The fleeing of Kabul by Canadian diplomats embarrassed the country, MPs were told Monday night..Blacklock’s Reporter said the Department of Foreign Affairs still hasn’t explained why diplomats fled Kabul though Canadian citizens remained trapped under Taliban control in Afghanistan..“We were the first embassy to depart,” Major-General (Ret’d) Dean Milner, the last Canadian combat commander in the region, testified at the Commons Special Committee on Afghanistan..“That was very embarrassing for a lot of us on the ground..“They could have been a lot of help. I know I was working with a number of them in the embassy and all of a sudden, boom! they were gone.”.“Can you elaborate on the impact of closing the embassy?” asked Conservative MP Alex Ruff (Bruce-Grey, Ont.), a former battalion commander in the Afghan War..“That was a huge challenge,” replied Milner. “We moved our embassy out way too fast, there is no doubt in my mind.”.Ambassador Reid Sirrs closed the Embassy last August 15. Military commanders were left to operate rescue flights from Kabul’s airport until all missions were suspended August 26. Foreign Affairs later confirmed it knew of at least 1,250 Canadians trapped inside the country alongside thousands of Afghan nationals who’d requested Canadian visas..“We saw this coming in July,” testified Major-General (Ret’d) David Fraser, former commandant of the Canadian Forces College..“There could have been a lot more people evacuated out of Afghanistan before Kandahar fell and before Kabul fell..“This is on the shoulders of Canadians and I don’t just mean the military. We could have actually done more.”.Sirrs was recalled to Ottawa last August 15. Cabinet abruptly announced last Christmas Eve he was reassigned to Buenos Aires. The hurried appointment followed a 179-156 vote in the Commons to strike a special committee to investigate the collapse of Afghanistan..Conservative MP Michael Chong (Wellington-Halton Hills, Ont.) asked that Sirrs be recalled for questioning..The point of committee hearings was to “study what went wrong in the evacuation of people from Kabul by Canada,” Chong said..“NATO evacuated some 70,000 people leading up to August 25th,” said Chong..“One of the NATO members, for example the United Kingdom, evacuated over 11,000 people in the weeks leading up to August 25th.”.“The Government of Canada appears to have been slow and disorganized in evacuating people from Kabul in the period leading up to the end of August. It looks like there is some 2,000 to 3,000 people who were evacuated.”
