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

I thank the honourable member for Stirling for his question. On this side of the House—and I think we reflect the views of many Australians, after all the difficulties there have been in Iraq—we are heartened by the Petraeus and Crocker reports to the US congress. They paint an encouraging picture, but they do make the point that there is very hard work ahead. General Petraeus has reported that progress has been made on security and the military objectives of the surge are gradually being met. He said that attacks in Iraq are now at their lowest level since April 2006; since December 2006 civilian deaths have declined by 45 per cent and sectarian deaths are down by 55 per cent; and the Al-Qaeda operation in Al-Anbar, which was not only particularly dangerous in and of itself but also designed to provoke sectarian violence, has been substantially routed—not just as a result, General Petraeus says, of America’s intervention but as a result of a change of view of local people in the Al-Anbar province.

On the political challenges, Ambassador Crocker welcomed recent improvements, including the commitment of Iraqi leaders to work together on hard issues, but he also highlighted, interestingly enough, gains at grassroots and provincial government level. The point to add to this is that neither General Petraeus nor Ambassador Crocker are walking away from the scale of the ongoing challenges in Iraq. They are, of course, very significant. As General Petraeus said, there are no easy answers or quick solutions. But one thing General Petraeus did say—and, after all, I think we can safely assume he is a great authority on this issue and is not a political player of any kind—was that premature withdrawal will have devastating consequences and that political progress can happen only if sufficient security exists.

Today is 11 September; it is the sixth anniversary of the dreadful events of 9/11. In our country we have made a big contribution to attacking and dealing with the problems of terrorism. We have had good success in South-East Asia. There are great challenges still in the Middle East. If a country like Australia were to adopt the policy of the Labor Party, which is essentially a defeatist policy on Iraq—

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