Bureaucrats plot to overthrow military: Hillier

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 12/10/2010 (5653 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

OTTAWA — Canada’s former top soldier is warning that “field marshal wannabes” are angling to take a bigger role in directing the day-to-day operations of military forces in the field.

Retired general Rick Hillier says a policy paper is circulating around senior levels of the Harper government that suggests the Clerk of the Privy Council and the deputy minister of defence take a greater role to “guide” the military.

The former chief of defence staff writes, in a new postscript for the softcover edition of his memoirs, there is a growing movement within the federal government to establish a system of micro-management that could extend from the highest reaches of Ottawa down to individual combat units.

The paper was produced within the last year and has been the subject of some discussion, according to Hillier, and would give senior bureaucrats greater powers than those in the National Defence Act.

The notion that the military needs greater guidance on how to conduct operations irked Hillier.

“What crap!” Hillier writes in the new edition of A Soldier First, a copy of which was obtained by The Canadian Press.

“The National Defence Act is clear — our sons and daughters need to have direction from the leaders that Canadians have elected, and they need to have that direction passed through the Chief of Defence Staff without interference from bureaucrats who have no preparation or training for this task, and no responsibility for those lives.

“Any governments who permit anything different should have their rear ends booted out of office by moms and dads of those serving sons and daughters.”

Defence Minister Peter MacKay said in a statement the relationship between civilians and the military is productive and not strained.

— The Canadian Press