Battle diary: a Canadian soldier looks back on a year commanding NATO troops in Iraq

Almost a month ago, Canadian Maj.-Gen. Jennie Carignan bid farewell via video to the NATO troops she had commanded, sayingher time in Iraq had come to end after "an eventful year."

"Eventful"is one veryunderstatedway to describe 2020 in a country still riven bysectarian and political violence where the United States and Iran stepped perilously close to war in the middle of a worseningglobal pandemic.

Other adjectives might better describe thetumultuous year she spent in charge of the mission to help train and rebuild the Iraqi Army from the rubble and bloodletting of the war against the Islamic State. Words like"precarious" or "chaotic."Maybeeven "rewarding."

Carignan's farewell address to NATO troopsat the end of November was a distillationboth ofthe officer and the person:precise, graciousand somewhat restrained.

She had a front row seat for some of the most extraordinary and dangerous moments on the international scene in 2020.

Sowhat was it like to sit in her chair?

A lot is riding on the western military alliance's bid to stabilize Iraq.

Throughout 2020, Carignan tried to hold the NATO mission together in the face of a threatenedwar with Iran, the riskof foreign troops being expelled from Iraq and the anxiety andconfusion of the coronavirus pandemic.

Canada commanded that high-profile NATO deployment for two years, an important international engagement for the Liberal government that ended quietly and inconspicuously with Carignan's return home, along with more than 200 other soldiers who had run the Baghdad headquarters and provided security.

In an interview with CBC Radio's The House airing today, Carignan recounted some of her experiences in Iraq including her fear thatsome Iraqis might turn on NATO trainers in the aftermath of the United States'high-profile targetedkilling of an Iranian general.

Touching on some ofthe key dates of the mission,she presenteda nuanced, personal battle diary (of sorts) and a unique perspective on an extraordinarily dangerous year.

CBC News: The House9:14The battle diary of a Canadian general in Iraq

As the head of NATOs training mission in Iraq, Maj.-Gen. Jennie Carignan had a front row seat to some of the most extraordinary and dangerous moments on the international scene in 2020. What was it like to sit in her chair as she tried to hold the NATO mission together in the face of a potential war with Iran, possible expulsion from Iraq and a global pandemic? The CBC's Murray Brewster spoke with her about some of the key moments, giving us a glimpse into her battle diary.

Nov. 26, 2019

This is the day Carignan took command of NATO Training Mission Iraq (NTMI) from another Canadian, Maj.-Gen. Dany Fortin. She said she was aware that she was stepping into "a well established mission" involvingalliance troopshelping totrain Iraq Army trainers and advisingthe country's ministry of defence.

An engineer by professionwith two masters degreesand a veteran of multiple deployments including a combat tour of Afghanistan Carignan saidthe magnitude of her new responsibilitiessettled on her that morning before the handover ceremony.

"Earlier in my career as a young officer on previous deployments,I remember looking at these generals leadingmultinational forces in foreign countries," she said."And I was always wondering, 'How did they get there?'"

It only started to feelreal, she said, the moment she put her signature on the transfer-of-authority documents.

"As you're signing ... the document, you're actually realizing that this has actually happened. It's now official." Carignan said.

She had come to Iraq with a clear set of ideasabouthow to improve the mission.

Jan. 3, 2020

The U.S. drone strike that killed General Qassem Soleimani, the head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Quds Force, happened in the very early hours at the Baghdad airport.

"I was in bed and, like many times during this deployment, somebody came knocked at my door, woke me up in the middle of the night to tell me what had just happened," said Carignan.

What followed was a confusing few hours.

"Of course, nobody [in the NATO training mission] was in the loop that this was going to happen," Carignan said. "Initially, we were not quite sure what had happened because we went onto the news feeds."

The headquarters for the U.S.-led coalition that is still hunting the remnants of the Islamic State was across the compound fromCarignan's command post, and it was through American commanders that she gained a clearer understanding of what had happened.

"At that moment, I definitely realized that nothing would be the same anymore that we were in a very precarious situation," she said.

Military life, especially command, is all about planning and gaming out scenarios. Carignansaid she'dactually given a lot of thought to how the death of a prominent Iranian figure likeSoleimaniin Iraq might affect her mission.

"I wargamed a few scenarios and somehowalthough I had no idea that this was actually going to happen this is one of the scenarios that I ran through my head prior to this actually happening," she said.

Killed along withSoleimani was the deputy chairman of Iraq's Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) and commander of the Iran-backed militia, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis.

It was, for Carignan, almost breathtaking.

"This caused a lot of relationships to change in Iraq."

Jan. 5, 2020

This was the day the Iraqi parliament voted to end the presence of foreign troops in the country. ForCarignan, it was "one of the most difficult days of the mission."

It seemed that no one withinNATO and coalition command or the Iraqi government, for that matter knew whether that non-binding resolution applied to the international training mission.

