Darfur: Canadian Army's cupboard is bare after Afstan
No surprise here:
The commitment in Afghanistan has left the Canadian military with “zero” capacity to make a difference in Sudan, says the country’s top soldier.A back-story.
Even if UN peacekeepers were deployed [not likely in any numbers - MC] to stop the carnage, Canadians would not be among them, says Gen. Rick Hillier, the chief of defence staff...
The Canadian army has 21,000 full-time and 15,000 reserve soldiers. About 2,500 at a time are deployed in Afghanistan on average six-month tours.
At the same time, other soldiers are either training, preparing for Afghanistan, resting from their previous deployment, enjoying family time, or on standby in case of a natural disaster or attack...
...Canada has 25 military observers in Sudan...
...[Gen. Hillier] said the problem isn’t just a shortage of manpower, but also of equipment, and of support staff like medical workers and intelligence specialists.
“We have no capacity to participate in a mission in Sudan other than what we’re doing now,” Hillier said.
“We’ve got some folks there that are helping train, we’ve got some aircraft that are leased there, and we’re helping the African Union become more capable is what we’re doing.
“But that’s the limit of our capacity.”
Hillier blamed the current shortages on how the military was “run down so much over this past decade and a bit” by major budget cuts in the 1990s [emphasis added].
The budget cuts have been steadily reversed but Hillier said it will take a few more years to recover...
posted by Mark, Ottawa at 4:56 p.m.
3 Comments:
Ding goes the football
If I were CDS I would say "if you can get the agreement of the Govt of Sudan (and their new Chinese friends) to accept armed CF personnel on their territory, I will find you troops to go. Because if you can do the impossible (or at least the highly improbably) so should I."
agh. Obviously if I was CDS I should also be able to type properly :)
that should read "highly improbable".
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