Afghanistan : "All options are back on the table"

WikiLeaks via CBC :

From : US Ambassador Jacobson, Ottawa Embassy, 3/17/2009
To : SECSTATE WASHDC
SUBJECT: CANADA: RE-CONSIDERING ALL OPTIONS FOR ITS FUTURE MILITARY ROLE IN KANDAHAR?

"Summary: The minority government of Prime Minister Harper may not have actually ruled out extending Canada's 2,800-member military contingent, including combat forces, in Kandahar beyond 2011.

At a March Cabinet 10 meeting, ministers of Prime Minister Stephen Harper's minority government apparently agreed that "all options are back on the table" with respect to Canada's military role in Afghanistan after 2011, according to Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (DFAIT) XXXXXXXX Senior Advisor XXXXXXXXXXXX (strictly protect). It will take time for the government's public rhetoric to catch up to this "new reality," however, requiring some "patience" on the part of allies, XXXXX commented privately to polmiloff on March 16. He urged that, for now, allies should not publicly press Canada to extend its troop deployment in Kandahar beyond 2011.

Comment: After being explicit publicly and privately that the CF combat mission in Afghanistan would definitely end in 2011 according to the terms of the March 2008 motion, PM Harper and his Cabinet would be venturing into politically sensitive territory to try to re-sell a further extension to an increasingly dubious Canadian public."

Senior Advisor XXXXX suggests "that Canada might withdraw the CF battle group in 2011" for a one year "operational pause":

"If Canada begins to withdraw its troops starting in July 2011, as currently mandated by a March 2008 House of Commons bipartisan motion, the U.S. and other ISAF partners will need at least six months to send replacements into RC-S (January-June 2011) in advance of a subsequent six month long withdrawal or draw-down of CF (July-December 2011), he explained. Canadian and U.S. military and civilian planners will need to have a plan in place by January 1, 2011, he reasoned, in order to ensure that the necessary personnel and infrastructure are in Kandahar throughout that year."

The cable ends, as so many of these US embassy cables do, with an invitation to :

"Visit Canada's North American partnership community at http://www.intelink.gov/communities/state/nap /"

but you can't visit it because it's restricted.


WikiLeaks has also provided cables confirming Jean Chretien and General Walt Natynczyk's covert complicity in the invasion of Iraq in 2003.
Then Foreign Affairs official James Wright, now Canada's high commissioner in London :

"emphasized" that contrary to public statements by the prime minister, Canadian naval and air forces could be "discreetly" put to use during the pending U.S.-led assault on Iraq and its aftermath

which we already knew about several years ago.
.