No Lack of Courage (26 page)

38
.  Brigadier-General David Fraser, interview with author, 21 October 2006.

39
.  Blatchford, 250.

40
.  Brigadier-General David Fraser, interview with author, 21 October 2006.

41
.  This refers to the Maoist model of insurgency: Phase 1—Strategic Defence: focus on survival and building support. Bases are established, local leaders are recruited, cellular networks and parallel governments created; Phase 2—Strategic Stalemate: guerilla warfare ensues. Insurgents focus on separating population from government; Phase 3 – Strategic Offensive: Insurgents feel they have superior strength and move to conventional operations to destroy government capability.

42
.  Brigadier-General David Fraser, interview with author, 21 October 2006.

43
.  
Ibid
.

44
.  
Ibid
.

45
.  Blatchford, 251.

Chapter Three

1
.    Christie Blatchford,
Fifteen Days
(Toronto: Doubleday Canada, 2007), 251.

2
.    One reporter noted, “NATO is hoping to bring a new strategy to dealing with the Taliban rebellion: establishing bases rather than
chasing militants, and is also hoping to win the support of local people by creating secure zones where development can take place. But questions remain whether they can quell the violence enough to allow aid workers to get to work in a lawless and impoverished region [Kandahar Province] where about a quarter of Afghanistan's huge opium crop is grown, and the narcotics trade fuels the insurgency.” Fisnik Abrashi, “NATO Takes Command in Afghanistan,”
Kingston Whig-Standard
, 31 July 2006, 10.

3
.    Brigadier-General David Fraser, presentation—Canadian Infantry Association Annual General Meeting, 25 May 2007.

4
.    Brigadier-General David Fraser, interview with author, 21 October 2006. Lieutenant-Colonel Schreiber explained that there were five challenges that faced the MNB/ISAF: the image of the ANP; the will of the ANA; the inability of the people to protect themselves; the information operations capability of the Taliban; and the insoluble issue of Pashtunwali. Lieutenant-Colonel Shane Schreiber, interview with author, 22 October 2006.

5
.    Brigadier-General David Fraser, interview with author, 21 October 2006.

6
.    Lieutenant-Colonel Peter Williams, interview with author, 22 October 2006. Williams added, “There was a substantial conventional threat in the vicinity of the Panjwayi area west of Kandahar City, to the point that we thought that this threatened the security of the city and the freedom to move to Highway Number 1 and the city might be isolated and the Taliban could claim a great IO [information operations] victory.”

7
.    Captain C. Purdy, interview with author, 17 October 2006.

8
.    Lieutenant-Colonel Shane Schreiber, interview with author, 18 October 2006.

9
.    
Ibid
.

10
.  Brigadier-General David Fraser, interview with author, 21 October 2006.

11
.  
Ibid
.

12
.  Lieutenant-Colonel Shane Schreiber interview with author, 18 October 2006. Schreiber noted, “And a very sophisticated C2 node.
Somebody actually reinforcing, directing reinforcements to exact positions. Somebody actually controlling the battle.”

13
.  Lieutenant-Colonel Shane Schreiber, ACOS, Multi-National Brigade HQ, 1 CMBG briefing, 22 January 2007.

14
.  Memo, Director Army Training to Commander Land Force Development Training System, “Tactical Reconnaissance Report—Training Assessment OP Archer Rotation 3,” 21 September 2006, 3. SPG refers to the Soviet designation Stankovyy Protivotankovyy Granatamet or, literally translated, mounted anti-tank grenade launcher. In NATO terminology it refers to an anti-tank recoilless rifle.

15
.  General Hillier explained in an interview, “The challenge is that marijuana plants absorb energy, heat very readily. It's very difficult to penetrate them with thermal devices . . . And as a result you really have to be careful that the Taliban don't dodge in and out of those marijuana forests. We tried burning them with white phosphorous—it didn't work. We tried burning them with diesel—it didn't work. The plants are so full of water right now . . . that we simply couldn't burn them. A couple of brown plants on the edges of some of those [forests] did catch on fire. But a section of soldiers that was downwind from that had some ill effects and decided that was probably not the right course of action.” “Canada Troops Battle 10-Foot Afghan Marijuana Plants,”
cnn.com
,
www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/Americas/10/12/Canada.troops.
marijuana.reut/index.html
, accessed 13 October 2006.

