KEY POINTS:
The Government and the Greens are questioning National Party leader John Key's understanding of foreign policy after he said today the war in Iraq was over.
Iraq was not mentioned in a foreign policy discussion document released by National yesterday, although Mr Key told reporters he would not send troops there if he was prime minister.
"Frankly the war in Iraq is over," he said today in a Radio New Zealand interview,
"The war was over in a very short period of time and you've not got a situation where the main coalition forces are looking to withdraw their efforts out of Iraq."
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced in Baghdad overnight that more than 1000 of its troops would be removed from Iraq this year and US president George Bush has also indicated that its troop numbers in Iraq will begin to fall.
But some argue the country is in a state of civil war, with daily killings by insurgent groups. According to the Iraqi government, 884 civilians were killed by violence in September, though this was under half the number killed in August.
Defence Minister Phil Goff said Mr Key's comments showed "the shallowness and inadequacy" of his understanding of foreign and defence policy.
"There is no New Zealander following the news each day who doesn't understand that that statement is nonsense," Mr Goff said.
"Sectarian violence and insurgency violence in Iraq is clearly an ongoing issue with appalling casualty rates continuing among Iraqi civilians and US-led coalition troops."
Mr Goff said Mr Key's statement raised "disturbing questions" about his ability to make decisions on critical issues.
The Green Party's foreign affairs spokesman, Keith Locke, described Mr Key's comments as "staggering" and suggested he phone President George W Bush to give him the good news.
"Until Mr Key put me wise, I had assumed the US and its coalition allies were bogged down fighting an intractable insurgency in Iraq that has seen a surge in US troop numbers earlier this year," he said.
"About 800 US troops and 13,600 Iraqi civilians had died this year alone and the US Congress recently endorsed an extra $150 million for `the war in Iraq and Afghanistan'," Mr Locke said.
In a separate interview on TVNZ's Breakfast programme today, Mr Key said he could not rule out keeping Mr Peters as foreign minister under a National-led government.
"We're not going to know those things until we know what the election result it," he said.
"That might be one of his demands."
A spokesman for Mr Key told NZPA it was clear what the party leader had been saying.
"The comments were in relation to the conventional war, which was over in a matter of weeks, and not the insurgency which clearly continues to rage," the spokesman said.
- NZ HERALD STAFF, NZPA
