Robert McClelland (Barton, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. I refer the Prime Minister to his previous answer and to the report of General David Petraeus to the United States congress overnight in which he said:

Force reductions will continue beyond the pre-surge levels of brigade combat teams that we will reach by mid-July 2008 ...

Contrary to what the Prime Minister said in his previous answer, isn’t General Petraeus clearly talking about US force reductions beyond the recent troop surge? When will the Prime Minister advise the Australian people of his plans for the withdrawal of Australian troops from Iraq?

John Howard (Bennelong, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

With respect to the member for Barton, I do not think an argument about precisely what General Petraeus says bears on the question of whether or not we have a proposal to wind down the forces. The reality is that whether it is 130,000 or 140,000, the force level the United States had in Iraq prior to the surge was something close to 100 times the forces that we have had in Iraq—that we had then and that we have now. It does not automatically follow that if there is a reduction in the United States force commitment to around the pre-surge level that mandates or requires some kind of commensurate reduction in Australian forces, particularly when, as the member will know, the battle group is about 550. The idea that you could have a proportionate reduction in that battle group and still retain a critical mass is absolutely absurd. The implication that in some way if they come down by X per cent, we at 1/100th of their commitment have to come down by the same amount is, from a military point of view, potentially dangerous and, from an exercise in logic point of view, completely unacceptable.

Our position is this: we are not going to pull our forces out of Iraq while they continue to make a contribution to enabling the Iraqi people to look after themselves. We think it is good for the Iraqis that they are doing humanitarian work; we think it is good for the Iraqis that they are doing training; we think it is good for the Iraqis that they are providing security overwatch. We also think it is the right and decent thing for an ally to do, when clearly the United States is under pressure in Iraq, not to behave in a way that looks as though one of your closest allies is withdrawing some of its support. That is what the Labor Party is proposing. Cut out all the propaganda and all the PR, and what you are really proposing is something that will be represented to the world as a stepping back from the United States by one of her closest allies—namely, Australia. Any government I lead will not be part of that.