This front page story...

...in the Ottawa Citizen seems likely to get "progressive" Canadians' knickers knotted (quotemarks at Cameron's request from "Comments"):

Ex-JTF2 commander takes leading role in Iraq
Seasoned Canadian general on exchange to co-ordinate coalition forces

A former commander of the Ottawa-based Joint Task Force 2 counter-terrorism unit is in Iraq helping U.S. forces and preparing to co-ordinate coalition units in the war-torn country.

Canadian Forces Brig.-Gen. Nicolas Matern recently arrived in Baghdad as part of the first wave of soldiers and officers from the U.S. army's 18th Airborne Corps from Fort Bragg, North Carolina.

He is assigned as a senior officer in the Iraq Multi-National Corps which consists of roughly 130,000 troops, mainly from the U.S. and Britain, but with smaller contingents from more than 20 other nations.

The general, originally from Montreal, is attached to the airborne unit as part of an exchange program.

"He was brought in to be the deputy commanding general for the 18th Airborne Corps specifically to address the coalition aspect of our deployment," to Iraq, said U.S. Col. Bill Buckner, a spokesman for the 18th Airborne Corps.

"Part of his battlefield circulation will be going and visiting those other countries and their soldiers and making sure they're getting the things they need, the support they need and making sure they are integrated into our operations."

Brig.-Gen. Matern will report to U.S. Lt.-Gen. Lloyd Austin III and his involvement in the Iraq war was recently highlighted by news media in North Carolina as an example of coalition efforts in the country.

"The Multi-National Corps-Iraq is indeed a multinational corps," Lt.-Gen. Austin told the Fayetteville Observer. "It is staffed by members of all of our (armed) services and coalition members."

The role of Canadian soldiers in the Iraq war has not been widely publicized by the Defence Department or the government. Defence officials did not respond to a request for information on Brig.-Gen. Matern.

But a number of high-ranking Canadian officers have been involved in helping direct operations in the Iraq conflict.

In 2004, Lt.-Gen. Walter Natynczyk, then a major-general [now Vice Chief of the Defence Staff], served as deputy commander of the Multi-National Corps during operation Iraqi Freedom. At the time, he was in charge of 35,000 soldiers. Lt.-Gen. Natynczyk oversaw the planning and execution of all multi-national corps-level combat support operations.

For his service in Iraq, Governor General Michaëlle Jean, presented him with the Meritorious Service Cross. At the time, the press release noted that Lt.-Gen. Natynczyk's pivotal role in the development of numerous plans and operations "resulted in a tremendous contribution by the Multi-National Corps to Operation Iraqi Freedom, and has brought great credit to the Canadian Forces and to Canada."

Canadian Maj.-Gen. Peter Devlin was also recently a deputy commander in the Multi-National Corps.

Other Canadian soldiers have served in front-line positions. In May 2003, a Canadian Forces exchange officer was wounded after a grenade exploded and hit the convoy he was travelling in near Baghdad airport. At the time, there were 16 Canadian military members serving on exchange programs with various foreign forces involved in the Iraq war.

Brig.-Gen. Matern, who moved to Fort Bragg last summer to take up his new position as a deputy commanding general in the 18th Airborne Corps, is a seasoned special operations officer who served with Canadian special forces in Afghanistan. According to his biography, besides commanding JTF2, he recently finished an appointment as deputy commander of the Ottawa-based Canadian Special Operations Forces Command...

Update: Upon reflection I find the final sentence of the article,

...such exchange positions are seen by Chief of Defence Staff Gen. Rick Hillier as key to maintaining links with the Canadian military's closest ally

gives less that the whole story. The major value of these general officer exchanges (there are a great many exchanges at field rank that are important in "maintaining links" with the US forces) is that they provide essentially the only opportunity for senior Army officers to gain hands-on experience in command positions involving large military formations--division, corps. For example, from the Chrétien era:

In 1998 General Hillier was appointed as the first Canadian Deputy Commanding General of III Corps, US Army in Fort Hood, Texas...