Trudeau announces mission in Iraq

Chrystia Freeland rejects claims of link to Trump, NATO spending rhetoric

Canada is taking the lead of a new NATO training mission in Iraq, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau revealed Wednesday, stocking up his political armoury should U.S. President Donald Trump try to cast doubt on his Liberal government’s commitment to the global military alliance.

The Iraq endeavour marked Trudeau’s second announce- ment involving Canada’s military in as many days; on Tuesday, he declared that the Canadian Forces would continue to lead a NATO battle group in Latvia through 2023. Both were delivered in advance of what’s been billed as a tense meeting of NATO leaders — including Trump himself, whose tweets and public statements in recent days have fuelled expectations that he will excoriate Canada and other allies for not spending enough on defence. Trump wants NATO members to spend 2 per cent of their GDP on defence by 2024, a target agreed to by the alliance’s mem- bers in 2014. Canada’s defence spending is only expected to reach 1.4 per cent of GDP.

Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland, however, dismissed the suggestion of a link between Trump’s belligerent rhetoric and the Iraq mission, insisting that it’s simply a case of doing the right thing.

“Canada is a country that believes in democracy, that believes in good governance, that believes in good institutions,” Freeland said at NATO headquarters in Brussels, where the summit is taking place.

“This NATO mission in Iraq is about having mostly won the war against (the Islamic State group) and now is the time that it is absolutely essential to secure and to win the peace.”

The Liberal government has insisted repeatedly that spending alone isn’t sufficient to measure a country’s commitment to NATO, and has quietly acknowledged that the announcements were aimed at underscoring Canada’s contributions. Basing a NATO endeavour in Iraq may also be by design, since Trump has made fighting the Islamic State group a key focus of his foreign policy — and has demanded that NATO step up its operations there. Either way, the actual number of Canadian troops deployed abroad will increase only marginally with the two new commitments: the 250 service members assigned to the new training mission will be drawn from the 850 that the government had already allocated for Iraq operations.

The only true growth will be in Latvia, where the government plans to add 80 new soldiers to 450 already there.

And the $40-million cost of Canada’s training efforts in Iraq will come from previously approved funds, one senior official said.