Front Burner - Questions swirl after passenger jet ‘shot down’

Episode Date: January 10, 2020

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has announced that intelligence now indicates that a missile likely brought down the Ukrainian airliner that crashed in Iran - killing 176 on board, including 63 Canadians. Today on Front Burner, host Jayme Poisson talks to arms control expert Jeffrey Lewis about missile detection, and CBC senior writer Aaron Wherry about how the Canadian government might seek accountability.

This is a CBC Podcast. Hello, I'm Jamie Poisson. We have intelligence from multiple sources, including our allies and our own intelligence. The evidence indicates that the plane was shot down by an Iranian surface-to-air missile. That is, of course, the Prime Minister with a truly incredible statement that Ukrainian International Airlines Flight 752 was shot down by an Iranian missile. A civilian airliner shot out of the sky, killing all 176 people on board, 138 of whom were either Canadian citizens or with ties to this country. The Prime Minister also said it could

have been an accident. U.S. intelligence echoed this theory. But the Prime Minister also would not rule out that this could have been intentional. Today, how does something like this happen? And how will Canada make sure the guilty parties are held responsible? This is Frontburner. Jeffrey Lewis is a professor at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey. Hi, Jeffrey, thank you so much for being with me today. It's a pleasure to talk to you. So there's still so much that we don't know. But could you take me through today how something like this could conceivably happen? How could a commercial plane be mistakenly shot down by a missile?

be mistakenly shot down by a missile? Well, sadly, it's quite easy. It's happened a number of times in the past. So while, as you say, we don't really know at the moment, it's not a surprising thing. What the real core of the problem is, is that any surface-to-air missile system that's used to shoot down attacking aircraft really has to look at the world through the eyes of a radar. So what you're going to see is a blip, and there has to be a computer to interpret that blip, and ultimately a human being to make a decision about that blip. But what we've seen in the past is people make mistakes. But what we've seen in the past is people make mistakes. Okay. And of course, we know that when this happened, it was just mere hours after Iran had launched missiles at bases in Iraq. So that was the context. Well, and I think that's probably why this happened.

I mean, again, we don't know. But the plane was taking off at a time when Iran had conducted missile strikes and when the Iranians were prepared for the possibility of a retaliation from the United States that they believed would come with aircraft. And so I'm certain those units that morning would have been told to be extra vigilant. And it's in a situation like this that when you're really looking hard for something, sometimes you find it even if it's not there. Why would commercial flights be taking off in a time like this,

when these systems are in such high alert? Well, it's easy to say that with hindsight, because we know something terrible happened. But the reality is, is that there have been a lot of conflict throughout the Middle East for many, many years. There have been many periods of tension. And in fact, in one case, a civilian airliner was shot down. But you don't really know that one day is necessarily more dangerous than another. And so, you know, all of those people got on that plane that morning. And frankly, other aircraft took off. Okay. So our Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, says there's intelligence and evidence from multiple sources now. And that also includes our own intelligence,

that the plane was hit with a missile. What kind of intelligence would he have? Would it be very obvious? It should be obvious. There are satellites that should be able to detect the flash when the missile is launched. They also should have communications. And even if the communications themselves can't be intercepted, you would certainly see a spike. Okay. And, you know, for their part, the Iranians are saying that this is impossible, that there's no way this could have happened. They've been saying that this was a mechanical issue. And what do you make of that? I mean, it's what I would expect

the Iranian government to say. Obviously, we don't know yet. But I think regardless, this is such a horrible event. And it's deeply embarrassing that I would think, frankly, most governments would really want to cover something like this up. Okay. And just before we go today, this situation is very fluid. And what do you think we should be cautious of as reports about this trickle out? Well, I mean, generally, I think we should withhold judgment. It's early. And sometimes things that get reported aren't true. And so, you know, I think we should all be open to the fact that more evidence will emerge, even if at the moment, I think the evidence tends to point to

it being a shoot down. On top of that, the thing that we have to be careful about is how this is going to play out in a social media environment. Because I think what we typically will see is we'll see a lot of fake stories designed to get people to click, conspiracy theories, images from other events. You know, I think that there is going to be an enormous amount of disinformation that's, you know, frankly, going to take a lot of care and patience to sort through to try to make sure that we're just focused on the truth. Jeffrey Lewis, thank you so much. My pleasure. In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization. Empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections.

CBC senior writer Aaron Wary is here with me now to talk through what this all means for Canada and whether a full and fair investigation into what happened is even feasible. Hi, Aaron. Hey. Thanks for being with me today. No worries. So we've just heard from Jeffrey Lewis, an arms control expert, about how this plane could have been shot down.

