CANADA: IRAQI POLICE TRAINING PROGRAM IN JORDAN

C O N F I D E N T I A L OTTAWA 001221 SIPDIS NOFORN E.O. 12958: DECL: 04/22/2015 TAGS: PTER SNAR SOCI CA IQ SUBJECT: CANADA: IRAQI POLICE TRAINING PROGRAM IN JORDAN REF: A. BAGHDAD 735 ¶B. STATE 72189 ¶1. (U) The Government of Canada has every intention to continue its International Police Trainers participation at the Jordan International Police Training Center through CY2006. According to Foreign Affairs Canada, Regional Peacekeeping Director Wendy Gilmour on April 22, recommendations have already moved forward in Ottawa's bureaucracy to at least maintain the full complement of 20 Canadian trainers in Jordan. She noted however that the final decision would be made by the Canada International Development Agency (CIDA) and remains subject to available funds. Gilmour stressed that she did not foresee a problem as the budgetary provisions were submitted earlier this year and had engendered no objections. ¶2. (C/NF) In confidence Gilmour said that Ottawa would positively respond to the request to increase the number of Canadian trainers in Jordan, subject to funding. In order to do this, however, Gilmour noted that CIDA, as a development agency quote hell bent to program to specific and clearly identified needs, thus ensuring end product sustainability unquote would respond best to a detailed list of training needs, i.e., forensics, police mid-management, crime scene protection, etc. Blanket requests for increased participation, she feared would fall on deaf ears as CIDA unqote is demand not supply driven unquote. ¶3. (C/NF) Gilmour continued that her government vastly preferred that the training program in Jordan be used to the fullest for the foreseeable future. She said the current and projected security environment in Iraq makes it impossible for Canada to deploy Canadians there except in very few numbers. She insisted this prohibition was non-negotiable. That said, however, Gilmour said that Canada would be willing to send two more Canadian police to Baghdad to work with the Ministry of the Interior so long as everyone understood that all Canadian police officers sent to Iraq are and would be prohibited by Ottawa from departing the Green Zone. (Note: Canada has two police officers currently in Baghdad under the Royal Canadian Mounted Police's International Assistance/Training Program. Both are MoI advisors and are embedded with the UK's Police Assistance Team and any additional officers would be as well. The first of the current officers, from the Peel Police Department, is due out of country this July and his replacement has already been selected. The second officer, a Mountie from the Toronto office, is expected to remain through the end of 2005.) Visit Canada's Classified Web Site at http://www.state.sgov.gov/p/wha/ottawa DICKSON