O'Connor Could Prove To Be PM's Worst Foe

At a time when the country is mourning new Kandahar losses and beginning to consider the implications of changing Taliban tactics, O'Connor is raising fresh concerns about the war, defence strategy and this "new" government's accountability. Between mid-week and weekend, a minister considered among the Prime Minister's most accident-prone made Afghanistan sound like Iraq, reversed without public debate a three-year-old defence policy by buying 100 surplus battle tanks, and awarded a $30-million contract to a firm that once hired him to lobby. His timing couldn't have been much worse. With an election still in the spring air and Liberals as unenthused as voters with Dion's leadership, the defence minister's strange musings and suspect decisions risk focusing attention on what the government is doing with power rather than how unprepared the Opposition is to return to it. Remarkably, O'Connor's most hazardous error is drawing little notice. In searching for light at the end of the Kandahar tunnel, he imprudently raised the spectre the Harper government fears most by attaching the Bush administration's empty Iraq promises to Afghanistan. For those who missed it, O'Connor suggested Canadian troops could be home in 2010 – more than a year after the current commitment ends – as long as Afghanistan's army and police meet international standards set in London last year. That makes superficial sense in that it accepts NATO isn't willing to stay forever and recognizes that ultimate responsibility for security rests in Kabul. But closer examination reveals the plan is as flawed as the one now failing in Iraq. Current security and infrastructure investments fall far short of the accepted international thresholds for rescuing failed states and there's no reason to suspect that the weak and notoriously corrupt Hamid Karzai regime will gain legitimacy, or control the country, anytime soon. http://www.thestar.com/columnists/article/202980 [Proofreader's note: this article was edited for spelling and typos on April 16, 2007]

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