I have heard on the
rumour net that:
• Chrétien’s initial reaction to 9/11 was “they (the Americans) are reaping what they sowed in the Middle East. It’s too bad, the loss of life is tragic, but it was inevitable and they had this coming;”
• Most (but by no means all) of his cabinet, let by John Manley, then ‘Minister of Almost Everything,’
demanded that Canada
do something – Chrétien agreed that Canada would vote “Yes’ at NATO on invoking
Article 5;
• After the HUGE demonstration on Parliament Hill at the
9/11 memorial service – the largest in Canadian history - Chrétien did a 180° and decided to offer a battle group for service in Afghanistan;
• For good and valid administrative and logistical reasons
and because he understood, intuitively, tCanadian public opinion would turn back towards knee-jerk anti-Americanism, Chrétien limited our contribution to one battle group for one, and only one six month tour of duty;
• The Americans were happy: good ol’ reliable Canada stepped up, early, and put a shoulder to he wheel and so on – all was done that could be asked by the White House and
Foggy Bottom;
• The ‘friendly fire’ deaths of Sgt Leger, Cpls Dyer and Green and Pte Smith of 3PPCLI proved that Chrétien well understood his fellow citizens. The country was convulsed by paroxysms of anti-American rage. The government did nothing to discourage this – in fact it encouraged an entirely disproportionately publicized ‘memorial’ service;*
• The real problems began with the invasion of Iraq. Officials in DFAIT and DND told Chrétien, Manley and
Himelfarb hat the White House and the Pentagon wanted a solid Canadian military contribution. Chrétien was opposed – he knew that Canadians deeply disliked George W Bush (hated would not be too strong a word) and he understood that it would be political suicide to join Bush in any aggressive war in the Middle East. We later learned that
Washington probably neither sought nor even really wanted Canadian troops. What was wanted was Canadian moral support, preferably active
approval in the UN but, at least, quiet acquiescence. Had Bill Clinton been invading Iraq it is highly likely that he would have personally phoned his friend Jean Chrétien, explained what he wanted, at minimum, and would have been happy to get Chrétien’s quick, easy agreement. But Clinton wasn’t the president and so communications remained broken and Chrétien – who may well have believed his DFAIT and DND officials – looked around for a way to say no without provoking Washington’s wrath;
• Afghanistan, the bureaucrats opined, offered a neat, tidy way out. We could join the European led ISAF – Canadians always prefer Europeans to Americans. We could send enough troops so that we could say, honestly, that we were ‘all tapped out’ – the Pentagon would confirm that was true. John McCallum, then Minister of National Defence, was sent, cap in hand, to Brussels to seek a major, leadership role for Canada in ISAF – he needed to ‘beg’ because we did not have the minimum resources (which included a general hospital and a capacity to operate a major airfield) that the Europeans had decided, amongst themselves, would be the duties of the ‘leading’ country;
• The Europeans – even the Brits – were sympathetic and a deal was done. In Aug 03 Canadian troops began deploying to Kabul; and
• In 2005 another Liberal government, this time Paul Martin’s,
decided to move the Canadian contribution to Kandahar – they (Martin and his ministers and the Clerk) were neither hoodwinked nor coerced, they
decided. We all know the rest.
That’s the story,
as I have heard it.
I believe it is, substantially, true and accurate, but I wasn’t in the room and few who were have ever gone ‘on the record’ about who said what to whom. The few exceptions, Eugene Lang for example, have their own personal and political agendas.
------------------
*
Please note: I’m saying that the service was
disproportionately publicized,
NOT that it, the service, proper, was in any way disproportionate in and of itself
Edit: formatting
