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Pentagon Applauds Canadian Efforts Against ISIS Even As Airstrikes Come To An End

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Jonah Bennett Contributor
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Pentagon officials thanked Canada in a briefing Monday for stepping up its efforts against the Islamic State, even though Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has decided to completely halt the country’s airstrikes campaign.

Briefly noting that Canada is pulling out all six of its fighter jets by Feb. 22, Pentagon Press Secretary Peter Cook botched the name of the Canadian aircraft, referring to it as the “CA-18.” The aircraft’s real name is the McDonnell Douglas CF-18, styled after the U.S. F-18.

At the press conference, Cook stated Canada is set to triple the amount of trainers in northern Iraq and double intelligence capabilities. These trainers will serve in non-combative roles and ship weapons over to local forces fighting ISIS. Current special forces amount to 70, and the new plan will bump that number up to approximately 200. In total, the number of Canadian troops will increase from 650 to 830. Additionally, Trudeau declared that the Canadian government will allocate $1 billion for humanitarian purposes.

“The secretary sees these as significant contributions, and he greatly appreciates the decision by the [Prime Minister Pierre] Trudeau government to step up Canada’s role in the campaign at this critical time,” Cook said.

While the Pentagon hasn’t been shy about brutally criticizing other countries for not contributing enough to the effort, Cook strictly avoided directing any negative remarks at Trudeau. This avoidance comes just before an upcoming anti-ISIS coalition meeting in Brussels Thursday, where Defense Secretary Ash Carter will likely request more support from other countries.

Writing in the National Post, journalist John Ivison noted that officials on both sides of the border were careful to keep language about Canada’s contribution totally positive, even though Canada is abandoning its combat role.

“[N]o one should be fooled by the political spin,” Ivison wrote in an op-ed. “Canada is not playing its full part and is leaving others in the 60-nation coalition to fight an ideology as abhorrent to us as we, apparently, are to it.”

Canada will continue to provide refueling services to other aircraft still in the fight.

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