KANDAHAR, AIRFIELD, Afghanistan – The Canadian military’s nearly 10-year association with its not-so-secret airbase in the United Arab Emirates ends Wednesday.
After a modest military ceremony at Camp Mirage, the last Canadian flight from there – a C-130 Hercules transport – will take off bound for Kandahar with a load of cargo.
The U.A.E. gave the Canadian Forces 30 days to quit Mirage last month. The sheikdom terminated use of the base after its demand for more landing rights in Canada for its two national carriers – Emirates Airline and Etihad Airways – was turned down by the Harper government.
Ottawa objected to linking access to a base used in the war on terror with a dispute over how often the Emirates’ two long-haul carriers could fly to Canada.
Air Canada and Transport Canada have vehemently opposed granting further landing rights to Emirates and Etihad, which now each fly three times a week to Toronto. European carriers have also expressed deep reservations about the expansion plans of the Gulf carriers, which have more new long-haul aircraft on order than the rest of the world’s airlines combined.
The Department of Foreign Affairs in Ottawa, which has taken the lead in the government’s quarrel with the U.A.E., has forbidden the military to speak about this week’s loss of the airbase. It has been a vital link in the 11,000 kilometre supply and passenger air bridge between Canada and Afghanistan.
Mirage was immensely popular with soldiers because it gave them a chance to briefly enjoy Dubai’s many extravagant shopping malls while there on way to and from the war in Afghanistan.
While the loss of Camp Mirage is not expected to affect Canada’s military operations in Kandahar, it will cost the Department of National Defence tens of millions of dollars in additional fuel costs to transport soldiers and cargo through much less conveniently located airports in Cyprus and Germany.
Extra air charters will also have to be booked to remove some of the huge amounts of military gear back from Afghanistan when the combat mission ends next summer.
The revised plan for soldiers going on leave or returning home at the end of their tours is for them to use Cyprus as a transit point. They will be flown there on the military’s version of the Airbus 310 passenger jet and C-17 jumbo transports.
Militarily sensitive cargo such as 62 tonne Leopard 2 tanks will be flown on C-17s to a U.S. airbase at Spangdahlem, Germany near the Luxembourg border.
When topped up, a C-17 can hold 102,000 litres of fuel. However, because of the high cost of fuel in Kandahar and the decreased range of the C-17 when loaded with as much as 77,500 kilograms of cargo, those flights to Germany are expected to make pit stops en route at a German airbase at Termez, Uzbekistan or a U.S. airbase at Manas, Kyrgyzstan.
As had been the plan since last year, non-sensitive cargo leaving Kandahar will travel by road through Pakistan to Karachi where it will be loaded on to ships bound for Canada.
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