Is this enough to get Gordon O'Connor turfed, finally?WASHINGTON — The International Committee of the Red Cross confirmed Wednesday that it has no role in monitoring the Canada-Afghanistan detainee-transfer agreement, in direct contradiction to assurances Defence Minister Gordon O'Connor has made to the House of Commons.
The Red Cross also said that it would never divulge to Ottawa any abuses it might identify in Afghan prisons.
“We were informed of the agreement, but we are not a party to it and we are not monitoring the implementation of it,” Simon Schorno, a spokesman for the ICRC, said in an interview.
In his most explicit statement to the House of Commons on May 31, Mr. O'Connor said: “The Red Cross or the Red Crescent is responsible to supervise their treatment once the prisoners are in the hands of the Afghan authorities. If there is something wrong with their treatment, the Red Cross or Red Crescent would inform us and we would take action.”
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Even the Foreign Affairs Department has now formally contradicted the minister's statement.
“The ICRC is not required to notify Canada,” Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Ambra Dickie confirmed in an e-mail,..
That's exactly what I've been writing about: here, here and here.
I'm glad the ICRC finally spoke up and that the G&M reporters took the time to actually fact check this situation. O'Connor has been bumbling his way through this entire affair. Either he's too damn clueless to be the defence minister or he's lying. Either way, as I've written before, he should be fired. Enough is enough.
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