With Mali Mission, Canadian Troops are entering a Madhouse

By: ROSIE DIMANNO, The Toronto Star 

Canadian troops deployed in UN peacekeeping missions, as of Feb. 28, 2018: 0.

Canadian police deployed in UN peacekeeping missions as of Feb. 28, 2018: 19.

Helicopters piloted by German soldiers take off from Gao airport in Mali last year. When the Canadians are deployed later this year, they will be replacing the Belgians, who are currently in the process of replacing the Germans. (SOULEMAIN AG ANARA / AFP/GETTY IMAGES FILE PHOTO)

Canadian staff officers deployed in UN peacekeeping missions as of Feb. 28, 2018: 12.

In all, 22 actual soldiers — excluding some staff positions — are participating in four of the 16 international peacekeeping operations around the world sanctioned by the UN Security Council, according to National Defence figures. Lowest number ever.

Out of 90,000 — 77,456 troops — deployed under the UN flag by 123 nations.

Which is surely an indictment for a country that likes to think it invented the whole blue helmet thing and still rhapsodizes/romanticizes over the concept.

Operationally, we are frauds.

Just as a by-comparison, for instance: Bangladesh has 6,342 troops in UN peacekeeping missions. Ethiopia has 8,121. Nepal has 4,672. (As per most recent UN statistics).

Of course Canada played a key role — sacrificing blood and treasure — in NATO-led operations in Afghanistan. Canadian CF-18s conducted airstrikes in the military intervention that brought down the Gaddafi regime in Libya in 2011, with a Canadian general in top command of that NATO undertaking. It was a spectacular success — until NATO wiped its hands of Libya, leaving a frail democratic movement to be overwhelmed by all the warring militias and terrorist groups on the ground. In a sideways development, tons of weapons from what is now a failed state were dispersed across Africa, fuelling conflicts in Syria, Somalia and Mali.

Some of those arms, now in the hands of Malian insurrectionists, could very well eventually be trained on the Canadian helicopter contingent — two Chinook choppers to provide medical evacuations and logistical support (unclarified in the details) and four smaller, lightly armoured Griffons to act as armed escorts for larger transports — that Ottawa this week announced will be sent to Mali by the end of the summer. For one year.

Fulfilling Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s long, lazy, laggard commitment to step up Canada’s peacekeeping pledges to the UN.

While Mali is the worst of hellholes for UN peacekeeping missions — 162 peacekeeping fatalities since the mission began in 2013 — only four resulted from helicopter incidents and all of those were the result of mechanical failures, as Chief of Defence Staff Gen. Jonathan Vance told Global News in an interview a few days ago. Though I still don’t much like the idea of lightly armoured aircraft for the purpose in a war zone.

If nothing else — and a deployment of some 250 Canadians for the Mali endeavour, which is pitifully meagre — the commitment makes good on a Trudeau electoral vow after three years of dithering and dawdling and, even before that, as Opposition leader, disrespecting Canadian pilots (advocating humanitarian aid to Iraq rather than joining the military coalition against Daesh, “trying to whip out our CF-18s to show how big they are.”)

Ugh.

And nowhere near the later promise to deliver 600 troops and 150 police officers to UN operations.

Still and all, Mali wins the lottery. Canadian troops will, in about six months, replace the Belgians, who are currently in the process of replacing the Germans.

Also, this being Trudeau, the deployment comes wrapped in gender parity tinsel, because that is Trudeau’s obsession.

So off to war-ravaged Mali we shall go, where a peace agreement signed in 2015 hasn’t been worth the paper it was written on.

Listen, I’m all for peacekeeping, when there’s any peace to keep. I’m much more for peacemaking and boots on the ground when absolutely necessary. I know Canadian Forces personnel are well-trained and eager to deploy somewhere — and that they don’t require being swathed in no-risk gauze. That’s what Ottawa would deeply prefer, of course — noncombat no risk and no blowback should a Canadian be killed.

(A bit rich, however, for the Conservatives to be leading that war-leery charge now, a change-lobsters-and-dance position from the Afghanistan years.)

