Andrew Laming (Bowman, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Defence. Would the Minister for Defence inform the House how the Australian Defence Force is contributing to the fight against terrorism in Iraq? Minister, have there been any recent encouraging developments?

Brendan Nelson (Bradfield, Liberal Party, Minister for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Bowman for his question and also for introducing me to families in his electorate of Bowman recently, who, through their sons, are making very practical and real contributions to the global war against terror. Across Iraq today there are 1,350 Australian Defence Force personnel who are working to secure freedom for Iraq, to see that Iraqis have the same rights and freedoms that we in Australia too often take for granted and which have been hard fought for by serving and previous generations of Australian Defence Force personnel.

During my meeting with Prime Minister al-Maliki last week when I was in Iraq, he thanked Australia at some length for the contribution that it is making to see that Iraqis have these freedoms. For him, along with Zebari, the foreign minister, and also General Obeidi, with whom I also met, one of the constant themes was the role that is being played by al-Qaeda in Iraq to foment violence, and sectarian violence in particular, across the country. We should be under no illusions. For example, Osama bin Laden in December 2004 said, ‘The third world war is raging in Iraq.’ In his letter to Zarqawi dated 9 July 2005, al-Zawahari said of Iraq, ‘It is the place for the greatest battle.’ In his address to Congress in Washington on 27 July, the Iraqi Prime Minister, Nuri al-Maliki, said:

Trust that Iraq will be the grave of terrorism and of terrorists for the good of all humanity.

We have seen in the last couple of days the arrest of al-Saeedi. Iraq’s National Security Adviser, Mowaffak al-Rubaie, said of this:

Al-Saeedi carried out al-Qaeda’s policies in Iraq, and the orders of the slain al-Zarqawi to incite sectarian violence in the country through attempting to start a civil war between Shiite and Sunnis.

All of us would remember the horrendous bombing of the Askariya shrine in Samarra back in February, which triggered much of the sectarian violence we have since seen in Iraq.

We need to understand, as Australians, that the struggle in Iraq and Afghanistan and in other places of the world is a struggle to which Australians are committed because we are standing against those who are completely committed to a new world order, which has hijacked the name of Islam to build a violent political utopia. Every Australian should be proud of what is being done by the Australian Defence Force in Iraq. Prime Minister Maliki said to me, ‘You, Australia, were with us from the start.’ I said, ‘We will be there to see the job through and to see that Iraqis have the rights and freedoms that they deserve and that the world is free of terrorism.’