# "Edmonton troops carried faulty gas masks in fight against Taliban"



## AL (31 Dec 2003)

Mike Blanchfield   
Ottawa Citizen; CanWest News Service  


Tuesday, December 30, 2003
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OTTAWA - Canadian soldiers who went hunting for al-Qaeda terrorists in southern Afghanistan last year were armed with faulty gas masks that would have made them vulnerable to biological and chemical attacks.

The 880 Edmonton-based soldiers who fought alongside U.S. troops for six months had also received generally poor training in defending against biological and chemical warfare, according to an assessment written in January by a Defence Department official.

The mission to Afghanistan lasted from February to August 2002.

It "illustrated the weaknesses" of the Canadian Forces‘ biological-chemical warfare readiness, "especially for the army," the assessment says. The findings are contained in a Jan. 17 memo from Alan Williams, assistant deputy minister of defence.

Peacekeepers in Bosnia, as well as soldiers who provided security for meetings of world leaders on Canadian soil, were also not given the proper chemical and biological warfare training, the memo says. It was obtained by Ottawa researcher Ken Rubin under Access to Information.

"The unfortunate events of the last two years started a panic and with that came problems due to years of training neglect," Williams wrote.

"Training was rare if non-existent."

One of the the problems Williams noted was "holes in the C4 mask," which he said were discovered "during normal maintenance."

Other problems included "shortages of x-large NBC (chem and bio hazard) coveralls, boots, NBC casualty bags and time-expired stock. The problem of replenishment was also an issue in some cases, causing delays in issuing stock to operational units."

As it turned out, there were no chemical or biological attacks in Afghanistan. The only Canadian fatalities were the four soldiers killed in April 2002 when a a U.S. pilot mistakenly dropped a bomb on them.

One year ago, a secret Pentagon audit found that most of the U.S. army‘s gas masks and many of its chemical suits were either broken or defective.

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