Not to Syria, then. Because, oh no, Ottawa doesn’t want any part of that endless atrocity. Not for a combat capacity contribution to Northern Iraq, where a U.S.-led coalition of the more-willing has seized back most of the territory which had fallen under the control of Islamic State (also known as ISIS and Daesh). And not to Burma, where a genocide against the Muslim-minority Rohingya continues to unfold before our uncaring eyes.

There are compelling reasons to intervene — to contribute to a military intervention — in combustible flashpoints across our war-exhausted planet:

Urgency. Except civilians dying by the tens of thousands in Syria is apparently not catastrophic enough for Canada, and in any event Russia’s veto at the Security Council would block a sturdy response under the UN aegis. President Barack Obama’s “line in the sand” — gas attacks — was just a rhetorical figment.

Reasonable expectation of making a difference. As Canadian troops clearly did in Afghanistan, until they were withdrawn and the Taliban tide erased just about every security and governance footprint.

Keeping the fighting sides apart by putting some armed muscle into ceasefire agreements. Not happening in Mali.

Places where Canada could make a difference, could be on the side of the angels. Because the Canadian public apparently insists on this — on clear-cut virtue.

Maybe that will be Mali as Canada returns to Africa, a continent where this country’s peacekeeping bona fides went to just about die: the 1993 shooting of an unarmed Somali drawn into an ambush to prevent looting and, two weeks later, beating to death a Somali teenager who snuck into their compound. Followed by denials and coverup conspiracies and, finally — there really was no choice, it was rotten to the core — disbandment of the Canadian Airborne Regiment.

There is always the potential for unforeseen consequences, in a strange land, and Mali is among the strangest of lands of all, torn apart by civil war between north and south, overrun with child soldiers and Islamic terrorism, reeling from severe food shortages.

Great big HOWEVER: Mali is a madhouse. And the United Nations MINUSMA (Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali) has mismanaged the operation from the get-go, originally sending 10,000 soldiers in response to a terrorist takeover by independence fighters from the north, turned back from reaching the captial only by the earlier intervention of rapid response French troops in their former colony.

The UN troops were unprepared to engage in counterterrorism, which fundamentally the mission has become. In fact, they were explicitly ordered not to engage, until the rules of engagement were changed.

Writing in the New York Times two years ago, outgoing UN assistant secretary general Anthony Banbury called the Mali mission a blunder, with 80 per cent of the deployment’s resources going to logistics and self-protection. “The UN in Mali is day by day marching into its first quagmire.”

We’ll lock-step with them.

Rosie DiManno is a columnist based in Toronto covering sports and current affairs. Follow her on Twitter: @rdimanno

GoC Still Considering Spare Helicopters for Mali Mission

By: Lee Berthiuame, The Canadian Press

OTTAWA — The Trudeau government is keeping the door open to sending more helicopters to Mali to ensure the Canadian Forces can provide round-the-clock medical evacuations in what is expected to be a harsh operating environment.

Canada is preparing to send two Chinook transport helicopters and four armed Griffon escorts to the African nation this summer as part of a commitment to support the UN mission there.

Those helicopters and about 250 military personnel are scheduled to leave in July and begin work on Aug. 1, Col. Chris McKenna, the commander of the helicopter detachment, told The Canadian Press on Wednesday.

While the detachment will likely be called upon at times to move troops and equipment across the arid landscape as required by UN officials, their primary mission will be evacuating injured peacekeepers and others.

That will entail having one Chinook and two Griffons on "perpetual standby, 24/7," McKenna said, "so our crews are essentially sleeping almost beside the aircraft ready to launch.

"We are focused on getting to an incident site as quick as we can to be able to provide lifesaving interventions for both soldiers and anyone else that the UN would choose to medevac."

Such medical services are especially important given the nature of the UN mission in Mali, which has seen dozens of peacekeepers killed or injured in ambushes and roadside bomb attacks by local militants.

While that high tempo alone could be expected to put a heavy burden on the detachment, the extreme heat and dust at the UN mission in Gao, where the Canadians will be based, isn't expected to make life any easier.

Both the Germans and the Dutch have lost helicopters in the area over the last couple of years in crashes blamed on technical problems caused by the environment. The accidents killed four peacekeepers.

