How Goes The War?

"[Islamic State] is very much affected by the successes of the air campaign. We are seeing that they (Islamic State) are far less offensive and far more defensive. They are changing their tactics."
"Many months ago they were openly and overtly on the move throughout Iraq, exploiting their momentum. That is absolutely no longer the case. They are having to hide. They have had to stop using bigger weapons systems like tanks, artillery. Right now they are setting up defensive positions and using asymmetrical tactics such as [Improvised Explosive Devices]."
"The assessment still is that ISIL presents enough of a threat that I know that as it sits right now there are targets being surveilled, detected and prosecuted."
"From a military perspective I have got a sense the Canadian media have been very respectful of the op sec (operational security)piece. It truly is a matter of protecting our people and taking the threat very seriously."
"With what happened with Cpl. (Nathan) Cirillo and Warrant Office (Patrice) "Vincent, (it) drove home to Canadians that this is an enemy that is ruthless and has to be taken seriously. As commander here my number one goal is the protection of my people."
Col. Daniel Constable, Kuwait City, Kuwait

Aircrew aboard a CC-150T Polaris from Air Task Force-Iraq conduct night air-to-air refueling operations 

with Canadian fighter aircraft in support of Operation IMPACT. (OP Impact/DND)

"We're not at risk [in Canada] from ISIL [Islamic State] because we're fighting them. We're fighting them because we are at risk from them."
Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Ottawa

Matters have ostensibly moved so successfully with the U.S.-led coalition of airstrikes against the Islamic State of Iraq and Al-Sham that they have had to huddle in situ rather than set out in mechanized columns as in the past, moving on schedule toward one target after another; towns and cities, Iraqi military bases, vital dams and water plants, uprooting the regime's defense and taking possession of oilfields to exploit and enrich their conquest of the country.

The setback that is being described is that of a hitherto-successful major force whose reputation for extreme brutality and battlefield techniques lodged blind terror in the minds of the Iraqi military which melted away at the first sign of the oncoming ISIS convoys. What Iraq could not accomplish for itself, on its own, the allied intervention of the West and a few MidEast countries has done for them, placing them on the brink of setting their timetable for full push-back.

Prevailing conditions, stated Col. Constable, provide for "Iraqi forces to decide when the time is right to go on the offensive to clear those areas that were taken by ISIL". He was speaking to a Postmedia journalist, the peripatetic Matthew Fisher, from Kuwait near the Canadian bases where 600 Canadian personnel, six CF-18 Hornets, two CP-140 Aurora reconnaissance aircraft and a CC-150 Polaris in-air refuelling tanker are based.

"[Compared to Libya] where we were not as well co-ordinated with the forces on the ground that were being attacked by (Gadhafi's) forces, what I see different in this war [is coalition aircraft improved] preciseness of targeting because of Baghdad's involvement. For example, when F-18s are assigned to do close air support and strike missions the ultimate target engagement authority is the government of Iraq."

A CP-140 Aurora aircraft pilot from Air Task Force-Iraq conducts a mission during Operation 

IMPACT on December 13, 2014. (OP Impact/DND)

The RCAF's Auroras, it was pointed out were "a tremendous asset to the coalition". Their electro-optical and infra-red cameras, state-of-the-art synthetic aperture radar, permit crew "to determine if a vehicle has a weapon on board that has been recently fired", and "to see through the weather". The Aurora, given its impressive flying time is able to "record the impact of weapons as they fall", lingering "to record post-blast effects, which amounts to near real-time battle damage assessment."

Reports that Iranian F-4 Phantoms had also carried out strikes against Islamic State targets is an impolite, impolitic topic, given the Republic's status among coalition partners. "The only thing I can say about the Iranian forces is that I am in the same boat as you. I have only read open source materials that have said that what purport to be Iranian assets (are) flying in Iraqi air space. I honestly don't know if the Iranians are doing this. I cannot really comment on the Iranian piece."

How morally embarrassing. It certainly does gall when a self-respecting democracy proud of its human rights record, prepared to damn the truly brutal record of a country that has insinuated into the same fight, must swallow the gall threatening to choke off those statements of condemnation in the reality of unfortunate consequences of taking sides.