Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
03OTTAWA917
2003-03-28 22:31:00
CONFIDENTIAL//NOFORN
Embassy Ottawa
Cable title:  

CANADA-IRAQ: WHAT NOW?

Tags:  PREL MARR PTER CA 
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This record is a partial extract of the original cable. The full text of the original cable is not available.
C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 OTTAWA 000917 

SIPDIS

NOFORN

E.O. 12958: DECL: 03/28/2013
TAGS: PREL MARR PTER CA
SUBJECT: CANADA-IRAQ: WHAT NOW?

REF: OTTAWA 892 (NOTAL)

Classified By: DCM Stephen R. Kelly, Reason: 1.5 (b) and (d)

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 OTTAWA 000917

SIPDIS

NOFORN

E.O. 12958: DECL: 03/28/2013
TAGS: PREL MARR PTER CA
SUBJECT: CANADA-IRAQ: WHAT NOW?

REF: OTTAWA 892 (NOTAL)

Classified By: DCM Stephen R. Kelly, Reason: 1.5 (b) and (d)


1. (C/NF) SUMMARY. Ambassador Cellucci's widely reported
expression of U.S. disappointment over official Canada's
position on Iraq and the military campaign has precipitated a
tidal wave of response. While senior Cabinet ministers
clearly got the message and want to turn things around in the
bilateral relationship (reftel),as does the Liberal Party's
heir apparent, it remains unclear whether Prime Minister
Chretien - the key decision maker in this case-- is willing
to rein in the left wing of his party and buck public
opinion, which he sees as solidly in the anti-war camp. END
SUMMARY.


2. (C/NF) The world has changed dramatically over the last
several years, and Canada has been taking stock of its
foreign policy. Canadians are acutely aware of and sensitive
to their dependence upon the U.S. for economic prosperity and
national security, but are also driven by a historic
imperative to assert a Canadian identity that clearly sets
the country apart from America. While not visceral
anti-Americanism in a classic sense, it does color government
foreign policy decisions. In recent months, senior officials
from the Prime Minister down have cited "Canadian
sovereignty" and "the Canadian way" to the House of Commons
as justification for any number of positions, some of them
quite contradictory. Moreover, it is unclear that the
Canadian leadership and public understand, at a fundamental
level, the implications of the 2001 terrorist attacks on
America and the depth of U.S. commitment to preventing a
recurrence of such attacks. These are some of the factors in
Canada's ambivalent approach to Iraq from the beginning. The
particular leadership style of Jean Chretien, who has
announced he will retire in February 2004, is another element
in Canadian waffling on Iraq.


3. (C/NF) The identity confusion notwithstanding, it appears
that many Canadian officials assumed that Canada's stance on
Iraq did not "really" matter in the larger scheme of things
and that our relations would revert to business as usual once
the flap over their non-participation in Iraq blew over.

Chretien's resolute silence when members of his staff or the
Liberal Caucus -- including a Cabinet minister -- publicly
made disparaging comments about the United States and the
President seemed to play to that assumption. Thus, the
Ambassador's March 25 remarks at a Toronto business forum,
voicing U.S. disappointment over Canada's position on Iraq
and comportment regarding the war, gave attentive observers a
much needed jolt and loosed a hail of I-told-you-so media
commentary and broad speculation about the consequences of
U.S. disappointment.


4. (C/NF) Canadian media have played out the reactions for
most of the week, including the interesting conclusion of
Liberal pollster Michael Marzolini (CEO of Pollara Inc.) that
had Jean Chretien decided to support the United States,
Canadians would have swung behind him and accepted military
action in Iraq. He told a Toronto audience that in asking
whether "Canadians accept war, (albeit) reluctantly and
grudgingly," instead of whether they "want" war, he found
that a small majority actually favored Canada's participation
in the Iraq conflict. This majority was on a par with the 56
percent approval Pollara registered for participation in the
Kosovo conflict four years ago, which Canada entered without
UNSC approval. The question is whether Marzolini's newly
revealed conclusions, in addition to the Ambassador's
comments, might stir up public opinion enough to convince the
Prime Minister of the need to change tack.


5. (C/NF) On foreign policy PM Jean Chretien calls the shots,
and he plays to the polls. He is first and foremost a
domestic politician from Quebec, the home of Canada's
tenacious and pacifist francophone linguistic minority. His
political roots are dug deeply into old-line Liberal Party
soil and he is unsympathetic to, and out of touch with, U.S.
foreign policy concerns. Moreover, since Chretien's
announcement last August that he would quit politics in 2004
-- and the soaring star of Liberal backbencher Paul Martin
(expected to win the party leadership in November) -- it has
become evident that the PM has lost his ironfisted grip on an
increasingly restive Liberal Caucus. His focus since the
announcement has been to shape his legacy for the history
books, and he crafted his last budget to boost the social
traditions of the Liberal party.


6. (C/NF) As Prime Minister, Chretien's modus operandi has
been to play to domestic public opinion, which he does even
to the detriment of his own Cabinet members attempting to
advance Canada's external policy interests. An egregious
example was his public admonition of Defense Minister
McCallum for stating in Washington what GOC officials had
told us privately since December, i.e., that if the UN
process should fail and no explicit authorization for force
be given, "Canada will at that time decide whether to
participate in a proposed military coalition." The PM's
outburst in the House of Commons was explained to us as
concern for public perception -- at a time, it turns out,
when the polls showed a leap in Canadian opposition to
military action. The tactic of ceding to public opinion
appeared vindicated in the resounding public response to
Chretien's March 17 announcement that Canada would not join
the U.S. led coalition. That said, the collective body of
anecdotal evidence and published opinions over the past year
suggest that the Canadian public, though still broadly
supportive of Liberal party policies, has become disenchanted
with--even embarrassed by--Jean Chretien, and is relieved
that he took the hint (from polls) to step down.


7. (C/NF) What now? With the fluid dynamic of Jean Chretien
officially at the helm for the next 10 months, we should not
expect any change in this government's decision against
joining coalition operations in Iraq (even though,
ironically, Canada's indirect military contributions to the
Gulf region and its upcoming ISAF role, are far more
significant than those of most of the coalition members). At
the same time, we can hope that Canadians' collective
embarrassment over the government's behavior (Chretien
himself does not exhibit any sense of shame) might prompt the
GOC to focus seriously on post-conflict needs of Iraq. We
see some promising signs in the government's pledge this week
of CAD 100 million to immediate humanitarian relief and the
possibility of future funding. In the House of Commons
Question Period this week, Members of the opposition have
proposed potential non-military assistance such as a "field
hospital."


8. (C/NF) Finally, even the March 28 Toronto Star contained
an amazing editorial (given the newspaper's anti-U.S. bias)
calling on Chretien to become more involved in Iraq in the
reconstruction phase as a way of moving back into the
US/British fold. Although it doesn't voice support for the
US, it does display a chastened tone (not matched by any of
the other opinion pieces) and acknowledges that Canada's
breaking with the US on Iraq is not without repercussions.
For our part, we should continue to publicize USG efforts to
resolve trade disputes-notably softwood lumber-and to tout
the progress on border initiatives, but consciously, without
diluting the points made by the Ambassador in Toronto. In
any case, we believe that once Chretien is gone, there will
be an improvement in Canada's policy toward the U.S., at
least in tone and perhaps even substantively.
CELLUCCI