Canada was prepared to send ships to Iraq in 2003 if UN approved action, records show
Newly released cabinet minutes from 2003 reveal that the Canadian government was prepared to send naval ships to support the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq if the UN Security Council had authorized the action. Ultimately, Prime Minister Jean Chrétien decided against participation after the UN failed to pass a resolution.
Why it matters
These documents provide historical insight into the diplomatic pressures and internal deliberations Canada faced during the lead-up to the Iraq War.
The minutes from the final cabinet meetings leading up to the invasion show the government was still planning for the possibility that the UN would sanction military action, and shows how that possibility weighed on ministers as they engaged in philosophical discussions around life and death.
The U.S. launched the invasion, purportedly to disarm Saddam Hussein of weapons of mass destruction that were never found. U.S. President George W. Bush's administration billed the conflict as part of the wider war on terror, launched in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks just under two years prior.
Prime Minister Jean Chrétien officially announced in the House of Commons that Canada wouldn't join the U.S.-led "coalition of the willing" in Iraq on March 17, 2003 — just days before the invasion began.
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