Canada, a notable objector to the 2003 Iraq war, was preparing to back the U.S.-led invasion by sending naval ships into combat if the UN Security Council gave the go-ahead, according to cabinet records.
The minutes from the final cabinet meetings leading up to the invasion show the government was still planning for the possibility that the UN would sanction military action, and shows how that possibility weighed on ministers as they engaged in philosophical discussions around life and death.
The U.S. launched the invasion, purportedly to disarm Saddam Hussein of weapons of mass destruction that were never found. U.S. President George W. Bush’s administration billed the conflict as part of the wider war on terror, launched in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks just under two years prior.
Prime Minister Jean Chrétien officially announced in the House of Commons that Canada wouldn’t join the U.S.-led “coalition of the willing” in Iraq on March 17, 2003 — just days before the invasion began.
“If military action proceeds without a new resolution of the Security Council, Canada will not participate,” Chrétien declared during question period, eliciting a standing ovation from his side of the aisle.
In 2003, Jean Chretien stated firmly that, without the backing of the United Nations, Canada wouldn’t support the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.
That same day, the U.S. had withdrawn a resolution from the Security Council that would have explicitly authorized military action after it seemed likely to face defeat.
CBC News obtained a copy of the minutes from the final cabinet meeting — dated Feb. 25, 2003 — prior to Chrétien’s declaration through an access to information request.
While the U.S.’s resolution faced opposition before it was even introduced, the documents suggest the Canadian government was preparing possible military options.
Then minister of national defence John McCallum said in the meeting that if the resolution passed, Canada wouldn’t be able to offer any ground support at that time due to commitments in Afghanistan. But he indicated that Ottawa could send ships.
“[McCallum] reiterated that the recent commitment to provide a peacekeeping contingent in Afghanistan would prevent Canada from committing ground troops, but that other military assets, such as warships, could be redeployed from their current duties in the area should Canada choose to participate,” the minutes read.
Retired general Raymond Henault, who was chief of the defence staff in 2003, says the documents correspond with what he told the government the Canadian Armed Forces could contribute to the Iraq war if Ottawa decided to join.
“We were working under the assumption that we should be ready to do whatever government decided, whether it was going to get involved or not get involved,” Henault told CBC News in an interview.
Canada had ships in the Persian Gulf at that time that were conducting counterterrorism and counter-smuggling operations.
CBC News reported in 2011 that, according to a U.S. diplomatic memo published by WikiLeaks, there were discussions between U.S. and Canadian officials about how those ships could be used on the sidelines as the invasion began.
But the cabinet minutes suggest that the role those ships were playing in the wider war on terror could have expanded or have been “redeployed” if the UN sanctioned military action.
Henault said that redeployment meant the ships “would have been involved in any combat operations that were done from a naval perspective in support of the invasion of Iraq” and would have included ships carrying patrol aircraft such as helicopters. He also suggested Canadian special forces would have been involved.
CBC News didn’t receive a response from a Chrétien representative when asked if the former prime minister would be available to participate in an interview for this story.
Rosemary Barton Live speaks with Canada’s former prime minister Jean Chrétien about his decision 20 years ago to keep Canada out of the war in Iraq.
Sen. Percy Downe, who was Chrétien’s chief of staff and present for the 2003 cabinet meeting, recalled that the government was taking the Armed Forces’ lead in terms of planning for the possibility that Canada could join the conflict.
“I think had we gone in, we would have made a real contribution. The downside, of course is … hundreds of Canadian families and individuals would have been impacted because of the Canadians who would have been killed in that war,” Downe told CBC News.
During the 2003 meeting, McCallum also argued that redistributing ground troops from Afghanistan to Iraq would hinder Canada’s contributions to the “global war on terrorism.”
“He also reminded ministers of the still significant challenge of establishing security in Afghanistan, that Canada’s contribution remains a credible first tier contribution to the global war on terrorism and that disengaging to contribute to a war in Iraq would hurt rather than help in this regard,” the documents read.
At the time, Canadian troops were in Afghanistan participating in Operation Apollo and the government had just committed to Operation Athena which began in the summer of 2003.
“Afghanistan was dominating everything we were doing at that point,” Henault said.
“We said we can’t do ground troops in both locations. It just isn’t sustainable, especially in the longer term.”
Even though Canada was not a member of the Security Council at the time, Chrétien told his team that Canada was focused on helping resolve the impasse as the body debated the U.S. resolution.
“[The prime minister] emphasized that Canadian efforts were focused on trying to bridge divergent positions within the Security Council in order to reduce the possibility of deadlock and/or unilateral action that would lead to a serious erosion in the United Nations’ role and relevance,” the minutes from the February 2003 meeting read.
