http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/NATO+puts+pressure+Ottawa/2243707/story.html
The Gazette Canwest News Service November 20, 2009 NATO puts pressure on Ottawa Canada's task force anticipates buildup Matthew Fisher In a move that may increase international pressure on Ottawa to extend its combat mission in Kandahar beyond July 2011, NATO is likely to announce within days that Canada's Task Force Afghanistan will grow in size as thousands of more U.S. combat troops are placed under Canadian command. With such a buildup anticipated, "flexibility" was the dominant theme during a transfer of command ceremony yesterday at which Brig.-Gen. Daniel Ménard took over Task Force Afghanistan from Brig.-Gen. Jon Vance. Apparently alluding to the additional responsibilities that NATO may give to Canada, Lt.-Gen. Marc Lessard, who commands all Canadian forces overseas, told Ménard and Vance and dozens of Afghan and coalition officers at the handover that "2010 will bring many, many changes - you will have to be extremely flexible and adaptable." After formally accepting command from Vance, Ménard told reporters that he was awaiting direction from "higher headquarters" about exactly what the new force laydown is to be for Kandahar. Parts of the new scheme will obviously depend on how many additional U.S. forces President Barack Obama decides to send to Afghanistan. "We are going to receive more troops," Ménard said. "It is complex because in certain cases they come from different parts of Afghanistan or from the U.S. ... There could be as many as four other units attached to Task Force Afghanistan." When the shift of forces is completed, "it will be a huge brigade," he said. "To tell you the truth, it is a Canadian-U.S. brigade. That is how it is known. Those troops are under my command and I have full authority to manoeuvre them and do whatever needs to be done." It has been known for some months that General Stanley McChrystal, the American who commands NATO's more than 100,000 International Security and Assistance Force troops in Afghanistan, has been intensely interested in beefing up security in Kandahar, which is the Taliban heartland. Although he did not get into specifics, Ménard said that "one of the big challenges is to ensure that the city of Kandahar received the troops necessary to accomplish the mission. There are troops there now but according to my evaluation, we must continue to augment their numbers and ensure that they are the right troops." Ménard, who like Lessard is a Van Doo, became the sixth Canadian and the second French Canadian to command Task Force Afghanistan since the Liberal government sent troops to conduct combat operations in Kandahar early in 2006. =========================== Stop NATO http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato Blog site: http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/ To subscribe, send an e-mail to: [email protected] or [email protected] Daily digest option available. ==============================
