Editorial: It's right that we lend a hand in Iraq

Give or take unfortunate slips of the Prime Minister's tongue, the Government has positioned New Zealand well on the issue of Iraq. That is as true now, with the commitment to a reconstruction force, as it was when the Government steadfastly refused to support an invading force. In each case it has taken its cue from the United Nations. While the UN is not an infallible source of wisdom in international affairs, its collective instinct has been right on Iraq.

It did not believe that the possibility of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq posed such a real and urgent threat to the world that inspections had to give way to war. After the United States went ahead anyway to lead a "coalition of the willing" in the removal of Iraq's unsavoury Government, the UN Security Council resolved, quite sensibly, to play "a vital role" in the country's repair.

It would have been churlish in the extreme of France, Germany and others to have refused to help with the reconstruction simply because the coalition acted in defiance of the council. The UN often helps in the repair of countries after acts of aggression and often enough it must find the aggressor in charge. The difficulty for countries such as New Zealand, working under the UN charter, is to avoid any suggestion that its contribution to the clean-up might be misconstrued as support for the attack.

The US State Department, "warmly welcoming the New Zealand Government's decision" yesterday, treats the gesture simply as a "meaningful contribution to stabilisation and reconstruction in Iraq". It is careful to note our military engineering unit will be attached to the British-led division in southern Iraq, although observing that the Government also is offering agricultural experts in support of efforts by the Coalition Provisional Authority to rehabilitate Iraqi agriculture.

Some in this country will study those sentences for any inference of endorsement of the American action, others will study them even more anxiously for a hint of a thaw in the frosty reception we have received in Washington since the Prime Minister's observations in the second week of the war. It would be unwise to read too much into words such as "warmly" and "meaningful"; they probably will not restore this country's hopes - thin at best - of a free-trade agreement with the Bush Administration.

But there are other reasons to repair our standing in Washington, as a byproduct of doing the right thing in Iraq. The US remains the ultimate defender of our way of life. It is the dominant economy and vital to progress in most of the global trade, aid, health and environmental agreements that could do much to advance international peace and prosperity. If Washington can be urged to do more, it will be influenced by friends, not critics.

And the first place in which influence may need to be brought to bear is Iraq. The US is finding Iraqis inhospitable despite the good turn done them with the removal of a brutal regime. Arabs are a proud people and they do not wish to be governed by Americans or any other foreign power. Already the US has discovered that winning the war was somewhat easier than restoring law and order to Iraq. The more non-combatant countries can do to rebuild Iraq's infrastructure, the more acceptable the Western occupation may be.

Peacekeeping and engineering are becoming as much a part of the military role as waging war in the new world order. New Zealand is finding its skills in high demand, and may soon find them called on closer to home, in the Solomons. But for the moment Iraq is the urgent need. It should be recalled that the war was not the destroyer of Iraq's prosperity; 12 years of UN sanctions did that. Now that Saddam has been removed, the UN should lead the reconstruction and we must lend a hand.