Mea culpa

Babble on.

It looks like I was a little too quick to condemn our new CDS as just another bureaucrat in uniform.

In his change of command speech - his first public statement as Chief of Defence Staff - he bluntly stated that the CF needs more money. In fact, he phrased it as an admonition to two of his political masters seated on the dais with him: Paul Martin and Bill Graham.

"In this country, we could probably not give enough resources to the men and women to do all the things that we ask them to do," [Gen Hillier] said at the Ottawa ceremony marking the transfer of command from his predecessor, Gen. Ray Henault. "But we can give them too little, and that is what we are now doing. Remember them in your budgets."
...
"The difference is that he said it in public. . . . So at least he's broken that taboo," said [Conservative Defence Critic Gordon] O'Connor, a former brigadier-general and once Gen. Hillier's superior officer.

Nicholas pointed me to another story that, if accurate, also raises my estimation of Gen Hillier.

A senior defence department official said Gen. Rick Hillier took one look at the much-ballyhooed defence policy review shortly after his promotion Jan. 14 and scrapped it.

"It was boring, dry and dreadful," an official close to Hillier told Sun Media of the report, which would have had the blessing of outgoing CDS Gen. Ray Henault.

Contrary to what I wrote earlier, this is a promising start. I definitely jumped the gun on Hillier. Now let's see how hard he fights and how effective he is.

Babble off.