U.S. ambassador's comments set off political storm Cody said Americans are "hypersensitive" to the fact their so-called coalition of the willing is "pretty thin" and could have used the added legitimacy Canadian backing would have given it.
He said American memory doesn't go back to the First World War, when the U.S. waited three years before joining the fight, or the Second World War, when it waited until the Japanese hit Pearl Harbour on Dec. 7, 1941, over two years after the Germans invaded Poland.
"As a matter of fact, sometimes when you hear American political leaders talking about these things, it's as though the world began on Sept. 11, 2001."