16
.  Memo, Director Army Training to Commander Land Force Development Training System, “Tactical Reconnaissance Report—Training Assessment OP Archer Rotation 3,” 21 September 2006, 3.

17
.  Captain C. Purdy, interview with author, 17 October 2006.

18
.  Brigadier-General David Fraser, interview with author, 21 October 2006.

19
.  Brigadier-General David Fraser, interview with author, 22 October 2006.

20
.  Brigadier-General David Fraser, interview with author, 21 October 2006.

21
.  Janice Gross Stein,
The Unexpected War: Canada in Kandahar
(Toronto: Viking, 2007), 219.

22
.  Brigadier-General David Fraser, interview with author, 21 October 2006.

23
.  Donald McArthur, “Canadian Troops Pressed Ahead on Operation Medusa,”
Canada.com
, 6 September 2006,
www.canada.com/components/print.aspx?id=5e81f24-dd05-4eb6-88c1-bbd5e09251f8&k=50060
, accessed 10 September 2006.

24
.  General Rick Hillier,
A Soldier First: Bullets, Bureaucrats and the Politics of War
(Toronto: HarperCollins, 2009), 475–76. In the aftermath of Operation Medusa, Hillier told his peers, “Canada feels like we've been abandoned by our allies in the Kandahar province fight.”

25
.  FOB Martello was built on the Tarin Kowt Road on the way to the Dutch AO in the province of Uruzgan by the 1 PPCLI Battle Group, in order to secure the northern part of Kandahar Province to support NATO's expansion into that province.

26
.  Brigadier-General David Fraser, interview with author, 21 October 2006. The interview has been captured in full in Brigadier-General David Fraser, “No Small Victory: Insights of the Commander of Combined Task Force Aegis on Operation Medusa,” in Colonel Bernd Horn, ed.,
In Harm's Ways. The Buck Stops Here: Operational Perspectives of Senior Military Leaders
(Kingston: CDA Press, 2007), 243–56. Lieutenant-Colonel Schreiber noted, “It's the enablers that win the fight.”

27
.  Situation Briefing, Senior CF officer, NDHQ, 5 June 2007. A senior NATO commander lamented on 6 June 2007, “The European perception is that there is an ISAF mission and an OEF mission. According to European politicians ISAF does stabilization and OEF fights.” General Hillier recalled, “The NATO Secretary-General went around to the members of the alliance constantly to beg two more helicopters or five hundred more troops or something else for Afghanistan, in an alliance that has millions of soldiers and thousands of helicopters. It was embarrassing.” Hillier,
A Soldier First
, 477.

28
.  Brigadier-General David Fraser, interview with author, 21 October 2006. Because of the inability of NATO countries to “pony up” troops, Fraser had to become creative. He explained, “I had to constitute the appropriate force because I was short of soldiers. As a result, the British and the Dutch sent troops that were able to take over
certain outposts and garrisons, which in turn freed up the Canadian troops from TF 3-06 (i.e., 1 RCR Battle Group) so that they could concentrate themselves in Pashmul to conduct the actual offensive. In addition, I asked Task Force 31 (American Special Forces) if they could go and conduct operations to our southwest near Sperwan. That way I could concentrate my forces on the main effort in the Pashmul area.”

29
.  Steven Chase and Campbell Clark, “Hillier: Torture Claims were ‘Ludicrous;' Lacking in Substance,”
Globe and Mail
, 26 November 2009, A7.

30
.  Lieutenant-Colonel Shane Schreiber interview with author, 18 October 2006.

Chapter Four

1
.    The 1 RCR/1 PPCLI RIP occurred from 24 July to 24 August 2006.

2
.    Commander's Entry, TF 3-06 War Diary, 19–31 August 2006.

3
.    Colonel Omer Lavoie, “Leadership in Combat and RMC's Role,” article for RCR ROIC Candidates, 9–10 April 2010, Petawawa.

4
.    Major Mike Wright, interview with author, 13 October 2006.

5
.    Warrant Officer Mike Jackson, interview with author, 13 October 2006.

