The Canadian Press reporting on Tuesday's Question Period in the House of Commons:
Prime Minister Stephen Harper moved Tuesday to calm the political storm surrounding the handover of Afghan prisoners. vowing to release all "legally available" documents related to the matter.
Of course the government has since announced that Colvin's reports will remain classified which leads to Kady O'Malley anticipating David Mulroney's testimony this afternoon before the special committee investigating the handling of Afghan detainees:
...committee members now find themselves trapped in the increasingly reverse-Kafkaesque scenario that we saw unfold during yesterday's testimony by the three generals, in which it became clear that everyone at the table had read -- and, in some cases, reread and re-reread -- the material in question except for the MPs asking the questions -- the same MPs who are, at least in theory, supposed to rationalize the contradictory accounts from witnesses of who told what to whom, and when.
But it follows naturally from the other tactic the government has pursued: gag or intimidate every other witness who might support Colvin's story and then claim that Colvin is the only one who thought there might be a problem.
I saw the Star story on the June memo almost immediately after the generals had departed yesterday, and thought then that today's session with Mulroney has to be more interesting, given that the committee members would finally have some facts to work with.
And now they have even more. I wonder how long Harper and MacKay will try to keep the kabuki going. How perverse and stubborn are they?
The Conservatives are either a band of naive idiots, or righteous liars if they say they didn't know that prisoners were being tortured. And we know which of those two MacKay and company are.
But if the generals read, reread and re-reread the memos, wouldn't they KNOW Colvin talked about cable-whipping and electrical shocking?
So, all I can possibly think is that either the generals didn't read the memos in question--ever, never mind reading them again before their appearance at committee, or they were so confident the government would never let these things see the light of day that they asserted non-facts and relied on their unquestioned credibility to carry the day.
Murray Brewster's report on this also supplied some fatuous quotes from flyboy :
"Defence Minister Peter MacKay :
'We have to, of course, respect the Canada Evidence Act, The National Defence Act and rules pertaining to disclosure. And of course anything having to do with national security will have to be vetted.'
MacKay did not explain how the Justice Department could ignore Parliament's authority when it comes to providing evidence"