OTTAWA - The Conservative government considered taking day-to-day control of the mission in Kandahar away from the military and giving the authority to direct troops in the field to Canada's ambassador in Kabul.
The startling revelation comes from former chief of defence staff Gen. Rick Hillier, whose provocative new memoir is making waves in Ottawa for its scathing criticism of the bureaucracy and NATO.
Hillier also weighed in on the raging political controversy over the alleged torture of prisoners in Afghan jails by stating he "doesn't recall" seeing written warnings filed by a diplomat in spring 2006, nearly a year before the Conservative government admitted there was a problem.
In his memoir "A Soldier First: Bullets, Bureaucrats and the Politics of War," the retired general makes brief reference to a proposal that would have usurped his control over the military, but expanded on it in a lengthy interview Thursday with The Canadian Press.
He said he first heard about the proposal from one of his ground commanders in Afghanistan, who telephoned him in Ottawa in late 2007 and he immediately set about nixing the idea.
"They could have talked all they wanted, it was simply not going to happen," the retired general said.
The proposal, which was one of a handful of options being considered as the government struggled to redefine the mission, would have seen the army asking the ambassador for permission to conduct a combat mission whenever one was prepared.
Hillier wouldn't say who in the government floated the idea.
"It was an idiotic suggestion to start with and it disappeared very quickly," he said.
By law, the country's chief of defence staff is responsible for directing military forces and Hillier says he wasn't about to "illegally hand over that authority to a civil servant" without a huge fight.
Military commanders spend their lives developing expertise in war fighting and civil servants wouldn't have the proper training to decide such matters, Hillier added.
As the war progressed and casualties continued rising, it was well known around Ottawa that the Conservative government was looking for a way to "rein in" the military which had been perceived by federal bureaucrats as having too much say in the conduct of the mission.
A senior Conservative source said that at one time a proposal was floated between the Prime Minister's Office and the Privy Council Office about setting up a "political office" in Kandahar to take more direct control of all aspects of the war, including military operations.
The idea was eventually dropped because of resistance from Hillier.
A spokesman for Defence Minister Peter MacKay said he'd never heard of the proposal, adding any suggestion that politicians would call the shots in the field simply wouldn't fly.
"Polticians don't direct operations," Dan Dugas said Thursday night.
"The military chain of command has command over CF operations in Afghanistan. That was true then and it's true now,".
In late 2007, the government was engaged in a comprehensive blue-ribbon panel review of the mission headed by John Manley, the former Liberal deputy prime minister.
The commission delivered a report in early January 2008 that recommended more civilian involvement and led to creation of a senior civilian position in Kandahar with the same authority as the army's task force commander.
The Representative of Canada in Kandahar -- known by the acronym the RoCK -- was given power over the civilian side of the mission and input into military planning, but no direct authority over troops.
Had the proposal succeeded, it wouldn't have been the first time the Canadian government micro-managed the Afghan mission, according to Hillier.
In his memoir, the ex-general writes about his frustration with the former Liberal government over restrictions it placed on the use of Canadian troops when they were deployed in Kabul in 2004.
He was commanding all NATO forces at that time and whenever a mission would come up Canadian troops "were not his first choice" because they had to ask Ottawa for permission to conduct operations -- approval that could sometimes take a day or more.
Instead of using troops from his home country, Hillier said he would turn to the British and the Norwegians, who were able to take on difficult and dangerous missions within hours of being asked.
On the question of prisoners, Hillier says he was preoccupied throughout the spring, summer and fall of 2006 with the escalating war in Kandahar and doesn't remember reading reports by diplomat Richard Colvin.
The warnings were contained in two documents, filed in May and June 2006, that were circulated widely to senior officials within Foreign Affairs and the Defence Department.
The reports are at the centre of a political storm because the Tory government publicly denied any knowledge of potential abuse for almost a year after the warnings of mistreatment were written.
Hillier did not discount the possibility Colvin's reports made it to his desk, but said if they did they didn't stand out as imminent threats.
He said in an interview there were general discussions about prisoners, especially after Amnesty International raised concerns, and he acknowledged there was a risk in handing over captured fighters, but suggested the military and diplomats believed the risk had been "mitigated" by notifying the International Red Cross.