6
.    Major Mike Wright, interview with author, 13 October 2006.

7
.    Warrant Officer Mike Jackson, interview with author, 13 October 2006.

8
.    
Ibid
.

9
.    Captain Mike Leaky, interview with author, 13 October 2006.

10
.  Warrant Officer Mike Jackson, interview with author, 13 October 2006.

11
.  Major Mike Wright, interview with author, 13 October 2006.

12
.  Details of TF 3-06 operations are from an amalgam of extracts from the BG War Diary and operations documents, interviews, and press releases.

13
.  The idea was that once the enemy had been heavily reduced, through the sustained employment of joint fires, they would be forced to withdraw using their exfiltration routes to the south near Siah Choy,
where they would be interdicted by SOF elements and completely destroyed. The manoeuvre was initiated earlier than planned because of the window of availability for key enablers such as the Predator Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) that were required for Operation Mountain Fury in Regional Command East (RC [E]), which was running concurrently with Operation Medusa. Memo, Director Army Training to Commander Land Force Development Training System, “Tactical Reconnaissance Report—Training Assessment OP Archer Rotation 3,” 21 September 2006, 4.

14
.  “H-Hour” is the designated time given for coordination of movement and fires for all engaged forces for any given operation.

15
.  Captain Rob Carey, interview with author, 16 October 2006.

16
.  Major Matthew Sprague, interview with author, 19 November 2007.

17
.  TF Kandahar narratives, 2 September 2006.

18
.  Lieutenant-Colonel Omer Lavoie, interview with author, 8 October 2006.

19
.  As quoted in Adam Day, “Operation Medusa: The Battle for Panjwai. Part I, The Charge of Charles Company,”
Legion Magazine
, September/October 2007,
www.legionmagazine.com/features/militarymatters/07-09.asp
, accessed 19 November 2007.

20
.  Major Greg Ivey, interview with author, 17 October 2006.

21
.  
Ibid
. Ivey noted, “We suffered through ammunition re-supply issues just like you read about in the history books in Korea and World War II. Chinook helicopters were coming down dropping emergency loads of ammo and trucks were unloading rounds behind the guns. There were just piles and piles of 155mm ammunition casings from rounds going down range.”

22
.  Confidential interview with SOF combat controller team member, 12 May 2007.

23
.  Lieutenant-Colonel Omer Lavoie, interview with author, 8 October 2006. Major Ivey noted, “The 25mm cannon worked out extremely well for us. It is an outstanding target marker and you don't need to be a FOO to be doing it. The infantry section for example, with Charles company, would pick up a target, if the FOO had a difficult time getting eyes on quickly, and there was nothing better than
seeing a 25mm burst going down range into that area. The FOO could get then get the eyes of the pilot onto it quite quickly, especially at night because of the IR [infra-red] capabilities.” Major Greg Ivey, interview with author, 17 October 2006. See also John Conrad,
What the Thunder Said
(Toronto: Dundurn Press, 2009), 199–22.

24
.  Major Greg Ivey, interview with author, 17 October 2006.

25
.  
Ibid
.

26
.  Major Matthew Sprague, interview with author, 19 November 2007.

27
.  The school was built in 2004 with funds from the U.S. Commander's Emergency Reconstruction Program (CERP).

28
.  As quoted in Day, “Operation Medusa: The Battle for Panjwai,” Part I.

Chapter Five

1
.    Major Matthew Sprague, interview with author, 19 November 2007.

2
.    Lieutenant-Colonel Shane Schreiber interview with author, 18 October 2006.

3
.    
Ibid
.

4
.    
Ibid
.

5
.    
Ibid
.

6
.    Major Matthew Sprague, interview with author, 19 November 2007.

7
.    The CO remembered, “I was struck that morning by the sheer outward confidence in the plan displayed by the leadership of the BG, despite the fact that for most of them it was their first time experiencing a combat engagement. I am certain many of my officers shared the same misgivings I had. There was certainly huge risk in some areas of the plan, especially if we failed to surprise the enemy.” Colonel Omer Lavoie, “Leadership in Combat and RMC's Role,” article for RCR ROIC candidates, 9–10 April 2010, Petawawa.