`We won’t give in to butchers’: [1 All-round Country Edition]
John Kerin, Helen Tobler, John Stapleton. The Australian [Canberra, A.C.T] 28 June 2004: 2.
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Abstract
A MULTIPLE mortar attack on Australian soldiers in northern Iraq was the work of “mentally deranged butchers” and only reinforcedthe need to keep the troops in Iraq, Deputy Prime Minister John Anderson warned yesterday.
The developments also follow Labor’s longest-serving leader, NSW Premier Bob Carr, warning Mr [Mark Latham] in an ABC radio interview broadcast last night — details of which were reported in The Weekend Australian — to exercise the “utmost diplomacy” on withdrawing troops from Iraq.
Mr Latham insisted yesterday that Mr Carr supported his plan to withdraw troops from Iraq by Christmas.
Full Text
A MULTIPLE mortar attack on Australian soldiers in northern Iraq was the work of “mentally deranged butchers” and only reinforcedthe need to keep the troops in Iraq, Deputy Prime Minister John Anderson warned yesterday.
Mr Anderson said while the Government was conscious of the dangers, the situation in Iraq was not one Australia could “walk away from”.
“I think you’ve got to say you can’t give in, you can’t give in to these sorts of butchers, morally and mentally deranged butchers,” he told Nine’s Sunday program.
The comments came after Australian soldiers came under attack while training Iraqi army recruits at a camp near Mosul on Saturday.
No Australians were wounded, although they provided assistance to six Iraqi trainees who were. The attack involved up to eight mortars and was blamed on insurgents.
Mr Anderson seized on the attacks as illustrating the folly of Labor’s Christmas troop withdrawal policy.
“I don’t think Australians think that Mark Latham has thought this through, or that his position stacks up,” the Deputy Prime Minister said.
But the Opposition Leader refused to be provoked by Mr Anderson’s attack.
“Our troops are very brave and they always perform exceptionally well in the task they are given by the Government so that’s not something that’s appropriate for a political commentary,” he said.
“(I’d) rather commend our troops for their bravery and their dedication to service.”
Prime Minister John Howard said the attacks again underlined the need for troops to stay.
“I think people will see this as a serious moment in Iraq’s history, that if terrorists win now it’s a huge setback for all of us in the Middle East,” he said.
The developments also follow Labor’s longest-serving leader, NSW Premier Bob Carr, warning Mr Latham in an ABC radio interview broadcast last night — details of which were reported in The Weekend Australian — to exercise the “utmost diplomacy” on withdrawing troops from Iraq.
Mr Latham insisted yesterday that Mr Carr supported his plan to withdraw troops from Iraq by Christmas.
“He has supported the policy of having the troops out by Christmas, that’s what I have read (and) I haven’t heard this interview,” Mr Latham said.
Mr Carr also said there was no disagreement between himself and Mr Latham.
“I made the commonsense observation that Australia’s withdrawal from Iraq would have to be handled with diplomacy,” he said.
Mr Carr said he was not saying Latham didn’t have the diplomacy or the skills, and pointed to the strength of the alliance under previous Labor governments.
“I believe the relationship will prosper under Latham as it did with Hawke and Keating,” he said.
Mr Carr said a large body of opinion in both the US and Australia believed the war was wrong.
“The interview is an extended and I hope thoughtful deconstruction of the arguments that got us into the Iraq war in the first place and, to state the bleeding obvious, that disengagement will require diplomacy,” he said.