Hillier smacks down O'Connor... again!

Canadian Chief of Defence Staff, General Rick Hillier has once again contradicted Minister of National Defence, Gordon O'Connor. This time, it's not on defence manning; it's on the Afghanistan mission.

Canada's top soldier says handing over front-line fighting duties to Afghan soldiers by February will prove to be a "significant challenge."

Gen. Rick Hillier told CTV's Question Period that it's unlikely Canada's frontline presence will be scaled back because of the significant time commitment needed to train Afghan forces to take over security in the country.

Hillier effectively downplayed comments by Defence Minister Gordon O'Connor, who said last week on Question Period that by the time the 22nd Regiment takes over the mission in Afghanistan in August, the Canadian military will be shifting from combat to the classroom. And Afghan soldiers would take up the bulk of the fighting around Kandahar.

"We'd like to see that it was in that position to be able to do so by next February, but that would be certainly a significant challenge for them," said Hillier.

"Significant challenge" in general-speak means, That would be wonderful, and I'd like to say it's possible, but it ain't gonna happen so quit wishing for ponies.

All of which contradicts this bit from O'Connor, last week:

By the time the famed Van Doos are ready to come home next winter, Defence Minister Gordon O'Connor says he believes the Canadian army will be able to cede most of the fighting around Kandahar to Afghan troops.

In his last outing with the news media Hillier contradicted the Conservative defence policy on creating new territorial battalions by suggesting they were unnecessary and were probably not going to happen, claiming, "We're not in the business of creating new units." He also dismissed, completely, the idea of creating a new Canadian Airborne Regiment, again in defiance of O'Connor and Harper plans to the contrary. On that occasion he could have been accused of over-stepping his authority by defining defence policy - the job of the civilian leadership of the country.

It seemed to go unchallenged.

This time, however, Hillier is on solid ground. Mission conduct and activity is the role of the Canadian Forces and the uniforms who run it. It is not the job of the DND, the political ministry, to command the mission. O'Connor's comments would have been valid had he qualified them by stating that "According to the commanders, the CDS and NATO allies with whom we are consulting.... ".

But he didn't.

In fact, the unspoken part of Hillier's contradiction of O'Connor is, "I don't know where you developed that idea, minister, but it isn't in consonance with the information I have been providing you."

In case anyone is missing the obvious, there is a nasty pig-fight taking place at the upper levels of National Defence Headquarters. What we're seeing in the news media is the water splashing over the edge of the pool as two defence heavyweights slug it out in the deep end.

We had a term for it back in the day: The swords have cleared their scabbards.

Hillier has had ongoing disagreements with O'Connor. From having heavy strategic airlift foisted upon him, despite his objections, to manning requirements which the CF could not possibly have met, Hillier has regularly had to correct O'Connor's thinking. O'Connor has managed to embarrass his department, including the Canadian Forces, through sheer lack of diligence and a failure to grasp the realities of any number of given situations, the most monumental screw-up being his handling of prisoner transfers and his initial unqualified statement that the International Committee of the Red Cross was monitoring and reporting back to Canada.

O'Connor is a liability to the Canadian Forces and I suspect Hillier would like nothing better than to see him gone, replaced by someone who has the capacity to listen.

The fact that the long-overdue Defence Review has still not been published suggests that there is indeed a bloody fight going on in the upper halls of NDHQ and O'Connor is the cause of it.

In any event, when the Chief of Defence Staff deems it necessary to outright contradict the words of the Minister of National Defence... twice, it serves as an indication that someone's head is about to roll. Given the confidence with which Hillier is speaking, it isn't he that needs to pull the armour over his neck.

The O'Connor death watch continues.