http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Canada/2004/07/27/pf-559051.html

July 27, 2004

By STEPHEN THORNE

KABUL (CP) - Defence Minister Bill Graham is expected to sign an agreement next week committing Canadian army trainers to Afghanistan through 2008, the first long-term undertaking Ottawa has made to the war-ravaged country.

The long-awaited deal with the U.S. military and Afghan government will also allow Canadian advisers to accompany Afghan National Army troops to the war front - 16 Canadian soldiers are expected to deploy north by mid-August.

"Canada is looking at repackaging and redefining a whole new mandate custom-made for this work," said Col. Alain Tremblay, commander of the 2,000-member Canadian contingent in Afghanistan's capital city.

Training a national army and breaking the 1,400-year dominance of Afghanistan's warlord culture is probably the most critical element of the country's reconstruction, said Tremblay.

"No central government will be able to survive in such an environment without the proper institutions - the judicial, the military," he said.

"It took us six to eight months to . . . convince Ottawa of the strategic value and return investment of getting into that initiative."

Until now, Canada's role in the U.S.-led training program has been ad hoc, based solely on Ottawa's relatively short-term commitments to NATO's International Security Assistance Force.

However, the program, which aims to train the first 70,000 ANA troops, is independent from NATO and its Canadian Operation Athena. Called Operation Archer, it is only the second time Canada has been involved in large-scale training of a foreign military force - Sierra Leone was the other.

Just under 15,000 soldiers are so far enrolled with the Afghan National Army, which is slowly shoring up its numbers as the country's disarmament, demobilization and reintegration program retires regional militias.

The total training process, from recruitment through deployment, lasts two years. Tremblay said he expects Canada will stay with the training program regardless of its future role in ISAF, which now expires in August 2005.

"It's not a short-term commitment," said Tremblay. "It takes a long time to bring them to a proper and decent level of efficiency as a modern military force.

"You cannot think that you can be playing at this on a six-month to six-month basis. It cannot work that way."

Small groups of Canadian soldiers have been embedded with ANA and U.S. troops since last fall, training two kandaks, or battalions. But when it came time for their trainees to deploy, the Canadians had to stay behind.

Several Canadian-trained ANA units have been involved in heavy fighting in southern Afghanistan.

"The whole team was very frustrated by that," said Maj. Sylvain Rheaume, the officer who commanded the training group for the past six months.

"We have trained these soldiers to do a job and when it was time to do the real stuff, we were not allowed to be with them. We developed a really good relationship and trust and it was very, very difficult to let them go."

All the soldiers trained by Canadians have deployed either on their own or with U.S. advisers, many to war, said Rheaume, a Quebec City native. Asking the Americans to accompany Canadian trainees was humiliating, he said.

"There was a loss of credibility for us in the eyes of the Afghans and the Americans. It's difficult for the Afghans to understand why every time they went somewhere we could not go. The Americans always asked us: Why?"

It was also difficult for the Afghans to invest time and trust in Canadians only to be deployed with, advised by and sometimes ordered by American officers they did not know or even necessarily trust, Rheaume said.

Now, 16 Edmonton-based soldiers from the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry expect to deploy to a secret location with an Afghan support battalion for two to three months, said Tremblay.

The Afghans they are deployed with are to provide reconnaissance and security for October's presidential elections.

Commanded by Maj. Brian Hynes, who served a combat tour with 3PPCLI out of Kandahar two years ago, the Canadian trainers will be provided with slightly more robust rules of engagement than their NATO colleagues are allowed.

Hynes, originally from Comox, B.C., arrived in Kabul this week and has been going through the transition process with Rheaume.

Besides a woeful lack of equipment, the biggest shortcomings the Canadians had to address in the ANA were planning, organization and command structure, Rheaume said. Afghan officers had no concept of how to delegate authority.

"It was one of the best jobs I ever had in my career," said Rheaume, who has put in four overseas tours with Quebec's Royal 22nd Regiment, or Vandoos. "It was very, very challenging and rewarding.

"We go back home with the feeling that we have accomplished something and that we have done something to make this country better because they are the ones who are going to take care of the security and bring peace."

the Liberal government will never allow Canadian soldiers to fight. That's what's never gonna happen.

Someday, the Voices will stop. Then, we're all screwed.

told ya so:

http://www.herald.ns.ca/stories/2004/08/13/fCanada109.raw.html

Friday, August 13, 2004

The Halifax Herald Limited

Major embarrassment
Canadian soldiers frustrated at having to abandon Afghan trainees due to delay on Ottawa's part

By Stephen Thorne / The Canadian Press

KABUL - In what they see as a blow to their credibility in Afghanistan, Canadian soldiers have to abandon the Afghan army battalion they trained for more than seven months, just as it deploys, because of a delay in Ottawa.

