January 23, 2006
Afstan: How will our troops cope and how much will the Brits (much less the Dutch) help us fight?
Our troops at Kandahar will face heavy equipment and other challenges.
Ottawa's new military mission on the far side of the world is to test Canada's meagre military resources and its resolve like nothing in recent memory...
Defence Minister Bill Graham and his top general, Rick Hillier, have done an admirable job of warning Canadians of the perils ahead. But this does not excuse the Martin government for significantly raising the ante in Afghanistan by switching to offensive operations without any public or parliamentary debate.
It must be noted, too, that the three opposition parties have not made a big issue out of what is a radical change in Canadian policy. And what noises were made about this came far too late in the deployment process to have made any difference.
It is hugely ironic that Prime Minister Paul Martin cast himself as some kind of Captain Canada committed to saving his countrymen from the Bush White House in order to get votes. It was Martin who quietly signed his soldiers up for this new adventure early last year in order to keep the peace with Washington.
Op Archer, as Canada calls its part in the U.S.-led Operation Enduring Freedom, will expose Canadians troops to daunting challenges after years of not always benign neglect.
One of the tests will be how Canada's rickety fleet of Hercules transport aircraft maintains the lifeline between an air base in the Persian Gulf and Kandahar. Most of the planes are older than the pilots who fly them. A staggering amount of man-hours and money is spent keeping these hangar queens airworthy. Nevertheless, on some days none of them are capable of flying.
Another concern is what kind of long-term close air support will the Canadians actually get from their American, British and Dutch allies. Such help is necessary because the air force has deemed that the weaponry and avionics on its dwindling fleet of 20-year-old CF-18 Hornets are not up to the job.
An even bigger headache is helicopters. Because of Afghanistan's wild topography and its feeble infrastructure, there is a huge call for assault and transport helicopters. Canada is totally dependent on foreign help because it does not have a single helicopter that it can send to Afghanistan in any capacity.
However, the greatest shortcoming may be manpower. Canada has committed to a series of three six-month rotations that will tap virtually everyone back home who is currently trained in combat arms...
BRITAIN'S planned troop deployment to Afghanistan is in chaos due to internal wrangling within NATO and what is perceived as the government's reluctance to commit itself to another risky military adventure.
Although Britain is due to take over command in the south of Afghanistan in May, military commanders are still waiting for news of how many troops will be sent and what they will be doing when they arrive.
The situation has been complicated by requests from the United States for British forces to be involved in operations against al-Qaeda remnants along the Pakistan border, and by uncertainty over the participation of Dutch troops in the deployment...
But US commanders have asked their British counterparts to divert about 2,000 troops from peacekeeping duties to fight al-Qaeda soldiers along the Pakistan border. Pressure from Washington has been building since before Christmas.
"The Americans want us to go hunting gooks (al-Qaeda) [AKA "scumbags] with them," a British officer involved in planning the NATO mission told The Scotsman. "We have a more sophisticated view of the situation on the ground and it is our view that countering the booming drug trade is at the heart of turning around the deteriorating security situation in southern Afghanistan." ..
...a large contingent of Special Air Service (SAS) troops and the 1st Battalion, the Parachute Regiment, are to be deployed in southern Afghanistan as a rapid reaction force [presumably to be under the Canadian brigade HQ at Kandahar]. The Americans want this force to fight alongside their troops on the border, while the British want to hold it back to operate in their zone.
The differences over strategy between London and Washington are the latest problem to beset the proposed expansion of NATO's peacekeeping mission into southern Afghanistan.
A Dutch fact-finding trip is in southern Afghanistan this week, to report back to the country's parliament ahead of a vote on deploying more than 1,000 troops to the country. Reports that Afghan officials advised the Dutch to "bring plenty of body bags" did nothing to re-assure them about the prospects for the mission.
British officers say a negative vote by the Dutch would force a major rethink of NATO plans because they were due to take over control of the violent Uruzgan province. Options under consideration including sending an additional British battalion to take their place, finding another NATO nation to fill the gap or asking the US for troops...
Natually, no mention of the Canadian combat role or our brigade HQ.
One wonders whether the new, one trusts Conservative, goverment will bring the public up to speed--as the Liberal government has not--on the problems plaguing the planned NATO involvement in southern Afstan. Remember our troops at Kandahar as of February will be under the command of US Operation Enduring Freedom. They are supposed to then transfer to NATO ISAF command (with UK command from Kabul of the whole ISAF force in Afstan) in late spring/summer. But will that transfer ever take place if our troops continue in combat, a mission that makes other ISAF members increasingly nervous?
Posted by markc at January 23, 2006 01:08 PM | TrackBack