Canada and the Iraq War
We finally have some declassified documents!
If you want to cut straight to the documents, check them out here.
This week marks the 20th anniversary of the invasion of Iraq. A number of universities have held events to consider what we now know about the lead-up to war.
And we know quite a bit.
We hosted an event in Toronto and I also participated in a symposium put on by the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College and the University of Kansas’ Center for Military, War, and Society Studies.
As I was preparing my remarks for Kansas, I revisited some of the open primary sources available online. These include the extensive records created by the U.K.’s Chilcott Inquiry and the small but significant documentation from the American side (available at the Digital National Security Archive).
I also re-read Frédéric Bozo’s excellent account of French policy in the lead-up to war, which is based on access to French archives. Bozo writes that “the Iraq crisis is now the best-documented international episode since the end of the Cold War.”
I agree. But with a Canadian caveat.
As of the start of March 2023, the Canadian documentary record was all locked up.
And then something changed.
To the enormous credit of Library and Archives Canada’s ATIP and Litigation Branch and the archivists in Ottawa, LAC responded to a series of requests in record time and with only a handful of minor redactions.
And like the JTF 2 records I wrote about previously, these are archival records that are now open to all. (Other departments generally do not keep their Access to Information release packages beyond two years. This means that most documents “opened” by ATI request do not stay open.)
Today’s post, then, while it comes amidst the week of an awful anniversary, is a post with good news.
We have some records!
A Rocky Start
My first bid to get materials released was supposed to be a ‘slam dunk.’ (Too soon?)
In his 2007 memoir My Years as Prime Minister, Jean Chrétien quoted at length from an important memo he had received from the Clerk of the Privy Council in 2002. I’d read the PM’s book and I thought it would be good to have a copy of the memo itself.
Not so easy.
The first version of the memorandum I got back was heavily sanitized (including parts published in the book). Only after the intervention of the Office of the Information Commissioner do we now have most of the memorandum (minus a few redactions).
This is such an important memorandum that I urge you to read it in full. It is a testament to the work done in PCO and elsewhere within the Government of Canada during an enormously difficult time.
On that encouraging note…
Canada’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Paul Heinbecker, led an intense effort to find a compromise in New York in the weeks and days before the war. I filed a request for any cables from the UN Mission dated March 1-17, 2003.
What I got back looks like this:
This one page, which I posted on Twitter, got a a lot of ‘likes' but was not as encouraging as the meeting it described.
The Goods
Amidst these early frustrations, I stumbled across a collection at Library and Archives Canada that seemed promising. It was the “Correspondence files of Deputy Minister of National Defence Margaret Bloodworth.” There is a digitized finding aid available.
Here’s what happened next:
I requested the folders titled “Iraq” and dated from 2002 through 2004.
Library and Archives Canada released the folders with minor and seemingly reasonable sanitization. They did this on a reasonable, even speedy, timeline.
I uploaded the files to Canada Declassified.
This is what is supposed to happen. The system worked!
The number of pages released is relatively small. But the documents are meaty and worth your full attention. I hope you’ll read them.
Unlike the Operation APOLLO Files or the records of JTF 2’s Early Days, these records do not lend themselves well to snippets. Still, I’ll draw a few things to your attention:
Planners, Out or In?
Of particular interest to me was the discussion and later decision to incorporate Canadian officers into CENTCOM’s planning efforts in Qatar. This had been a running issue in late 2002 and early in 2003.
A briefing note from November 2002 (available in full here) urged the integration of Canadians into American war planning efforts (but without commitment to participate in the war itself).
A decision was, in fact, delayed. Some ministers worried, reasonably I think, that any decision to participate in planning for the invasion of Iraq might transmogrify into an implicit commitment to invade Iraq.
Because of this delay, there were no Canadians in Qatar to participate in the U.S. dry-run of the invasion, “INTERNAL LOOK,” held in December 2002.
In January 2003, the Prime Minister approved the deployment of a Canadian Forces Liaison Team to Qatar.
Here is a detailed memorandum from that month. (NB: I don’t think there were “literally” any trains involved here, but you never know…)
Looking Around at Everyone Else
The Canadians kept close tabs on other states’ preparations for war. The records include February and March memoranda listing other state’s commitments, preparations, and expected levels of support for an invasion. See the March document here.
“Iraq Policy Implications”
This is one of the most substantial documents released to date. It is a nine-page memorandum prepared for the Minister of Foreign Affairs (with some input from DND).
It sketches out a number of potential outcomes to the pre-war diplomatic wrangling, and weighs the implications for Canada and the factors influencing a Canadian decision. Again, I simply cannot do this memorandum justice here and I hope you will read it.
Note that this memorandum does lay out the “options for military contributions” open to the Government of Canada.
National Threat Assessment
In February, the Security and Intelligence Secretariat of the PCO sent a National Threat Assessment, titled “Implications for Canada in the Event of a War with Iraq,” to all provincial governments.
This is a fascinating document and a chilling reminder of the fearful times. Read the full document here.
Restrictions in the Gulf
As I mentioned in The Operation APOLLO Files, there is a constant low-boil rumour that Canadian Forces in the Persian Gulf region were actually given a wink and a nudge — that Canada’s “no” to war was for public consumption but that Canadian Forces did support the invasion.
Here is another document making clear that the PM set explicit restrictions on Canadian Forces in the Persian Gulf Region.
Mr. McCallum Goes to Washington
In 2003, Minister of National Defence John McCallum met with U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld in Washington, D.C. I requested the briefing materials for this trip. The materials were released (and almost in full).
Of particular interest here are the Briefing Note and Speaking Notes on Iraq, but also a detailed memorandum on Canada-US relations prepared for Ambassador Michael Kergin’s presentation to Cabinet after the US midterms in November 2002.
More… and more to come.
There are several other important and interesting documents in these particular folders, including authorizations for the deployment of Canadian officers on exchange to U.S. forces. Please feel free to use the comments section below to note anything you think particularly interesting or important for students and researchers.
I expect to keep adding to the “Canada and the Iraq War” briefing book.