NDP says Canadian military wrote speech Afghan President delivered to Parliament

Edited by Traci Lawson

OTTAWA - NDP Defence Critic Dawn Black (New Westminster-Coquitlam) released documents that show a team of Canadian military advisors prepared Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s September 2006 speech before Parliament.

In situation reports from Task Force Afghanistan, it was reported that the “Team prepared initial draft of President [Karzai’s] address to Parliament 22 Sep.” General David Fraser reports in the documents that “key statistics, messages, themes, as well as overall structure [of the speech], were adopted by the President in his remarks”.

“These documents show that Karzai’s address to Parliament was an elaborately staged political stunt,” said Black. “What Canadians heard was not the voice of the Afghan people, but the talking points of the Department of National Defence.”

Canadian military commanders were pleased with Karzai’s speech performance and used it as a premise for a subsequent tour of Canada by the Afghan minister of Rural Rehabilitation and Development. “The aim of the tour is to capitalize on the recent president [Karzai’s] visit and address to Parliament by emphasizing the development work in Canada and drawing attention away from persistent media reporting of the security situation,” reads a portion of the report.

Black obtained the documents under the Access to Information Act. The confirmation the president’s remarks originated with the Canadian military was contained in a weekly situation report sent from Kandahar that was circulated to National Defence Headquarters, all bases and air wings across the country, and to Canadian military attaches in Pakistan, the United States and Southwest Asia.

“There has been speculation about the resources that the Department of National Defence is pouring into trying to sell this mission to the Canadian people. I never thought that the Canadian military would go this far,” said Black. “This raises serious concerns about the independence of the Afghan president and origin of his recent comments to Canadian media in Kabul.”

Black signalled her intent to call for an emergency debate on this issue in the House of Commons when Parliament resumes and will seek an investigation by the Defence committee into the military’s communications campaign.

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