Canadian troops on defence or offence in Iraq?
A National Defence Committee meeting on Tuesday that was supposed to provide a briefing on current military operations was instead dominated by questions about Canadian troops in Iraq.
Chief of Defence Staff Gen. Jonathan Vance faced scrutiny from committee members about Operation IMPACT, which the Canadian Armed Forces has been participating in since Oct. 2014, with the goal of defeating the group known as Daesh, or the Islamic State. The operation, which currently involves 650 Canadian troops, is set to continue until Mar. 31, 2017.
While the forces are supposed to be training, advising and assisting Iraqi security forces, Liberal MP Mark Gerretsen wanted to know the difference between “train, advise and assist” and “train, advise, assist and accompany.” According to Vance, these two phrases are very different —the first term is an advisory role, which is what Canadian forces are actually doing.
“The first mission, train advise and assist, is the mission that we are on,” said Vance. “The ‘accompany’ is used to describe that you are actually with them, in the fight, on the front lines.”
To further illustrate his point, Vance pointed out that when Canadian troops were in Afghanistan, they were actually fighting with Afghan soldiers. He said that in Operation IMPACT, troops support Iraqi forces in a medical capacity, help commanders maintain control, and train soldiers. They also, however have rules in place that allow for defence and fire in the event of an attack or approach that may overwhelm Iraqi troops, he said.
“It is absolutely a part of the fact that we are there with them. We have the responsibility to protect ourselves and as we have explained repeatedly, have the responsibility to the defence of others if they are overwhelmed,” said Vance.
According to Vance, Canadian forces have the weaponry that allows Canadian troops to stay off the front line but still eliminate threats, such as heavily armoured vehicles that may threaten Iraqi Peshmerga forces.
Conservative Committee Member Pierre Paul-Hus, MP for Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, was not convinced. He continued to ask Vance whether or not Canadian Forces are engaging in offensive attacks but the general held his position.
“If you are suggesting that our forces have been maneuvering so as to provide offensive fire, thereby taking the fight to the enemy, then you are wrong,” Vance responded. “We have responded only to provocation by Daesh where the intensity of their force could not be stopped by any means and I need to be as unequivocal on that as possible.”
After the meeting, both Vance and Paul-Hus continued to speak on these points with Vance maintaining that Canadian troops are merely assisting Iraqi forces and Paul-Hus saying he believes that the whole truth is still not being told.