No moving Howard on Iraq escalation

CANBERRA - Prime Minister John Howard yesterday stuck by his decision to commit new troops to Iraq and refused to rule out sending more as warnings came that the nation may be sucked into a long-lasting quagmire.

Howard confirmed yesterday that while the 450 troops and armour being deployed to guard Japanese engineers were intended to remain for a year, the task force could be in Iraq for much longer.

"I can't and won't tie myself down to a particular time on [a pullout date]," he told Sydney radio talkback host John Laws.

As criticism of the sudden decision to send the force grew yesterday, Howard said there was no guarantee that the size of the Australian commitment to Iraq would not further increase.

"I am not aware of how circumstances might change, but if you say to me, could the circumstances change, then of course I'd have to acknowledge that that is possible," he said.

"But I think it would be wrong of anybody to construe from that that we are likely to [expand forces in Iraq]. I think it is very unlikely."

But as Major-General Ken Gillespie, commander of the Army's Darwin-based 1st Brigade, told of his shock at learning that he would be sending infantry and light armoured vehicles to southern Iraq, critics slammed Howard's record on statements of intent on Iraq.

During last October's election campaign, Howard pledged that no further forces would be committed to the insurgency.

Labor Leader Kim Beazley said Australia had been misled.

"Always look to John Howard's wriggle words: once bitten, twice shy, and we are regularly bitten," he said.

Analysts said the deployment of the new force would be a significant strain on an already-stretched Defence Force, especially maintaining it over an extended period.

Major-General Gillespie said he would be hard-pressed to meet the departure deadline of 10 weeks.

"This is not something we were expecting," he said.

"We are going to be incredibly busy in order to get these people ready to deploy."

Critics are warning that the Army's problems could be compounded by the lack of a clear exit date and the potential to be trapped in a long-lasting campaign to subdue insurgents.

"There is a real risk that we're going to be sucked into the quagmire of a civil war," shadow defence minister Robert McClelland told ABC radio.

Analyst Dr Michael McKinley, of the Australian National University's Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, said Iraq was different to Vietnam, but there were similarities.

"Once you provide an ongoing commitment it then becomes a justification for remaining," he said.

"So what you end up doing is justifying your current and future plans on the basis of a poorly conceived initial commitment ...

"I simply can't see how Iraq is going to be pacified, given the tensions in the country."

Then and now

HOWARD'S WORDS

October 4, 2004: "We're maintaining the general level of forces that we've had there. We don't have any plans for a dramatic increase."

February 22, 2005: "The Government has decided this morning to send a new Australian task force to Iraq to help in the process of rebuilding and consolidation and reinforcement. ... The fact of the matter is that in the four-and-a-half months that have gone by [since the election] there have been changed circumstances and I don't accept for a moment that it's a reversal in that sense - we have to respond to those changed circumstances."