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How Canada Stunned Bush. Iraq Stand Hard To Believe For US

by Open-Publishing - Monday 14 February 2005
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Wars and conflicts International USA Canada-Québec

http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/Co...

How Canada Stunned Bush
Iraq Stand Hard To Believe For US
Tim Harper
February 09, 2005

WASHINGTON-Canada’s outgoing ambassador to Washington revealed for the first time yesterday the shock and disbelief in the Bush administration when prime minister Jean Chrétien kept Canadian troops out of Iraq.

Michael Kergin said in an interview yesterday that administration insiders had all but ignored the diplomatic signals from Ottawa in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq.

Despite all the signs and statements from Ottawa about the need for United Nations backing, the decision somehow still caught official Washington off guard, he said.

"Sometimes in these things, the wish gives father to the thought," said Kergin, who retires at the end of this month.

Canada had flagged its intentions, Kergin said, but in the National Security Council, then the domain of national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, and in Donald Rumsfeld’s Pentagon - "in spite of themselves, they still thought ... somehow we would find a way.

"It’s like you can’t quite believe it when you’re told it and you really believe in the end it would happen. And in this case, it didn’t."

Kergin said before a final message could be conveyed, Chrétien’s statement to the House of Commons was broadcast live on CNN.

The U.S. State Department and National Security Councils both used the term "disappointment," as did U.S. Ambassador to Canada Paul Cellucci, Kergin said, but the tone of the reaction he received indicated anger and irritation, even if those words were never used.

"What I kept hearing from up on (Capitol) Hill, was You were with us in World War II, you were always with us, how could you let us down now?'" Kergin recalled. "I'd hearYou were with us in Korea, how could you not be with us,’ ignoring entirely the sort of unilateral approach to Iraq. That just doesn’t figure in their thinking, particularly."

Republicans upbraided him for ignoring the threat to the North America continent because Saddam Hussein was believed to have weapons of mass destruction - a claim now refuted.

Kergin also said he did not believe the Bush administration’s ballistic missile defence program would lead to weapons in space, casting doubt on a key concern used by Prime Minister Paul Martin for his reluctance to sign on to the plan.

"My own sense ... people I talk to tell me they don’t believe it is in the U.S. interest to go into the weaponization of space, because they are probably the most vulnerable of all," he said.

Kergin said he believed U.S. President George W. Bush now understood that missile defence was a "hot button" in Canada and his administration realized it was not wise to try to force a quick decision on Ottawa’s participation.

He said there was less pressure coming from Bush for a Canadian pronouncement than there was six months ago, partly because the technology - as evidenced by a spectacular test failure last December - needed work and was likely setting the program back.

But Kergin said if Ottawa stayed out of the plan, it could find Washington viewed its role in continental defence much differently and could try to "reframe" NORAD, the Canada-U.S. North American defence pact - when it is renewed and possibly expanded to include maritime protection next year.

Opponents of the missile defence plan on both sides of the border say they believe the Bush plan is the first step to creating a space-based arms race.

Late last year, Jonathan Dean, a former U.S. disarmament negotiator, told a Commons committee the Pentagon was preparing to test a space-based satellite sensor this year which could be used to shoot incoming missiles.

Kergin, who was in the room when Martin and Bush discussed missile defence last November, said the president was trying to find out why there was such an "allergy" to his plan north of the border.

He did not "bully" Martin, as suggested by one U.S. newspaper, Kergin said, but instead Bush said, "I’ve got to understand the origin of this fear ... or phobia."

This, he said, was characteristic of the candour used by the two men behind closed doors.

"He didn’t lean over the table or anything like that," Kergin said, adding that Bush believed in the value of the ballistic shield so much he was puzzled his enthusiasm was not being shared.

Kergin, a 62-year-old career diplomat made his remarks during a conversation reflecting on the end of a tenure marked by the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the historic dip in relations following the Iraq decision, dealing with a U.S. administration deeply unpopular in Canada and a series of "bumpy" trade irritants.

After 38 years in public service, Kergin will retire and be replaced March 1 by former New Brunswick premier Frank McKenna.

Yesterday, Kergin spoke candidly for the first time about seeing his job publicly offered to former deputy prime minister John Manley after Martin came to power.

Kergin said he was given a heads-up that Martin was going to offer his job to Manley in December 2003, but "it surprised me a little bit that he would offer him the job ... and it surprised me he offered the job to someone who hadn’t accepted it yet."

And, he added, he was surprised to see it all unfold on live television.

He was prepared to take another job in Ottawa, expecting his posting to end quickly. Instead, Martin did nothing for more than a year.