"It was difficult because there was a sense that we were at a crossroads of the mission termination," she said. "So of course, if NATO is not welcome in Iraq anymore ... what this resolution meant [was]that we didn't have a mission anymore."

Particularlyin the wake of al-Muhandis'skilling, there wasa palpable fear in the mission that some of their Iraqis students might turn on them.

"We had to organize for putting troops to safety to make sure that we were not in the situation where troops were not well protected," Carignan said."The level of risk also increased on the camp itself, because there was a potential threat ... [from] Iraqis in targeting our own forces."

Within an hour of the vote, huddled withstaff over her dining room table,she sketched out a plan to evacuate the bulk of the troops doing the training of Iraqis trainers.

"I remember being on the phone with my boss while under rocket attack at the same time," Carignan said. "Within 24 hours, we basically had put our troops to safety."

Jan 8, 2020

With surging crowds in Tehran chanting "death to America," Iran struck back with a barrage of ballistic missiles fired at U.S.-operated basesnorth of Baghdad and in Erbil, the capital of the semi-autonomous Kurdish region in northern Iraq.

Once again, Carignan was roused from sleep in the middle of the night.

"What went through my mind is, definitely, thank God we put the troops out to safety," she said."We did the right thing. Where is this going to go next?"

She didn't have to wait long to find out.Within hours of the missilestrikes, news began to filter through that a Ukrainian jetliner Flight 752 had crashed in Iran.

"We were tracking this live as this was happening," Carignan said, referring to internationalnewsfeeds. "And again ...this is a terrible event, but definitely a huge mistake on the Iranian side, a military, a strategic failure... a human tragedy."

Like any goodcommander wouldin a crisis, Carignan spent much of that daytrying to get a read on the situation from her staff members, who were themselvesscrambling to keep up with events.

"I had a very very small office, so we had the couch outside ...where folks could wait until they get to meet with the people." she said. "And often I sat on that couch, intercepting people as they came in and out for various discussions. I sat a lot on that couch as I was trying to make sense of the events."

Carignan had been sent there to train the Iraqis. Suddenly,everything seemed to be unravelling.

"I was in the mindset now that we might be, you know, looking at mission termination," she said. "And the next thing that came up to my mind is ...we still have to give this a try. This might be the end of an escalation."

She was right.

March 11, 2020

The troops Carignan had sent out of harm's way in January slowly trickled back in early March as the U.S. and Iran took a step back from war.

Late on the same day, when the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a global pandemic, Carignan was in heroffice. A barrage of rockets had been fired at one of the NATO training centres.

News of the pandemicwent off like a bomb and Carignan said she realized she had to take swift action.

"We basically had to collapse our train-the-trainers activities in our satellite sites outside of Baghdad starting on the 11th of March," she said. "We had to take specific actions and adapt to the pandemic context. So they had to cease training for a while to protect the force. They had to operate differently."

The sense of apprehension in the mission returned. Facing an invisible enemy,Carignan realizedshe "could not forecast exactly how this was going to turn out."

March 19, 2020

On this day, Carignan had to make a decision.Would the troops that hadjust returned stayor go?

Could the mission so crucial to Iraq's struggle againstterrorism be saved?

"Troops who had just barely come back in Iraq,after two to three weeksI had to resend back home," she said.

Againsitting on the couch outside her office, Carignan had to make peace with the reality of bothIraq andthe pandemic.

No training was taking place, although the work ofadvising the Iraqi defence ministry continued on a limited basis. With its work at a virtual standstill, the mission waslosing bothground and time.

"I had to tell myself,'OK, enough.' We just have to start doing things differently," Carignan said.

"You don't have control over these situations that are going to unfoldThere's not much point in wasting time in complaining as to why things are not working."

She presented NATO with a series of recommendations on how to deal with the instability generated bySolemani'skilling and the pandemic.Senior commanders snapped up her ideas.

Oct. 31, 2020

It would take months for the mission to crawl back through the haze of pandemic restrictions to where it had been prior to the killing of Soleimaniin January.

A point of personal pride for Carignan is the fact the NATO mission did not record a single case of COVID-19until September, and the disease remained tightly confined within the mission.

By the end of October, she was setting up an expanded, more ambitious missionfor a Danish general to take over.

"I learned that we have to stop worrying about the situation [that is in front us] and we need to concentrate on what it is that we actually control, which is what we do and how we react to two particular events and situations," she said.

Nov. 24, 2020

Carignan relinquished missioncommand to Lt.-Gen. Per Pugholm Olsenof the Danish Armed Forces.

Back in Canada and ready for a new assignment, she said she is still processing the experience.

"I definitely grew as a person," Carignan said. "Of course, you always come back changed from our expeditionary missions because we are confronted with cultures very different from our own.

"I will need a little bit more time, I think, to revisit everything that happened because I was very much focused on making things happen. But now I'll be able to take a little bit of a step back and reflect a little bit on everything."