We went through the scenario of how it could have been accidentally shot down. But I just want to acknowledge here first that there is also a scenario that it could have been purposely shot down. And Prime Minister Justin Trudeau fielded questions about that today. How did he respond? I think he went to the limits of what he can say for sure and made a point of acknowledging how much is unknown here. You know, if you go back to yesterday, he was asked, can you say for sure that it wasn't shot down?

And he said, no, you know, I can't. Obviously, we are very, very early days on the investigation, and it's dangerous to speculate on possible causes, but I will turn to... And today, I think he was, it was, you know, 24 hours later, there's a bit more knowledge. But again, there's still a lot we don't know. And I think you're seeing the Prime Minister go up to the limits of what he knows and being very careful not to go any further. Okay, let's talk about him being careful today. What tone do you think that he took when he addressed the country?

I think it was, so first of all, it was grim, it was serious. There was a demand for answers. There was him insisting on his own desire for answers. It is now more important than ever that we know exactly how such a tragedy could have happened. And him saying that the government wouldn't rest until, you know, there was accountability and transparency and justice here. You know, there were no flashes of anger. There was no sort of direct condemning of any party, you know, despite reporters sort of inviting him to speculate on what responses there might be if responsibility is found one way or another. He always sort of stopped short of that. Do you think that the United States is at least partially responsible for this tragedy? I think it is too soon to be drawing conclusions

or assigning blame or responsibility in whatever proportions. I think that is him trying to be prudent at this point and say, look, here's as much as we can know, there needs to be an investigation. Only through an investigation are you going to find out answers to these questions. And really, until those questions are answered,

he's sort of restraining himself from having any kind of commenting on anything that would look like a conclusion. Why do you think he was so prudent? Given how much is unknown here and how much cooperation he is going to need or want from other countries, including from Iran, you know, it isn't in his best interest. It arguably probably isn't even in Canada's best interests to be out sort of thumping the desk and blaming people before the trial has happened, you know, pronouncing guilt before the trial's happened.

Trudeau has conducted foreign policy over the last three years over the major sort of conflict points with either Trump or China, there has been an overriding desire to not escalate, to not be the party that is taking what is already a very volatile situation and pushing it further. You know, I don't know if necessarily they had that in their mind today, but it seems to follow from that same kind of approach. Right. He has mentioned several times, and there have been statements released by various arms of the government about the importance of de-escalation here. I want to pick up on something you said, the idea that we need cooperation from other countries here, particularly Iran, who is in charge of this investigation. The prime minister repeatedly said on Thursday that we need closure, transparency, accountability, and justice. And how can we get that in this current climate? Iran is already saying that the black box is

compromised. They're saying that this wasn't a missile. What kind of position does that put us in? And what kind of leverage do we have? It's unclear what leverage we have. That, I think, was one of the questions that Trudeau was asked. And I think he sort of didn't want to get into that debate. We have consular officials who are en route to Ankara, Turkey at this moment. And the Iranian authorities have indicated that they would be open to issuing visas. Canada is not dealing with an ally here. It is not dealing with a Western democracy. You know, we don't have an embassy there. There are no diplomatic relations. So this is a difficult situation to walk into. You know, the country that is responsible isn't necessarily going to be super keen to open themselves up to foreign investigation and

blame. But that presumably goes even double when it's a country like Iran. And so, you know, the prime minister is in a situation where he needs to get into Iran, he needs his officials to get into Iran, he needs there to be an investigation. And right now, that really requires, you know, not only working with Iran, but hopefully working with other allies, you know, Ukraine, Australia, Italy, the UK, you know, presumably even the United States, to try to get to that situation. He can't. Canada is not the United States. We can't just sort of thump the table and demand things and expect everyone to sort of fall in line.

Right. You know, we have to work with other people. You know, Trudeau was also asked about justice on Thursday. This is a country that is already heavily sanctioned. So what could we even do? Yeah, that's unclear. I mean, if you go back and look at at least one past precedent, that being when the Americans in 1988 shot down an Iranian airline. It happened in the Persian Gulf near the Strait of Hormuz.

