Liberals under fire for clampdown on Iraq mission details
OTTAWA — The Liberal government is under fire for a lack of transparency around Canada’s mission in Iraq, which entered a critical stage this week with the attack on Mosul.
Conservative defence critic James Bezan honed in on the issue during a news conference on Parliament Hill on Tuesday, saying that the military held more briefings and provided more information while the Tories were in power.
National Defence provided 12 technical briefings on what Canadian troops were doing in the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant during the first year of the mission, which coincided with the Conservative government’s last year in office.
Those updates included specific details, such as the number of troops on the ground in northern Iraq as well as how many times those soldiers had called in airstrikes and engaged in firefights with ISIL forces.