Someone at Ameriblog posted a link to this article. I found it very interesting……..

Calling Canada’s claim of sovereignty over the Northwest Passage “excessive” and “tenuous,” a top Pentagon adviser says Canada should work through the United Nations to protect its security and environmental concerns in the Arctic.

“The Law of the Sea does not support some of these excessive claims to the passage,” says James Kraska, the oceans policy adviser to the United States joint chiefs of staff, in an article that has the full backing of the Bush administration and was to be released today in Ottawa.

“Canada could achieve all its most important policy goals for the passage, and particularly widespread acceptance of and compliance of Canadian regulations for enhanced safety, security and environmental protection of the passage, by crafting those regulations through the International Maritime Organization.”

The IMO is the UN agency charged with preventing pollution and ensuring the safety of the world’s waterways.

Mr. Kraska’s 22-page article, an advance copy of which was obtained by the Citizen, appears in a compendium of essays to be released today by the Conference of Defence Associations Institute, titled Defence Requirements for Canada’s Arctic.

For decades, the U.S. has not recognized Canada’s claim to the Northwest Passage, a difference that flared again a year ago when Prime Minister Stephen Harper publicly upbraided U.S. Ambassador David Wilkins after he restated his government’s position in a speech.

Arctic sovereignty was a key plank in the Conservative election platform, though the Tories’ promised purchase of icebreakers and the establishment of a deepwater port in Canada’s Far North have yet to be fulfilled.

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