By Scott Taylor
Last week a very disturbing story surfaced in the media which once again clearly illustrates how the Canadian military leadership is totally out of its depth in Iraq.
My colleague David Pugliese at the Ottawa Citizen obtained internal military documents which reveal how Canadian soldiers faced a moral dilemma when they were shown evidence of war crimes committed by the very Iraqi soldiers which they were sent to train.
It wasn’t as if our Canadian trainers stumbled across these videos. It was the Iraqi soldiers who boastfully played them for the Canadians as though it was proof of their martial success.
The graphic images included those of “raping a woman to death; torture and execution of a line of bound prisoners whereby they were beaten to death with what appeared to be rebar steel bars; the execution of bound prisoners by shooting; and the execution of a man by hanging him from the barrel of a [Main Battle Tank]” states a Canadian Armed Forces briefing note.
At least seven Canadian non-commissioned officers viewed the footage and to their credit, they immediately reported the situation to their superiors.
All trained soldiers should know that Article 50 of the Geneva Convention prohibits acts of “willful killing, torture or inhuman treatment” of prisoners.
What the Canadian instructors had seen clearly constituted war crimes perpetrated by the very Iraqi soldiers to whom they were to teach additional weapons and tactical skills.
One sergeant reportedly recommended suspending the training in order for his superiors to deal with this issue first.
However, the senior leadership in theatre assured the NCO’s that the matter would be dealt with, but in the meantime they were to press on with the training of these Iraqis. Just to be on the safe side, the officers also advised the NCO’s that in the future they should not view such videos, and more importantly not take possession of any images. See no evil.
The initial incident took place on 18 September, 2018 at a U.S. military facility near the Iraqi city of Mosul. The troops involved were from the Royal Canadian Regiment based at CFB Petawawa.
They had been sent to train an Iraqi unit known as the Wide Area Security Force (WASF).
Many of these Iraqis had fought against ISIS in the recently concluded liberation of Mosul.
One can easily understand how our soldiers would have qualms about associating with and training individuals who were capable of such cold-blooded murderous crimes.
Yes, the violent crimes perpetrated by ISIS were widely publicized, but that does not grant one the right to kill disarmed ISIS captives in the same fashion.
Police do not get to beat serial killers to death or sodomize rapists. That is what separates criminals from law enforcers.
Despite the reassurances that some sort of action was being taken, it seems the soldiers on the ground did not believe it.
Once the unit was back in Petawawa, they continued to press for answers. “We remain uncertain whether this appropriate action was effectively taken,” wrote one of the NCOs “I am an ethical man and I believe in our moral doctrine and the [Law of Armed Conflict]. I am bothered by the fact that my assigned duties allowed me to train and enable people who in my mind were criminals.”
When the 2018 training mission was first announced, the commander - Maj.-Gen. Dany Fortin assured skeptical journalists that he was confident in Canada’s ability to screen Iraqi recruits. “I think we have a pretty good vetting process in place to screen out those potential [Iraqi] instructors to ensure we have quality people, that they the Iraqi government feel confident with,” Fortin told reporters.
One month later the RCR NCO’s reported the videos of war crimes committed by these same Iraqi instructors, and they were told keep quiet and to continue the training.
Some vetting process.
On 30 March, Canada extended Operation Impact, the mission to Iraq and the Middle East, for one more year. Since first deploying troops to Iraq in 2014, Canada has spent over $1 billion on the mission.
After all that time and money, we still can’t tell the good guys from the war criminals. Even with the video evidence.