Kergin said he had a close relationship with Chrétien, for whom he had had been foreign affairs adviser, but he didn’t really know Martin, so he expected the new Prime Minister would bring in his own person.

Kergin also contrasted his style with that of Cellucci, his counterpart in Ottawa, who leaves his post next month.

There is always a demand for Cellucci as a speaker in Canada, Kergin said, because he is the spokesperson for the U.S. president.

Cellucci’s constant mantra about the need for Ottawa to boost military spending, for example, was a direct response to instructions from then-secretary of state Colin Powell to create a constituency for that point of view in Canada.

"He made it clear to Cellucci at the outset that one of Cellucci’s messages was to develop a constituency which would increase defence spending in Canada which he, Colin Powell, felt had declined over the past decades," Kergin said.

"It is up to somebody else to argue whether that became counterproductive over time."

In this town, Kergin said, the job demands a different style.

"I could sit down here on the corner of Pennsylvania Ave. and yell all sorts of awful things, and I don’t think I would excite people, or get much attention from the media here," he said.

Forum posts

  • Canada was fighting World War 1 for two years before the U.S. decided to join in .

    Canada was fighting World War 2 for two years before the U.S decided to join in .

    Canada was front and center to fight the Korean War.

    If the U.S. were invaded tomorrow, we would fight to the death to help defend America.

    But for the present, we will not fight a war based on a lie.

    - - — --- --- --- ---- --- --- ---- ---Johnny Canuck

    • Amen: and I am an American.

    • Good for the Canadians who have refused to let fascism cross the border. The people there must be a whole lot smarter than here in the U.S.A. I hope they will remain vigilant and deny Bu$hco aka Hitler II a toe hold into their free society, they should avoid us like cancer.

    • I am another American who thanks you for that and feels the same way about Canada.

      I predict and fear, however, that economic retaliation by certain U.S. corporate dominated interests will now be attempted to punish this recent example of Canadian independence, just as it has been done against the so-called "blue" U.S. states that have not behaved in a supportive way towards those same powers that have formed or supported the Bush political juggernaut.

      In the U.S., the experience has been that certain corporations and entire industries in a specific region seem to have become dominated by a right-wing influenced cartel that has access to tremendous financial resources to buy out or buy into key existing businesses or organizations.
      When a certain degree of economic control is eventually achieved, the cartel then exercises its leverage to control local politics and politicians of that area in a very coordinated way.

      What seems to be new about this, so that it should not be confused with just ordinary "politics as usual", is how massive is the scale and the degree of coordination that appears to be involved. Also incredible is how absolutely self serving and cynically ruthless the managers of this cartel are apparently willing to be to pursue their objectives. The economy of my own State of California, for example, has been absolutely devastated by these kinds of tactics over the past several years (e.g., market manipulations by Enron and other power distributors. phony "energy crisis" that was staged by electical producers, excessive incremental increases in gasoline prices coupled with refinery closures that created artifical shortages, attempted provocations of labor organizations deliberately intended to provoke economically crippling strikes within key state industries, defense industry contracting boycotts and relocations to out-of-state businesses, selectively targeted military base closures and relocations, sending a dispropotionately high number of relatively lesser trained "citizen soldier" National Guard troops from Calif. and N.Y. into combat in Iraq, decreasing federal expenditures in "blue states" for infrastructure and security support while increasing those expenditures made to benefit lower populated "red" states, etc.). The willing (sociopathic?) ruthlessness of the managers of this cartel, coupled with their extreme, elitist socio-economic theories and world view, plus their apparent unscientific religiosity, has made them truly dangerous as recent events have demonstrated.

      With regard to Canada’s economy, recent examples of some possibly developing economic encroachment (i.e., steps deliberately intended to punish Canada and/or eventually result in gaining domination over the Canadian economy and politics) may include the soft wood tarrifs, unusually long embargos of Canadian beef exports despite countermeasures taken to C.J. disease threats, and busines aquisitions such as American Coors Beer Company’s recent purchase of the Canadian Molsen Beer Company. Anticipate many more such American aquisitions of major Canadian business assets in the future, perhaps focusing on one or two specific provinces. At first, the infusion of new capital into the Canadian economy will seem like a very good thing with a lot of benefits for Canadians. Soon, however, the new managers will start making you some deals you can’t refuse.

      May God bless America and Canada to protect them.

  • Canada has been already rewarded. Those Americans in support of the current Government
    are doomed into the dark ages.
    Next Nasa based on a new creation science NASA will announce: earth is a disc!

    So the newly breeded American prays to it’s Idol.