Soldiers from Valcartier, Que., and, more recently, Edmonton have been nurturing bonds with the 4th Kandak, or battalion, of the Afghan National Army since last winter.

They were to accompany their trainees on their first two-month deployment but had to inform them on Thursday - the day they were supposed to leave on a reconnaissance mission - that American troops would be going instead.

"The past three or four days have probably been the most embarrassing I've ever had in my career," a veteran member of the Canadian embedded training team told The Canadian Press. "Our vehicle was packed and ready to go.

"Trust is now gone," said the soldier, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "The Americans are pissed off. The ANA guys were ecstatic that Canada was going with them; you could see it in their faces. Now they're crushed.

"There is serious disappointment. These guys work off of respect, honour, loyalty and we're turning around and saying 'We don't respect you, we're no longer loyal.' A black mark is an understatement."

Defence Minister Bill Graham was expected to sign an agreement last week committing Canadian army trainers to Afghanistan through 2008, the first long-term undertaking Ottawa has made to the war-ravaged country.

The deal would also permit the Canadians to leave the NATO operations area around Kabul on extended deployments with their trainees.

However, officials in the Prime Minister's Office and in the office of the deputy chief of defence staff have delayed the signing, forcing the 16-member training team to adopt a new battalion that will remain in Kabul through Afghanistan's Oct. 9 presidential election.

Ironically, Kabul is expected to be more dangerous than the region to which they were to have deployed, soldiers said.

After the reconnaissance mission, members of Edmonton's 3rd Battalion, Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry, were expecting to move with their trainees by Sunday. However, the battalion the Canadians have been training since last winter was turned over to a U.S. officer Thursday.

It is at least the fourth time since last September that Canadians have been forced to abandon their trainees before a deployment, frustrating the Americans, who are in charge of the program, and forcing them - in this case at least - to make last-minute plans.

The sergeant-major of the 4th Kandak, Asadullah Barkzai, was disappointed at the news, delivered by the new embedded training team commander, Maj. Brian Hynes of Comox, B.C., Thursday morning.

"It is very bad news for us," said Barkzai. "They trained us very well and we would like to stay with them. Unfortunately, the Canadian government won't allow them to stay with us.

"It hurt a lot. We were a team. We didn't think of them like Canadians and we are Afghan. We were one, working as a team. It is very hard for us that they are leaving."

"There are obviously requests for Canadians to assist in training all over," said the new Canadian contingent commander, Col. Jim Ellis. "The senior leadership of the military and the government are looking at that. They have all the paperwork right now.

"We should hear one way or the other later on. However, it doesn't mean our commitment to the forces here in town is going to change. It's a bit tough for our guys because they've taken their troops to this point."

Small groups of Canadian soldiers have been embedded with Afghan and U.S. troops since last fall, training two battalions. Several Canadian-trained ANA units have since been involved in heavy fighting south of Kabul.

"The whole team was very frustrated" by previous roadblocks to missions with the trainees, Maj. Sylvain Rheaume, the Quebec-based officer who commanded the training group for six months, said last week.

"We have trained these soldiers to do a job and when it was time to do the real stuff, we were not allowed to be with them. We developed a really good relationship and trust and it was very, very difficult to let them go."

The long-awaited deal with the U.S. military and Afghan government would "repackage and redefine a whole new mandate custom-made for this work," Col. Alain Tremblay, Ellis's predecessor, said July 27.

Tremblay said training a national army and breaking the 1,400-year dominance of Afghanistan's warlord culture is probably the most critical element of the country's reconstruction.

"No central government will be able to survive in such an environment without the proper institutions - the judicial, the military," he said.

"It took us six to eight months to . . . convince Ottawa of the strategic value and return investment of getting into that initiative."

Until now, Canada's role in the U.S.-led training program has been ad hoc, based solely on Ottawa's relatively short-term commitments to NATO's International Security Assistance Force in Kabul.

However, the program, which aims to train the first 70,000 ANA troops, is independent from NATO and its Canadian Operation Athena. Called Operation Archer, it is only the second time Canada has been involved in large-scale training of a foreign military force; Sierra Leone was the other.

"It's not a short-term commitment," Tremblay said. "It takes a long time to bring them to a proper and decent level of efficiency as a modern military force.

"You cannot think that you can be playing at this on a six-month to six-month basis. It cannot work that way."

Just under 15,000 soldiers are so far enrolled with the Afghan National Army, which is slowly shoring up its numbers as the country's disarmament, demobilization and reintegration program retires regional militias.