Iraq won't be "bottomless pit" for Australian troops: Howard
SYDNEY (AFP) - Australian Prime Minister John Howard said Iraq (news - web sites) would not become a "bottomless pit" for his country's troops as a retired army general warned the US-led campaign was deteriorating into another Vietnam.
Howard refused to rule out further increases to the Australia's military presence in Iraq following this week's shock decision to more than double the number of Australian troops on the ground, but said they were unlikely.
"It won't become a bottomless pit," Howard told commercial radio on Thursday. "I am just exercising proper caution.
"I don't think it is at all likely that we will send any more people but I am not going to get into this business of giving absolute guarantees and having everything I say on that analysed in the future," he said.
Howard's comments followed his announcement Tuesday that Australia would send another 450 troops to protect a Japanese humanitarian mission in southern Iraq and to help in the country's transition to democracy.
The taskforce will leave in about 10 weeks to join 950 military personnel in the Gulf, about 400 of whom are stationed on the ground in Iraq.
Retired major-general Alan Stretton, the chief of staff of Australia's military forces in Vietnam from 1969-70, said the situation in Iraq was becoming increasing similar to the conflict in the South East Asian nation.
"I really believe it will go the same way as Vietnam," Stretton told commercial radio. "It will get no better, only worse.
"Eventually public opinion in both the US and Australia and elsewhere will demand our troops come back and when they do they will be pretending that the locals can handle it all themselves, and we will just leave a bloody mess."
Stretton said internal ethnic differences meant Iraq would never be democratic in the conventional sense and the political system could not be imposed on the population.
"This talk about fighting for democracy, that is absolute, to use a phrase, bullshit," he said.
"You have three different people in three virtually different areas. The most you could have would be some sort of loose confederation."
Howard has rejected parallels between Iraq and Vietnam.
"I think these analogies with Vietnam are misplaced and many other people think they are too," he told ABC television late Wednesday.
"I accept the historical facts about Vietnam. I also know the historical facts about Iraq, and they are totally different situations." |
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