CF-18 pilots' commander still would like 'to be at the forefront' of attacking ISIS
CBC News | Posted: May 4, 2016 1:20 AM | Last Updated: May 4, 2016
'We're all human beings' who are affected by taking lives, Lt.-Col. David Moar tells Mansbridge
The commander of the Canadian pilots who flew missions against ISIS in Iraq and Syria said he and his colleagues would still like to be out in the field, but he accepts the prime minister's decision to pull the CF-18s out of a combat role.
"It was not difficult to accept, but you know, I would have to be frank and say I would expect every single fighter pilot in the RCAF wants to be at the forefront of the operation," said Lt.-Col. David Moar. "I would expect that for any of our pilots."
In February, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau ended Canada's airstrike mission against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, pulling out its six fighter jets.
Instead, Trudeau said, Canada would refocus its mission by boosting the number of Canadian Forces members helping to train local ground troops to fight ISIS in northern Iraq.
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"I think we understand things enough to say CF-18s is a way we can support and influence this operation, but there's other ways that are equally as productive or more productive," said Moar, the CF-18 detachment commander. "And that's the government's responsibility to make those big decisions and how they're going to allocate those resources."
Moar provided Peter Mansbridge, the chief correspondent of CBC News, a detailed account of being a fighter pilot in that arena, as well as information about some of the missions and the effects they can have on the pilots.
'Sometimes we're having to take lives'
"What we're doing is a very, very unnatural thing for us. We're going out there and we're destroying, we're destroying things sometimes, sometimes we're having to take lives," he said.
"It's an unnatural — it's important that we communicate about that, we talk about that as a unit and that we're firm in our resolve about what we're doing. We're all human beings, there's absolutely an impact and we do need to talk about it a lot but again, I've never seen the resolve of our pilots shaken by anything," Moar said.
"And although they may have thoughts about some of the things that we're doing and some of the effects that we're having on the ground, the reasons are clear and our targeting process is solid. We're always striking targets that we're firmly committed to and we're doing things for the right reasons."
4 to 8 hours in the air
Moar said the missions can be quite draining. Those in northern Iraq, for example, usually took place about 800 kilometres from the pilots' base in Kuwait and could last between four and eight hours. To maintain that heightened awareness, pilots would fly only two or three missions a week.
The fighter jets would typically carry two to four weapons per mission, including laser-guided and GPS-guided bombs. But after a weapons drop, Moar said a pilot might remain in the area to inform the air operations centre about what's happening on the ground.
Those who noted that Canada only participated in two to three per cent of the airstrikes were missing the full picture, he said.
Canadian pilots would also fly missions to gather information for other formations to attack and would work with the coalition on tactics and procedures and on planning missions.
Moar was part of the December 2014 mission to help Yazidi refugees who had been trapped in the Sinjar mountains by ISIS fighters. He dropped GPS-guided weapons on ISIS locations where fighters were set to ambush the fleeing Yazidis.
'I had a pretty good view of what was going on'
"I could see the fighters, behind, getting organized and moving some equipment back behind them, so I had a pretty good view of what was going on."
Attacks like these were timed down to the second. Pilots knew a couple of days in advance what the target would be and its significance.
"I know at what time I'm going to be at a specific location. I know what time I'm going to perform the strike and what time I'm going to get home again."
Before releasing the weapon, Moar said he checks to see if anything on the ground has changed, whether vehicles that weren't supposed to be there have entered the picture, or people are moving around who weren't expected to be there.
A pilot's worst fear
Ultimately, the decision to drop a weapon would rest with the pilot. Moar said his worst fear was that while the weapon was falling, something on the ground would change.
While the military spends a lot of time gathering information and going to great lengths to try to predict what is going to occur around a target area, there will always be a bit of uncertainty.
"That being said, we were very successful in our targeting process and making sure all of those factors were taken care of, that we never did make a mistake of that nature," Moar said.
He said ISIS employs challenging tactics and procedures and is a "very capable and determined threat."
"This is not necessarily a situation where a massive amount of air power is going to completely wipe out a threat in a very short amount of time; this is going to be a persistent effort that's going to require a lot of different capabilities and a lot of different approaches."