I was really surpised that there are those serving in Afghanistan that have rules of engagment, ROEs, that exclude them from fighting and keep the out of dangerours areas. I'm beginning to rethink this deployment, our soldiers are disposable but the Germans are happy and safe doing "Reconstruction" is safe areas. Not spot on.



More nations must `step up,' Hillier says
General says too many caveats imposed by some NATO members that limit how their troops can be used
Oct. 7, 2006. 07:20 AM
ROSIE DIMANNO


Bullet-shielded and combat-shy military deployment — pseudo-troops from NATO partners that won't fight, kept on a short, politically measured leash — could doom the international security mission in Afghanistan, where Canadians are paying such a high price in blood and treasure.

That comes, if not in those exact words but the frustration is palpable, from Canada's top soldier, Gen. Rick Hillier.

In an interview with the Star yesterday, Hillier said 2,000 more troops are needed now: Boots on the ground to hold the ground in volatile Kandahar province where the Taliban strike, if not at will, then certainly wilfully and with lethal cunning.

"The NATO force structure to do the job is not on the ground," Hillier stated bluntly, and just days removed from an eyes-on assessment of the situation in southern Afghanistan.

Promises, so easy to make in the prestige-polishing, shoulder-to-shoulder environment of summit conferences, have not translated into the kind of bold, integrated and shared effort that was envisioned originally and to which the NATO community (plus non-NATO partners) committed itself anew only 18 months ago.

At that time, some 37 nations signed on again to what is essentially a contract of intention — the Combined Joint Statement of Requirements — that included a further theatre reserve battle group of 2,000 troops.

"The core of that theatre reserve battle group would right now, if (NATO) had it, be deployed in southern Afghanistan, probably in Kandahar province," said Hillier. "With those forces, we could exploit the huge opportunity that we have in front of us a result of the significant tactical win in Operation Medusa."

Operation Medusa was the recent and vigorous combat mission, in which Canadians played such a vital role, to clear out Taliban forces that had massed in villages of the Panjwaii district west of Kandahar city, an area that has been repeatedly scrubbed by NATO troops. The Taliban had purportedly been planning a full-frontal assault on the provincial capital. Holding the city, if only for a few hours, would have been a sharp stick in NATO's eye and incalculable status success for the insurgents.

In conventional combat, the Taliban can't defeat NATO troops. Its leaders claim they dispersed to fight another day, and to continue fighting by other means, those most conducive to sapping public support in NATO countries — by suicide bomber and roadside bombing ambush.

But this is a day-to-day struggle, containing the Taliban if not eradicating them, and that containment would be immensely more achievable, says Hillier, with a more robust infantry contingent, minus the restraining "caveats" that many NATO countries have quietly inserted into their rules of engagement.
The upshot is that a large portion of the 18,000 NATO troops in-country — bolstered last week, if only organizationally, by 12,000 pre-existing American troops who have now come under NATO command — don't actually engage at all in the most perilous assignments. Yet they do get to boast that they're in Afghanistan, carrying their portion of the burden."In the south, the Dutch, the Brits, the Americans, us, the Romanians — who've got a significant force on the ground and who are doing very well — along with the Australians, are doing the heavy lifting," said Hillier.

"The rest of the countries in NATO need to step up and fill that (Combined Joint Statement of Requirements). They've got to do that.
"I'll take any of the other countries outside that group and say, you've got to step up.''

Commanders need to impose genuine command, making full tactical use of those entire NATO troop contributions, in order to meet the complexities of a mission that has tilted heavily toward combat in the last six months, stalling promised reconstruction of Afghanistan as a functioning state.

"We need the flexibility to use all the forces that are already there," said Hillier. "And not without all these national caveats that prescribe where they're going to be and how they can be used."

The chief of defence staff was also busy stomping out the brushfire of a huge public relations disaster that arose this week, as reported yesterday by the Star's Bruce Campion-Smith: Ugly optics of an existing Canadian military policy that takes away "danger pay" from soldiers wounded in the field, even if they are removed from the theatre of war for medical treatment at the primary military hospital in Germany or back home in Canada.

That, Hillier vowed, will be changed — in application if not bureaucratic protocol — although he didn't explain how or how quickly.

"I'm not going to let any of our soldiers down. That's my commitment to them as chief of staff."

Hillier admitted he had not known about the policy — "it wasn't even on my radar" — until he heard complaints from troops when he was in Afghanistan last week. "The soldiers brought it up to me and I said: `I got it. We'll look after that. We'll get it fixed and we'll get it right.'"

On Thursday, he ordered his staff — the "big-brained" crew at his office — to find a way to fix it.

"I said: `Here's the issue. Now come back and tell me what the solutions are and what the options are to make sure we look after those soldiers.' We'll get at it. We'll make sure those soldiers get their money.

"Our soldiers have to understand quite clearly that we're not going to have them pay another penalty after they've taken a wound for Canada, a body blow for Canada, in service of their country, in service to Canadians. Even if we (the military) were absolutely irresponsible, our country wouldn't permit that to occur."

In an earlier scrum with reporters at the Canadian Forces Staff College in Toronto, Hillier indicated the bizarre policy would be redressed within a matter of "days and weeks."

Continuing the combat pay allotment, which totals a not insignificant $2,111 a month for soldiers serving in Afghanistan, would apply, Hillier said, to soldiers who've suffered both combat and non-combat injuries. The resolution would also be retroactive to cover all the Canadians soldiers, about 200, who have been injured during their tours in Afghanistan.

"We could not start from this day and go forward, and look after some but not look after the rest. We're going to look after all those men and women."

Afterward, Hillier departed for Trenton and yet another round of solemn repatriation ceremonies for two Canadian soldiers slain in Afghanistan earlier this week.

Sgt. Craig Gillam and Cpl. Robert Mitchell: Numbers 38 and 39 in the roll call of the dead.

   

How's this a CPC issue?