McKenna, whose detachment recently wrapped up several days of training at Canadian Forces Base Wainwright in Alberta, described the environment as "the biggest enemy."

"We're talking about operating state-of-the-art helicopters in the sub-Saharan Sahel region where the temperatures can reach 50-plus degrees and you see an enormous amount of dust," he said.

"And as you know from our experience in Afghanistan, that can be quite tricky from a helicopter point of view."

There are ways to manage those challenges, McKenna said, including making sure crews are familiar with the environment and setting up a stringent and efficient maintenance regime.

But the question of whether to send spare helicopters to Mali, either now or at some other point during the 12-month mission, is also on the horizon.

"I've been given leeway (to ask) for spares if we so think that that is required," he said. "And it is still being determined by government whether or not we'll be able to bring spares."

The Canadian helicopters and military personnel will replace counterparts from Belgium and Germany, the latter of which has been operating both transport and attack helicopters in Mali for several years.

Canada's arrival in Mali comes only months after the UN Security Council authorized the peacekeeping mission there to provide medical evacuations and transport services to a multinational counterterror mission in the country.

When asked whether that means his force could be called upon to support the so-called Group of Five Sahel force, McKenna would only say that his role will be to support the peacekeeping mission's mandate.

"We are having essentially no caveats going in," he added, "so we work for that force commander and we execute what he asks us to do as long as it's within our capabilities and our risk."

— Follow @leeberthiaume on Twitter.

DND Planning $1 Billion Additional HQ Building Near Nortel Site

By: David Pugliese, The National Post 

The Department of National Defence is planning a new $1.1 billion building in Ottawa’s west end, even while employees are settling into its $800-million headquarters complex at the former Nortel campus.

The department has set its sights on what it calls a new operational headquarters, which it expects to host 4,500 civilian and military personnel. That facility will be in addition to the headquarters at what was once the technology company’s campus on Carling Ave. which will house almost 9,000 employees. DND also intends to keep its massive complex at 101 Colonel By Drive in downtown Ottawa.

The new operational headquarters, to be constructed in the mid-to-late 2020s, will be located close to the Nortel site and will be home to various commands including the Canadian Special Operations Forces Command and the Canadian Joint Operations Command, DND spokesman Daniel Le Bouthillier confirmed.

The office of the vice-chief of the defence staff will also be located in the new building. “In order to centralize these efforts, the Department of National Defence requires a modern facility that enables secure joint operational command, control, communications, coordination and capabilities for operational planning and control of Canadian Armed Forces operations domestically, continentally and globally,” said Le Bouthillier.

The plan will see employees moving into the new operational headquarters starting around 2029, after which DND would vacate its facility at Star Top Rd. in Ottawa’s east end. It is not clear whether another department would move into that building, which is owned by a private company and leased by the federal government.

The government announced last week it wants to hire an architectural and engineering firm to design the new 75,000-square-metre facility — an advance notice so interested parties could apply for the security clearances necessary to bid on the contract.

In making a case to spend the original $800 million on the Nortel complex, senior DND officials claimed there would be substantial savings from consolidating employees in the one location, arguing that the 42 DND and Canadian Forces office locations in Ottawa and Gatineau would be reduced to seven or fewer, leading to savings of $750 million in office rent alone over the subsequent 25 years. No mention was ever made of the need for an additional purpose-built facility.

Former Nortel campus off of Carling Ave in Ottawa, Ontario on Monday Sept. 26, 2016. Tony Caldwell / PostmediaFormer Nortel campus off of Carling Ave in Ottawa, Ontario on Monday Sept. 26, 2016. Tony Caldwell / Postmedia

But Le Bouthillier said the Liberal government’s new defence policy outlined the need to have a single operational hub to enable the key military commands to produce accurate and timely advice, improving command and control for military decision makers, increasing information sharing and boosting the protection for key military personnel in case of a natural disaster or other security incidents. The specific location of the new headquarters will be determined during the options analysis phase of the project, but it will be in close proximity to the Carling site, he said.

