Embattled Defence Minister Gordon O'Connor -- facing more opposition pressure to resign over his handling of the Afghanistan prisoner controversy -- surprised his own foreign affairs minister yesterday by announcing Canada had struck a new deal to monitor Afghan detainees.
The announcement set off a wave of confusion and damage control within the Harper government over the treatment of prisoners taken by Canadian soldiers.
It came after a third consecutive day of calls for O'Connor's resignation in the House of Commons and opposition accusations of a Conservative government coverup of the Afghan detainee affair. It was also revealed yesterday that Foreign Affairs had been given a report last year citing widespread human-rights abuses of prisoners.
Just when it looked as if the dust had settled, O'Connor made what appeared to be an improvised announcement of the new detainee-monitoring deal after intense questioning at the Commons foreign affairs committee.
"Within the last few days we have basically made an arrangement with the government in the Kandahar province so that we can have access to our detainees. So, henceforth, our military, but it can be anybody, can have access to our detainees," O'Connor testified. Source...
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