Soldiers' return ends Iraq presence

By AUDREY YOUNG

As New Zealand's 61 Army engineers wend their way back home from Iraq after a demanding six-month deployment, Prime Minister Helen Clark has all but ruled out anything but financial help for Iraq in the foreseeable future.

The only exception she would contemplate yesterday was the possibility of New Zealand contributing one or two officers if the United Nations requested them for its headquarters in Baghdad.

The engineers, who have been involved in reconstruction work, are understood to have already left Iraq and are scheduled to arrive in New Zealand on Saturday, to be met by Helen Clark.

Yesterday she said could not even consider sending New Zealanders back there, not even civilian aid personnel.

"I can't see that at this time. I think Iraq is just too difficult and too dangerous.

"We can see with this tragic recent hostage-taking and beheadings played on the internet that Iraq just isn't a place for civilians at the present time."

New Zealand would like to spend its aid budget for Iraq in ways other than "putting Kiwis on the ground".

The last few weeks have seen the New Zealand engineers virtually confined to base in Basra because of the increasing lack of security.

Asked whether the engineers had waited out their time in Iraq rather than face criticism for withdrawing early, Helen Clark said: "They stayed in the hope that they could complete more of the work."

She said there had been no point at which the Government thought they should be pulled out early.

"We look for opportunities within the time we had committed for them to be able to go back and tie up some of the ends of the work. I'm sure some of that was done but it hasn't been ideal."

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