Canada Wants Answers in ‘Friendly Fire’

Flags fluttered at half-staff here in Canada’s capital Friday to honor four infantrymen killed by a bomb from a U.S. warplane, the first Canadian combat troops to die in the line of duty in half a century.

But the initial shock over the incident early Thursday in southern Afghanistan was giving way to skeptical and even angry questioning about the terms--and costs--of Canada’s military collaboration with the United States.

The Canadian soldiers, members of an elite unit fighting alongside American troops near the city of Kandahar, were killed by a 500-pound bomb apparently dropped in error by an Air National Guard F-16 pilot. Eight other Canadians were wounded.

The “friendly fire” deaths have brought to the surface feelings here that Canada has become an underappreciated and perhaps under-equipped junior partner in a superpower’s global adventures.

“The symbolism, for those who think we have no business being in Afghanistan, is too rich to miss,” prominent journalist Margaret Wente wrote in a front-page column in Friday’s Globe and Mail newspaper. “We went to help out the Americans with their war--and they used us for target practice.”

On Thursday, as Prime Minister Jean Chretien somberly informed Parliament about the accident, most opposition politicians refrained from questioning the government’s controversial decision to contribute an 880-member unit to the Afghanistan coalition commanded by U.S. generals in Tampa, Fla., and dominated in the field by U.S. air power and high-tech ground weaponry.

They did not challenge the government’s accounting of the U.S. response to the incident--President Bush’s condolence call to the prime minister, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld’s promise of a swift investigation--which portrayed relations with Washington as still close and collegial. The leaders of the Canadian Alliance and Parti Quebecois crossed the aisle to shake hands with the visibly distressed Liberal Party prime minister, who vowed to keep Canadian troops in Afghanistan.

One pointed and surprising exception was Joe Clark, the Progressive Conservative Party leader, a normally pro-American former prime minister.

“War is always unpredictable, but Canadians would want to know what were the exact circumstances that led to Canadians being killed by friendly fire,” Clark said. “Did the arrangement whereby American commanders direct Canadian troops have any impact on these casualties?”

On Friday, Canada’s other parties joined the fray. Defense Minister Art Eggleton was grilled by opposition leaders in Parliament about the extent of promised U.S. collaboration with Canada’s investigation into the incident. Would the Americans share all their documents? The depositions of all their personnel?

Canadian commentators, unimpressed by Chretien’s report of his Wednesday night telephone call from the U.S. president, noted with some bitterness that Bush had failed to voice regret or dismay about the deaths in any of his public appearances Thursday. He might not have mentioned the incident at all, it was widely noted here, if it had not been for the shouted question of a Canadian reporter--to whom Bush responded by saying he had called Chretien on Wednesday.

“Canadians know tragic accidents happen,” wrote Paul Wells, a National Post columnist. “They also know what outrage would ensue if the situation were reversed--if our snipers had killed U.S. soldiers--and our own leaders could offer the Americans no public display of remorse.”

Canadian officials also expressed concern. “I think, undoubtedly, it would have been a comfort to the families to hear the president’s own words through the media,” said Deputy Prime Minister John Manley.

Canadian sensibilities were assuaged later Friday when Bush, Rumsfeld and State Department spokesman Richard Boucher publicly voiced regret about the incident. “It was a terrible accident,” Bush said. “We appreciate so very much the sacrifices that the Canadians are making in the war against terror.”

Nonetheless, after the deaths in Afghanistan and with reports here that the Pentagon is planning more direct surveillance of Canadian land and sea borders, there is a growing backlash in centrist political circles here against military subordination to Washington.

By coincidence, the bombing near Kandahar came just hours after an announcement in Washington that the Pentagon is creating a new North American military command--an initiative that appears to have taken much of Canada’s political leadership by surprise.

Eggleton said later that his ministry had been kept apprised of the plans. But he has declined to comment on reports confirmed by U.S. officials here of an open U.S. offer for more direct regional coordination with the Canadian army and navy. Other Liberal politicians oppose any such arrangement as an infringement on Canada’s sovereignty, as does the leftist New Democratic Party.

On the right, some politicians say Canada’s sovereignty will be compromised if it does not seek a formal alliance with the new Northern Command--because, they say, Canada in effect has no choice.

“We’re talking about a decision made by the United States which is in fact going to influence and cover Canadian territory,” said Stockwell Day, the opposition Alliance’s shadow minister for foreign affairs.

The new Yukon-to-Yucatan continental command is expected to be based in underground bunkers in Colorado, alongside the subterranean headquarters of the North American Aerospace Defense Command. But unlike NORAD, where leadership is shared with Canadian air force generals, the Northern Command would be an exclusively U.S. military structure, along the lines of the Southern Command, where the Pentagon coordinates U.S. military activity in Latin America and the Caribbean.

NORAD will remain a “binational command” but within the proposed U.S.-run Northern Command, Air Force Maj. Mike Halbig, a Pentagon spokesman, said Friday. But the United States has told the Canadians that it might consider a similar partnership for land and sea patrols, said a U.S. diplomat in Ottawa, who asked not to be named.

Meanwhile, Canadians looked ahead Friday to a weekend of mourning and burials. The bodies of the four servicemen were expected to be flown home today from Ramstein Air Base in Germany, Canadian officials said.

The victims were identified as Sgt. Marc D. Leger of Lancaster, Ontario; Cpl. Ainsworth Dyer of Montreal; and Pvts. Richard A. Green of Mill Cove, Nova Scotia, and Nathan Smith of Tatamagouche, Nova Scotia.

Six of the wounded Canadian infantrymen--two of whom suffered life-threatening injuries--were being treated at a U.S. military hospital in Germany and were said to be in stable condition Friday.

All six suffered shrapnel wounds, said Scott McLeod, a Canadian military doctor. Two other soldiers with minor injuries were treated at the Kandahar base.

The four deaths were the Canadian military’s first in a combat zone since the 1950-53 Korean War, when 516 soldiers were killed. An additional 111 members of the Canadian armed forces have died in international peacekeeping operations since then, and 78 Canadian citizens enlisted in the U.S. military were killed during the Vietnam War.

“I just don’t get it,” said Wayne Smith, a salesman visiting the capital from Kitchener, Ontario. “With all that sophisticated equipment they have, how could something like this happen?”

Yet Canadian news reports, striving for judiciousness, have pointed to many other incidents of friendly fire casualties, including the three U.S. servicemen killed by U.S. bombs in Afghanistan in December. “I guess this isn’t so rare, but we are outraged because it happened to us--and because it was done by them, the Americans,” said Andre Dufour, a University of Ottawa engineering student.

Late Friday, Eggleton announced the formation of an official Canadian board of inquiry into the accident, headed by retired Gen. Maurice Baril. The board will begin work Monday, Eggleton said, and report back to the government in three weeks. A Canadian brigadier general on the board will also participate in the U.S. government panel investigating the accident, Baril said.

Canadian reporters demanded to know whether Baril’s board would request testimony from the still-unidentified U.S. Air National Guard pilot who mistakenly bombed the infantrymen. The retired general indicated that it would not.

“Would you like to see a Canadian soldier dragged in front of a board of inquiry in another country?” Baril asked.

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Times staff writer John Hendren in Washington contributed to this report.