The airliner was making a short flight from Iran to Dubai. On the water below, a battle was raging. American warships were exchanging fire with Iranian gunboats. As the Airbus 300 approached, two missiles were fired from the USS Vincennes. The plane was knocked from the sky. It took a long time, but the United States eventually admitted fault and paid compensation to both Iran and the victims. I believe it was, you know, tens of millions of dollars in

compensation. Okay. So there's some accountability, I guess, in that respect. Past that, you're not dealing with a ton of precedent, I don't think. And it's hard to know exactly how this would play out in a way that would lead to accountability, except insofar as a full and independent and thorough investigation would at least give you answers about who was responsible. Right. And perhaps some closure for the many friends and family affected by this crash. I want to talk about the United States for a second. Given all this new information, I imagine many of those families and friends of victims are thinking that they've gotten themselves caught in the middle of a war between the U.S. and Iran.

The Canadians are essentially collateral damage here. 176 good people were lost on that flight needlessly. Red flags went up as soon as, you know, the Ukrainian government withdrew their statements. This happened in the midst of a big dispute between Iran and U.S. on the night that Iran is launching ballistic missiles. Including all the other people who were on board from several other countries, including the Ukraine. What does this mean for the relationship between the United States and Canada? Like with so much of what's happened over the last three years, it's so hard to say. This is not a relationship at this point where you can easily fall back on, OK, well, how would this usually play out?

What are the sort of normal bounds of how the two countries have interacted? What can you expect out of the president? It's really hard to know exactly what that relationship would look like. And it's, you know, you can see where this conversation is going. As you suggested, it's, you know, Trudeau faced questions about it already. If this started with the American drone strike, then doesn't the United States share some responsibility for what happened here? Even if Trudeau doesn't raise it, it's going to be a conversation that's going to come up. And it will be interesting because they've had to be so

calculated about how everything else they've, in terms of how they've commented about American actions and how they've interacted with the president. It will be very interesting to see how they deal with that question, if or when it sort of becomes very obvious or not, I guess, that you can draw a line here from what the United States did with what happened with this plane. You know, if you go back to MH17, when it was shot down, Barack Obama, granted, the United States wasn't necessarily directly involved or as directly involved in that issue as Canada is here. You know, Barack Obama gave a statement shortly thereafter in which he said, look, this is one of the unforeseen consequences of a conflict, a military conflict like this. Evidence indicates that the plane was shot down

by a surface-to-air missile that was launched from an area that is controlled by Russian-backed separatists inside of Ukraine. We also know that this is not the first time a plane has been shot down in eastern Ukraine. And that's a very defensible conclusion. It will be interesting to see whether Trudeau at some point has enough evidence and feels that he can start to sort of bring it into that conversation, given the sensitivities of just dealing with this American president. 2014. And also the incident you mentioned earlier, the Iran flight 655, when a US Navy warship shot down an Iranian civil airliner flying over the Persian Gulf, you mentioned that compensation eventually came in that case. There's so much at stake here, Aaron, it feels like this is a very big challenge for Justin Trudeau moving forward. How do you expect this to unfold in the weeks to come? Look, this is high stakes. This is closely watched. And this is a very difficult situation. To a certain extent, he put a fair bit of responsibility on himself today when he said

that I want answers and this government will not rest until we get them. This is not a situation that is going to pass easily or quickly, and it is going to carry on for weeks or months, you know, either at the forefront as it is now or in the background. You know, there will be an expectation that he and this government are doing as much or the right things to get to answers to address this situation. And that's not, it's not an easy situation to solve,, it's not an easy situation to solve and it's not an easy situation to address. You could sort of see him, I think, to a certain degree,

formulating a response today, you know, beginning with a focus on the families, speaking about their personal and individual grief. Before we go any further, I want to extend once again my most sincere condolences to the families of the victims and their loved ones. I, and we are, all standing with you. Then moving on to the larger questions. I suspect that that's kind of how this is going to go.

Look, there's going to be a period of grieving. He's going to have to be, you know, sort of front and center as a representative of the country in that, then there's going to be this search for answers. And then there's going to be a search for accountability. And he's going to be at the forefront of those things as well. And you can sort of see how this is going to play out, but it's going to play out over a very long time. You know, it's possible that this kind of gets addressed easier than it might seem, but it's also possible that this will take months, you know, maybe even years to really work itself out.

Aaron Wary, thank you so much. Thank you. That's all for this week. FrontBurner comes to you from CBC News and CBC Podcasts. The show is produced by Mark Apollonio, Imogen Burchard, Elaine Chao, and Shannon Higgins. Derek Vanderwyk does our sound design with help this week from Billy Heaton. Our music is by Joseph Shabison of Boombox Sound. The executive producer of Frontburner is Nick McCabe-Locos.

And I'm Jamie Poisson. Thanks so much for listening and see you all on Monday. Thank you.