explaining how Australia decides its matters of national security and overall defence policy. The intent of his article is to perhaps convince Canadians that we would be better off if Canada changed how it dealt with national security issues, military spending, and procurement; and took a lead from the non-partisan way Australia has been working for years.

Fisher's main arguement is that Australia has adapted a non-partisan forum for deciding issues of national security and its overall defence policy because it is geographically isolated from its allies, and therefore must make swift defence decisions. Australia cannot afford to take decades to decide on procurement; like Canada has been doing now on its FWSAR, CF-18 replacement, and the replacement fleet for the Royal Canadian Navy.

You can read his article below and decide for yourself.

Published by Matthew Fisher, National Post, Thursday February 18, 2016 Edition 

Australians figured out decades ago that national defence was too important to be left to the whims of competing political parties and their leaders.

While Canada has long dithered about what fighter jets to buy, Australia has acquired F-35s and F-18 Super Hornets with little political fuss or public outcry, Matthew Fisher writes, due to an all-party consensus that a common and consistent vision on national security is top priority.

What has evolved Down Under is an all-party consensus that robustly defending Australia is a top-level national interest. Decisions on strategic policy, defence budgets and procurement policies reflect that. A common vision on security supersedes everything.

There is a strong public expectation political parties and their leaders will set aside their differences and work together.

No matter which party is in power in Canberra, major defence policies have remained the same. There was been little parliamentary squabbling or controversy over such issues as the deployment of Royal Australian Air Force F-18 Hornets and Super Hornets to bomb the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, while training more Iraqi security forces than Canada has done or is proposing to do.

Nor do opposition parties seek election in Australia by campaigning to undo many of the outgoing government’s defence policies. Continuity in security strategy and philosophy are considered far too important. Even the media and defence analysts tend to be agreed on this. So debates on national defence often end up being about different shades of grey.

Australia provides the best straight-up comparison with Canada because both are large, thinly populated countries and share the Westminster political system and traditions. But while Canada has dithered for years about what fighter jets and warships to buy next, with little political fuss or public outcry Australia has acquired F-35s and F-18 Super Hornets. Its navy has commissioned a huge new assault ship, with another on the way, and is committed to spending more than $15 billion on a fleet of submarines to be built in Japan, Germany or France.

Such purchases often become political footballs in Canada because some politicians demand the money be spent in their jurisdictions. Australia can avoid such expensive partisan nonsense because the public has little patience for politicians trying to gain advantage from important decisions about the country’s security.

The usual explanation for Australia’s striking unity on security issues is that it is far from friends in a distant corner of the world while Canada expects the U.S. to pay most of its defence bills.

This is at least partly true, but consensus on national security has also been obvious for decades in Britain and France, and even in small Nordic countries with liberal traditions such as Norway, Sweden and Finland. In the U.S., there is still fairly broad political backing whenever a president commits troops overseas.

Canada has not had a broad public or political consensus on major military matters for some years. The most notable exception to this drift, which set in after the Korean War, was the Independent Panel on Canada’s Future Role in Afghanistan. John Manley’s report, whose recommendations were accepted by Parliament in 2008, called for combat troops in Kandahar to be provided with helicopter and unmanned aerial vehicle support, and combat help from a U.S. army infantry battalion.

Lt.-Gen. Michel Gauthier, who was responsible for the prosecution of Canada’s combat mission in southern Afghanistan during its most difficult years, points out it was not only incoming Liberal governments that tried to reverse the security policies of those they were replacing. For the first time in more than half a century the Paul Martin government decided to send ground troops to fight overseas in 2005. Within a few months, it was out of power.

“Canadians had instead elected the Harper government and its main military plank was to do more in the Arctic, not Afghanistan” he said. “The Conservatives had to immediately adjust to NATO and working in coalitions.”

Stephen Harper was no fan of peacekeeping or the United Nations. Justin Trudeau champions peacekeeping and internationalism. So does the New Democratic Party, which has a strong pacifist bent and would like the military to be defanged.

Without taking a position on these opposing views, Gauthier said, “You can’t turn around national security policy on a dime. Procurement takes 20 years and development of military capacities takes 15 to 20 years. There has to be some kind of consistency in a country’s national security vision. Defence and foreign policy derive from agreed interests and values.”

Armed forces in a democracy must abide by the decisions made by those whom the public elects. There is no question about that.

But it would be mighty helpful if Canada’s political parties understood, as Australians do, why there is a compelling need for continuity in defence policy and could forge a consensus about what the country’s strategic interests and values are. There is no chance that will happen as long as they do not regard national defence as a priority.