Although it may be a bit off topic of this thread, the following quotes are from an article by Rory Leishman that appeared in this mornings London Free Press. The article itself deals with whether the war in Iraq is worth it or not, but the quotes that appear at the end of the article deal with the current state of the Canadian Forces.
Quote:
"U.S. Army chief of staff, has estimated 'something on the order of several hundred thousand soldiers' will be required to keep the peace in liberated Iraq. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld reportedly thinks closer to 100,000 troops will surfice.
What can Canada contribute to this huge, vital and humanitarian, peacekeeping operation? Pracitically nothing. Over the last 30 years, successive Liberal and Progressive Conservative governments have reduced the once powerful Canadian Armed Forces to such a pitiful state that the Canadian army will be hard-pressed just to meet the recent commitment by the Chretien government to assign up to 2,000 troops to peacekeeping for a year in Afghanistan.
Defence Minister John McCallum has admitted 'Having made a substantial commitment to Afghanistan, we will not be in a position to send substantial ground troops for a year or more to any other country'. That's the hard truth.
Militarily, Canada is a virtual non-entity. The Canadian army is now so weak that it could contribute little either to liberation or peacekeeping in Iraq. What a shame."
End of Quote .
I've heard of this 'keeping ground troops in Canada for the next year or so', since shortly after it was annouced that the 3 PPCLI Battle Group was coming home and not being replaced by another Canadian Battalion Battle Group. My question is, what do they expect to do or accomplish in this 'year or so' time frame? How in 365 or 730 days, do they expect to fix the problem of the current state of the Forces (army in particular), after the neglect of the past 30 years? Given that a Battalion Battle Group has just deployed on rotation to Bosnia and given that the 'up to 2,000 troops' for Afghanistan (this summer) will probably be based on a Battalion Battle Group, what's left here in Canada to fix? With one Battle Group deployed to Bosnia and one to Afghanistan, that leaves here: 1x Brigade Group (with all it's assets?), plus 2x Brigade Groups (minus one of their Battle Groups (+), each). Does the Minister maybe really believe in 'Santa'?...........
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End of rant.................................
Forgot to add this little tidbit, which really is the 'Bottom of the Barrel', recently, to send an Infantry Security Platoon (35(+) personnel) to the Gulf region to protect Canadian Forces assets there, (3x Hercs and...?) the men for the Platoon had to be drawn from two Battalions, we can't even come up with a Platoon of men from the same Battalion now????,...............
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