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| Subject: Surprise, surprise | |
Author: Bruce | [ Next Thread |
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] Date Posted: 23:34:26 10/29/04 Fri In reply to: Pitcairner 's message, "Yet another revision" on 22:32:26 10/29/04 Fri http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPStory/LAC/20041028/SUBS 28/National/Idx Washington urged Ottawa to buy subs, records suggest Data about U.S. operations in Canadian waters depended on purchase, papers say By JEFF SALLOT Thursday, October 28, 2004 - Page A7 OTTAWA -- Senior Pentagon officials lobbied Ottawa to buy four used British submarines so that the U.S. Navy could play cat-and-mouse war games with Canada to help train U.S. sailors, declassified defence documents say. The records also say the Canadian navy couldn't get information from the United States and other allies about their secret submarine operations in Canadian waters unless Canada had subs of its own. The previously secret records raise questions about whether the Canadian navy needed subs for defence purposes or to please Washington and keep the Pentagon from cutting off information about U.S. sub patrols off Canadian coasts. The House of Commons defence committee is investigating the Canadian navy's submarine program, including its rationale, after a fatal fire aboard one of the British-built boats, HMCS Chicoutimi, this month. The Liberal government bought the subs in 1998, but the defence documents show that naval officers were warning cabinet ministers two years earlier that Canada could be cut out of the loop about secret U.S. submarine operations if it didn't have subs. In a 1996 background note sent to the office of the defence minister, the navy said "the possession of submarines gives Canada access to information on allied submarine movements in or near Canadian waters, the monitoring of which is an essential aspect of exercising sovereignty." A ministerial briefing note, classified secret, said that possessing submarines gives the navy "leverage with allies for intelligence and information regarding submarine operations." A third memo for the minister said membership in the international submarine club ensures that Canada will get information from other countries about their "submarines operations, location, movement and capabilities. This information is not available to countries who do not operate submarines." Still another "secret -- Canadian eyes only" briefing note from 1996 explained that having submarines made Canada part of a "highly classified" program known as "waterspace management." Only through this program could Canada obtain "information on the location and movement of submarines" from allies. Canada's three Oberon-class submarines were approaching the end of their service and the navy wanted to maintain the "combat capability" of submarines even after the Cold War. The documents argued that buying four barely used British Upholder-class subs could keep Canada in the club. The U.S. Navy, which had its own fleet of nuclear-powered submarines, was eager to have Canada operate a different type of submarine for joint training exercises. The diesel-electric Upholders were considered extremely quiet and hard to detect, thus an ideal target for use in underwater sub-hunting exercises. In October of 1996, Dwight Mason, a former U.S. diplomat in Ottawa who was the U.S. co-chair of the Canada-U.S. Permanent Joint Board on Defence, wrote to then-defence-minister Doug Young, saying Washington considered it very important for Canada to have diesel-electric submarines. Five months later, the U.S. secretary of defence at the time, William Perry, wrote the minister a similar letter. The two letters remain classified. But other documents, released to Ottawa-based researcher Ken Rubin under the Access to Information Act, refer to the Mason and Perry letters and the importance the Pentagon put on the opportunity to train with Canadian diesel-electric subs. One of the declassified documents argues that without submarines, Canada would suffer "a loss of allied intelligence data regarding submarine operations; and a loss of credibility with alliance partners." Meanwhile, in the Commons yesterday, Defence Minister Bill Graham said the government depended on the advice of the navy in buying the subs from Britain. "I am proud of the fact that when I said the navy wanted those submarines we supported them in getting those submarines. "That is exactly what we should be doing. I do not make strategic decisions for the military. I take its advice," he said. Conservative defence critic Gordon O'Connor, a retired army general, said Mr. Graham "has repeatedly distanced himself from the tragic incident aboard the Chicoutimi by pointing a finger at our navy. Every time he is asked a question on submarines his standard answer is, 'the navy made me do it.' " Morning Smile Q. What's the difference between the Vietnam War and the war in Iraq? A. George W. Bush knew how to get out of the Vietnam War. -- Alec Englander, Thornhill, Ont. [ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ] |