Following Chrétien’s comments, then foreign affairs minister Bill Graham told cabinet that Canada would “continue to clearly communicate its goal of achieving disarmament in Iraq, as opposed to a regime change, and that continuing to negotiate more broadly acceptable UN resolution language remained the best approach.”
Michael Kergin, who served as Canada’s ambassador in Washington at the time, said from his perspective the Bush administration had already made up its mind on invading Iraq and viewed the push for UN approval as an “irrelevant nuisance and chaff.”
“They dismissed that activity in New York as completely irrelevant to what they were doing. They weren’t working the corridors that much. They were doing their public messaging,” he said.
A question of sovereignty
Even though Ottawa’s official decision was announced just days before the invasion, Kergin recalled having the sense that Washington had basically written off Canada as a participant after Chrétien told Bush during a meeting months prior that the prime minister needed “absolute proof” that Saddam was stockpiling weapons of mass destruction.
“The messaging that we were sending was sufficient for them to say, ‘Ok, we won’t put you on the inner core of the planning and the discussions about this,'” Kergin said.
“The Americans never ever really pushed us too hard because they already knew.”
During his visit to Canada, U.S. President George W. Bush speaks about American actions in Iraq.
Kergin said he had advised the government to give the Americans a heads up when an official decision was coming. But he recalled Chrétien’s team kept it so close to their chest that even he didn’t know for sure what was happening during the March 17 question period.
“I think they were concerned that if we went to the Americans first, there might be a leak in Washington and this might get out in the wires before the Canadians [had a chance to hear it],” Kergin said.
“Without myself having a heads up on that decision, I saw it on television — because I had a T.V. in my office, obviously — along in question period along with everybody else.”
Chrétien’s ultimate decision to stay out of the war was viewed as an assertion of Canada’s sovereignty at the time.
But Downe said he felt that the government was just following the lead of Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson when he opted out of the Vietnam War decades earlier.
“We had the precedent of being independent, making her own decision,” he said.
“Prime Minister Chrétien, as you know, had lots of experience in politics. He had been around the block more than once. So he knew the questions to ask and to push the Americans to get the information he required to support them. They never actually did that.”
As the United States faces the prospect of another war against Iraq in 2003, CBC correspondent Joe Schlesinger explores the human tragedy of the 1991 Gulf War.
Cabinet generally appeared to support the prime minister’s decision, according to additional documents CBC News obtained through an access to information request.
“Ministers expressed support for the position and handling of the Iraq issue,” read minutes from a cabinet meeting dated March 18, 2003, the day after Chrétien’s announcement.
“Ministers also indicated the need for continuing principled leadership to help rebuild Iraq post-conflict, to bring greater stability to the Middle East region and to continue Canadian efforts in the fight against terrorism.”
But Downe said there were concerns, even within cabinet, that the decision would hurt relations with the U.S.
“Looking back after 25 years, everybody is delighted Prime Minister Chrétien made that decision, but at the time it was quite controversial,” he said.
“There were people in cabinet, there were people in caucus — particularly the business community across Canada were very worried that if we didn’t participate there would be significant harm to Canada.”
Kergin said he didn’t receive much backlash from the Bush administration itself, but he did field calls from congressional Republicans.
While the U.S. and other allies launched the military action without authorization of the Security Council, a 2020 research paper asserted that Canadian intelligence assessments of the situation in Iraq — including Baghdad’s weapons capabilities, the regional implications of an invasion and the subsequent internal instability — were generally accurate in the run-up to the invasion.
The regional instability seemed to be on Graham’s mind, who briefed cabinet during the Feb. 25 meeting on the “efforts being made to advise Canadians present in the Middle East of the growing risks of remaining in the region.”
Other ministers also “voiced concern over the distinct possibility of a paradoxical outcome where a war in Iraq could increase rather than decrease terrorism; and that Canada should consider the long-term determinants of terrorism.”
The war ultimately created a vacuum that led to ISIS emerging as a credible threat in Iraq. Canada and other allies would send troops in 2014 in an effort to beat back the militant group and prevent it from launching terrorist attacks on the West.
Debates on when taking life is ‘justified’
As the discussion around Iraq was wrapping up during the Feb. 25 cabinet meeting, the general conversation turned philosophical, as the ministers of the day “discussed the conditions under which war, and ultimately taking life, is justified.”
The conversation also turned to topics that echo concerns that resonate in 2026, specifically divisions among allies.
“Ministers also expressed serious concerns about the fault lines that were emerging amongst North Atlantic allies and within Europe, the implications of an erosion in multilateralism” the documents says.
When asked about those final conversations in that meeting over 20 years ago, Downe recalled it being “a highly charged, highly emotional time”
“The emotions were very high because a decision to go into Iraq would [with] all probability mean that Canadians would be killed, families would be devastated, a husband or mother would be lost in the war, parents, grandparents would be grieving, children would grow up without that parent in their life,” he said.
“It’s a very heavy decision to make.”
