Alexander Downer (Mayo, Liberal Party, Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

First of all, I thank the honourable member for Forde for her question and her interest. I think that the highlight I should refer to in answering her question is the death last week of the al-Qaeda terrorist al-Zarqawi. We congratulate the Prime Minister of Iraq, the Iraqi defence forces and the United States forces on the job they did in tracking down this terrorist—this brutal and cruel man—and finally bringing him to justice. He was the mastermind of terrorism in Iraq, and he was also, I think, a very effective manipulator of the Western media. Whilst one normally would not express pleasure at the death of anybody, the death of a terrorist like that is a good thing.

The al-Qaeda backed terrorists in Iraq will continue to try to kill people, and some of the insurgents will continue to try to kill people. But the view of this government is that we should do all we reasonably can and, more importantly, the international community should do all it can to ensure that the forces of freedom and democracy in Iraq are successful and that terrorists and the insurgents are defeated. When President Bush was in Iraq a couple of days ago, he said that ‘Iraq is a central front’ in the war on terror and that America would keep its commitments. I commend not just the international forces and our own forces but also—in a way more importantly—the people of Iraq for their determination to stand up to terrorism and their determination to make sure that their democracy and their freedom succeeds in the teeth of those terrorists.

There are alternative views in this country. We give our commitment to see through this task. The opposition has an alternative view. When the Leader of the Opposition was asked on 9 June in a doorstop what he thought about the death of al-Zarqawi, he said that the war in Iraq is ‘a major distraction’ in the war on terror. In other words, the international community should pull out of Iraq and leave that country in the hands of the insurgents and the terrorists. That is the position of the Leader of the Opposition, a man who has endeavoured to convince commentators that he has some sort of knowledge of and expertise on international strategic issues. In other words, the world would be better off if the insurgents and the terrorists were successful in Iraq.

See this speech in context