General contradicts Kenney’s claim on bombs

Chief of the Defence Staff Gen. Tom Lawson has done an abrupt about-face and is admitting that advanced precision-guided munitions were indeed used in Syria by Canada’s allies, despite claims to the contrary made by Defence Minister Jason Kenney.

Kenney recently claimed that Canada and the U.S. were the only members of the Syrian coalition who had smart bombs. But an article last week in the Citizen noted that the minister was wrong, as both Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, part of the current five country U.S.-led coalition bombing targets in Syria, have smart weapons and have already used them against Islamic extremists.

Kenney then found himself under attack from opposition MPs, who accused him of misleading Canadians about the new mission against Islamic extremists in Syria.

Kenney’s staff mobilized a response to the Citizen article and on the weekend Lawson published a letter on the Department of National Defence website, criticizing the newspaper’s article and claiming that only Canada and the U.S. had advanced smart bombs.

Kenney also took to Twitter to denounce what he called a “misleading” Citizen article.

Kenney, under fire in the Commons Monday, also pointed to Lawson’s letter. “The statement of the Chief of the Defence Staff confirmed what I said,” Kenney pointed out to the NDP.

But on Tuesday night Lawson admitted he was wrong.

“Since the publication of the letter below, in which I stated that the United States was the only nation that used advanced precisionguided munitions in Syria, new information has come to light,” Lawson explained in a statement. “A coalition ally has in fact used advanced precision-guided munitions in Syria on at least one occasion. The information contained in the letter, and which was provided by the Canadian Armed Forces to the Minister of National Defence, was based on the best information available at the time it was written. This error is sincerely regretted.”

Department of National Defence sources say Lawson was pressured by Kenney’s office to issue his original statement supporting the minister. Kenney’s office did not respond Tuesday night.

“There are only five coalition partners doing airstrikes against ISIL terror targets in eastern Syria,” Kenney had explained to CTV. “The United States is the only one of those five that has precision guided munitions.”