KEY POINTS:
Defence Minister Phil Goff should be put out to pasture if the full-blown case of Alzheimer's he has conveniently developed on Iraq extends to his other previous political positions.
Goff has seized on John Key's comment this week that the Iraq war is over as evidence of the
shallowness and inadequacy of the National leader's understanding on foreign and defence policy. "To suggest there is no need to clarify the issue because the conflict is over is frankly incredible and again raises questions about his judgment," said Goff's crowing press statement.
The Defence Minister should not be allowed to get away scot-free with this criticism given the statements he made as Labour's Foreign Minister in April-May 2003 after the US coalition of the willing disposed of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's regime.
In April 2003, Goff issued a number of statements foreshadowing that de-mining was one of a range of options that the Government was considering to ensure New Zealand played its part in humanitarian and reconstruction efforts in post-conflict Iraq.
In May 2003, he set out the Government's position on Iraq. After reaffirming the Government's principled opposition to the precedent-setting potential of pre-emptive military action to effect regime change, Goff went on to say: "We should all, however, acknowledge with great relief and satisfaction that the conflict was short. Anticipated refugee flows did not take place.
"There were, inevitably and tragically, civilian and coalition losses. All will welcome the fact Saddam's apparatus of terror has gone. The death, destruction and abuses inflicted by this dictator on Iraqi people through self-initiated wars and civil repression has at last been stopped. It is now time to look forward. The strategic stakes in Iraq are too important not to."
Goff later welcomed the passage of UN Security Council resolution 1483. "New Zealand supports the establishment of the Governing Council of Iraq and welcomes the passage of this new resolution. It provides a sound basis for the engagement of the international community in the post-war reconstruction of Iraq."
Prime Minister Helen Clark was also in no doubt that the war was over when she later made a statement to Parliament trumpeting the Government's decision to commit non-combat engineering troops to Iraq.
"The Security Council resolution provides for those countries like ours, which did not participate in the war and are not occupying powers, to play a role in Iraq without acquiring the status of occupying powers. The Government has always said that New Zealand was prepared to play a role in post-conflict Iraq, but that there needed to be appropriate multilateral cover and authority."
As these quotes show, Goff was quite happy to use the terms "post conflict" and "post war" to justify the Government's contribution of engineering troops to Iraq in 2003. But four years later, he ridicules Key for making the same judgment.
Unfortunately for Key, his foreign affairs team seem too intent on cementing National's new claim to a bipartisan foreign policy to milk Goff's obvious discrepancies.
Iraq now has an elected Government whose claim to legitimacy is undermined by a ruthless insurgency operation which many US and Nato defence analysts believe is sponsored by neighbouring Iran.
This is a complex issue confronting not just the Western nations which have contributed to the post-war reconstruction effort in Iraq but the UN itself. But the Government, which previously said the stakes in Iraq were too high not to engage, now refuses to. This was made clear after Foreign Minister Winston Peters' statement in February that Iraq would slide into total chaos if the United States withdrew at present.
Peters' comments were highly nuanced. But unfortunately Clark silenced debate on the matter when she said: "We do not have troops there and I think it is gratuitous for me to give advice to those who do."
It is unfortunate that Labour is so intent on using Iraq as a domestic political football that it will brook no in-depth discussion of the issues currently facing that incipient democracy.
The Government has already irritated Australia by making political capital out of its opposition to Air New Zealand's two charter ferry operations taking Australian troops to Kuwait. Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade secretary Simon Murdoch was castigated on that score after he assured Air NZ that the flights fell within Government policy.
The real issue, which needs to be debated, is just what is the Government's policy on Iraq. It is Cabinet ministers like Goff and Clark who have explaining to do, not John Key.