Between the Nortel campus and the new headquarters, more than 13,000 of the 20,500 DND employees and Canadian Forces personnel working in locations throughout Ottawa and Gatineau will eventually be concentrated in Ottawa’s west end. To date, only 3,600 of the planned 9,000 staff have moved into the former Nortel complex, the relocation process running about two years behind schedule.

Some DND employees and Canadian Forces personnel have voiced concern over the move to the Carling Ave. site, pointing out that many live in Orléans and the commute will be long. A June 2011 briefing note prepared for then-deputy minister Robert Fonberg described the Carling site as a “relatively remote location.”

Some DND civilian employees have opted to take jobs with other federal departments rather than work in the west end of Ottawa, but the government was unable to provide details about exactly how many have done so.

BAE Type-26 GCS to be operational in 2027; Still considered a top contender for CSC Fleet

By: David Pugliese, National Post 

One of the top contenders in Canada’s new frigate program – a ship now being built for the United Kingdom – won’t be operational for the Royal Navy until 2027.

BAE’s Type 26 frigate has been ordered by the United Kingdom and the cutting of steel started last year.

But the United Kingdom’s defence procurement minister Guto Bebb has told parliamentarians that the first of those frigates won’t be delivered until 2025. Because of testing it won’t become operational until 2027, the minister added.

Artists Rendition of the BAE Type-26 Global Combat Frigate. 

The Type 26 design has been submitted to Canada for its Canadian Surface Combatant program and is one of three contenders. Construction on the Canadian frigate program to start in the early 2020s.

That raises the possibility, say industry insiders, that Canada could be the first nation to acquire the Type 26 and put it to sea.

Being the first to deploy a new class of warships, however, comes with associated issues of working through the initial problems of new vessels.

That, however, is what the Canadian government had hoped to avoid with its CSC program. It originally stated that only mature ships or proven designs would be considered.

But the Liberal government inexplicably retreated on that stipulation and allowed the Type 26 design to be entered even though the vessel had not been built yet.

That, in turn, sparked a belief in some quarters of industry that the fix is in for BAE’s Type 26. The federal government has denied that.

Lockheed Martin Canada is leading the consortium that has proposed the Type 26. A company spokesperson said the progress of the British program will not have an impact on CSC.

“Our CSC bid meets or exceeds all requirements and this does not impact our bid in any manner,” the spokesperson noted in an email to Defence Watch. “Our CSC bid does not rely upon the T26 becoming operational before 2027.”

Some industry officials have also suggested that the 2027 date won’t be an issue because they expect the CSC to fall significantly schedule. By the time CSC gets really underway, the Type 26 will be ready.

The Canadian Surface Combatant program will cost between $55 billion and $60 billion. Fifteen ships will be eventually built. Three consortiums have bid on the program.

A contract for the CSC is expected to be awarded by the end of this year, said Pat Finn, assistant deputy minister for materiel at the Department of National Defence.

About half of the cost of the surface combatant price-tag is for systems and equipment that will go on the 15 ships, according to federal documents obtained by Postmedia through the Access the Information law. “Approximately one-half of the CSC build cost is comprised of labour in the (Irving’s) Halifax yard and materials,” the documents added.

Last year, Jean-Denis Fréchette, the Parliamentary Budget Officer, estimated the CSC program

would cost $61.82 billion. He also warned that every year the awarding of the contract is delayed beyond 2018, taxpayers will spend an extra $3 billion because of inflation.

RCN iAOR M/V Asterix Refuels Two US Navy Vessels

By: David Pugliese, Defence Watch

MV Asterix, accompanying Royal Canadian Navy ships, replenished two US Navy vessels at the same time in the North Atlantic this week. The USN ships are USS Bainbridge and USS Mitscher. Davie, the shipyard that converted the Asterix into a resupply vessel, released photos of the event. See photo below:



The refueling operation comes the same week Vice Admiral Mark Norman’s case is back in court. Norman is charged by the RCMP with one count of breach of trust. The police force alleges Norman released information that the Trudeau government wanted to derail the Asterix project. That information eventually found its way into the news media, forcing the Liberal government to back away from its plan.

Norman says he did nothing wrong and he looks forward to proving his innocence.