- Australia has no plans to send more troops to Iraq, despite
growing clashes between United States forces and Shi'ite Muslim groups,
Prime Minister John Howard said today.
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- US Central Command chief General John Abizaid has asked
military commanders to give him options for quickly sending more troops
to Iraq following an upsurge in violence over the weekend.
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- Mr Howard, in New Zealand for a Pacific nations forum,
said Australia did not have any plans to provide more military assistance.
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- "We don't have any plans to provide more,"
Mr Howard told journalists in Auckland.
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- "We have about 850 troops there and personnel there
at the present time and they're playing a very important role.
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- "They'll stay there until the job is done."
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- Asked if he was leaving the door open to send more troops
if asked, Mr Howard said: "We don't have any plans and I'm not even
looking at doors.
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- "I'm sort of quite content with the room I'm in."
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- Mr Howard said he had no advice suggesting the June 30
deadline for the handover of power from US administrators to to local government
was now less realistic.
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- "Clearly there's been a lot of focus on particular
events in Iraq over the past few days and certainly the situation has been
more intense, but the latest advice I have is that the Americans remain
committed to goal of the 30th of June," he said.
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- "But that will not affect the stationing of coalition
forces because the handover to the Iraqis was never the point at which
our obligations finished despite what (Opposition Leader) Mr (Mark) Latham
and (shadow foreign minister) Mr (Kevin) Rudd have said.
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- "... The question of when their task is finished
is something that we'll make a judgement on as time goes by."
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- Mr Latham and Mr Rudd have pledged that Labor will bring
home Australia's troops in Iraq if elected to government.
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- http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/
story_page/0,5744,9207781%5E1702,00.html
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