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Last fall Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, praised the Arab nations for their role in the bombing campaign and highlighted their use of precision guided munitions in Syria.

These nations “are performing just as well as we are on the issue of precision and reducing the possibility of collateral damage,” Dempsey said.

When Kenney made his false claims on TV, there were some inside National Defence headquarters who couldn’t figure out why he was saying what he was saying. After all, Kenney had been thoroughly briefed about the Syrian mission, so he either didn’t understand the basic information he had been told or he was just ignoring what he had been told, sources pointed out to Defence Watch.

With Kenney under fire from opposition MPs who were accusing him of misleading the public on the Syrian mission, the scramble was on in the Canadian Forces to try to dig out the gaffe-prone minister from the problem of his own making.

So on the weekend they came up with this statement about the Ottawa Citizen article, now published on the DND/CF site:

As stated by the Minister of National Defence, the Royal Canadian Air Force’s precision targeting capabilities make Canada a valuable partner in the fight against ISIL. The weapons that will be employed will be amongst the most advanced precision-guided munitions in the world. These weapons are equipped with laser and GPS guidance systems, giving Canada the ability to strike targets in all types of weather. Currently, only the United States uses these advanced precision-guided munitions in Syria.