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

First of all, I thank the honourable member for Casey for his question. I would like to take the opportunity of saying how I appreciate the member for Casey’s personal determination to stand by the people of Iraq. I was very pleased to welcome in my office today Dr al-Shahristani, the Iraqi oil minister. He is of course a senior representative in a democratically elected government—a man who was imprisoned by Saddam Hussein for many years in the Abu Ghraib jail. He told me, amongst other things, that he wanted our troops to stay for the time being so that the Iraqis themselves had the chance to build up their security forces and eventually to reach a point where the Iraqis were able to sustain security in their own country. Of course, his position is exactly our position, and obviously the sooner that can happen the better. But the simple fact is that we have to accept, as he makes clear, that if the international forces were to leave too soon then democracy in Iraq would completely collapse and the country would be plunged into complete chaos.

He did not want to see a premature withdrawal and he went on to say that Iraq was a main battlefield in the fight against international terrorism. The minister said to me that if terrorists were to win in Iraq that would be not only a catastrophe for Iraqis but a threat to the whole world. The minister rather optimistically described progress being made on the security front, particularly against the extremist Islamist fanatics coming into the country. He referred to the death of Dr al-Zarqawi and said 300 other top terrorist leaders had been killed or captured. He said that the terrorists had claimed that some 4,000 trained foreign fighters had been killed.

He went on to explain the Iraqi political strategy to achieve national reconciliation and said that a number of major tribal leaders from the al-Anbar province, which is one of the more troubled parts of the country, had joined the fight against foreign terrorists. He talked about oil production in Iraq and said that there have been attempts by terrorists to blow up oil pipelines, particularly the oil pipeline into Turkey. I notice the Turkish Minister of Justice sitting with the Turkish ambassador in the public gallery. The pipeline going into their country gets attacked rather frequently. It is good to see the minister here. The Iraqi minister made the point that, despite those security problems, oil production in Iraq is around pre-war levels and he expects over the next three months that it will be considerably above pre-war levels. For those on this side of the House who are interested in petrol prices, that is obviously good news. In conclusion, I told the minister that the Australian government would not let the Iraqi people down. We will not turn our backs on the Iraqi people and we will not contribute to any surrender in Iraq.

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