Statement made on 23 June 2011 by Senator Roméo Dallaire
Hon. Roméo Antonius Dallaire:
Honourable senators, the Prime Minister travelled to Kandahar on May 30 to meet with troops and inform them that the combat mission is winding down and is being replaced with a training mission. For the press conference, the Prime Minister used a backdrop of soldiers flanked by an array of flags and a stage filled with people.
That is not what we do here. It has never been our tradition for the Prime Minister — nor even the Commander-in-Chief, the Governor General — to use soldiers as a backdrop during a press conference. He can talk to them, of course. But he absolutely should not be using them for political theatre.
He declared victory in Afghanistan, but what is that based on? Are we winning in Afghanistan or has a political decision been made to withdraw to focus on another mission while the fighting continues, while there are still risks and more than 150,000 soldiers left on the ground?
Perhaps he could have said "mission accomplished," based on the political criteria for withdrawing from combat, but he should not have declared victory. President Bush created the same situation when he used the term "victory" during the Iraq war. He appeared on an aircraft carrier with sailors all around him and he declared that the battle of Iraq was a victory, but the war continued for another three years with the loss of more than 1,500 soldiers.
Can the minister tell us what criteria the Prime Minister was using to declare victory in Afghanistan?
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