Posted on 07/12/2002 1:50:44 PM PDT by knighthawk
The Foreign Minister, Alexander Downer, has given Australia's strongest backing so far to a possible United States attack on Iraq, and says he believes Australians would support military intervention.
Mr Downer said "only a fool" would believe that a policy of appeasement might solve "the problem" of Iraq, after a meeting in Washington with the US Secretary of State, Colin Powell.
Although not specifically committing Australia to providing troops for such an attack, Mr Downer was pessimistic yesterday about the prospects of a military showdown being avoided.
His remarks went further than those of the Prime Minister, John Howard, and the Defence Minister, Robert Hill.
Asked if he thought the situation might be resolved without military involvement, Mr Downer said: "It's not heading in that direction at the moment. There's no question of that."
In a separate interview with The New York Times yesterday, Mr Downer also said he hoped "the Iraqi regime will come to its senses and allow inspections and dismantle any of its weapons of mass destruction capability. But I think it's heroic to be too confident about that."
He said Australians were likely to support military intervention: "I think the Australian people don't have a natural inclination to support acts of appeasement."
His comments were immediately criticised by the Opposition Leader, Simon Crean, also in Washington for talks with the Bush Administration, who said Mr Downer's approach was immature. "In all the discussions I've had with the US over the course of the last couple of days, they're not talking in the terms that Alexander Downer is talking," Mr Crean said.
"Americans are talking of toning down the rhetoric in terms of Iraq at the same time Alexander Downer is talking it up."
He said he did not believe Mr Downer's support would automatically commit Australian forces to a US attack on Iraq, since "even Alexander Downer wouldn't be as stupid as to go that far".
The Australian Democrats' leader, Natasha Stott Despoja, said Australia should distance itself from US plans for a pre-emptive strike on Iraq.
"The Government should rule out supporting a first strike unless there is evidence an attack by Iraq is imminent," she said.
The New York Times reported last week that the US military was planning to send 250,000 troops and hundreds of aircraft to invade Iraq, possibly launching from Kuwait, Turkey and Jordan.
Britain's Financial Times newspaper reported yesterday that Britain was planning to pull most of its forces out of the peacekeeping operation in Kosovo, possibly to prepare to join a US invasion of Iraq.
Mr Downer told The New York Times the Australian Government "certainly shares with the United States very deep concerns about biological weapons, chemical weapons and potentially the nuclear weapons capability of Iraq."
[Powell = fool: Bravo, Mr. Downer.]
Heartening to hear such plain talk and moral fiber.
Tony Blair wants to wait until there's "calm in the Middle East" = hell freezes over.
Now that's just stinkin' brilliant - let's just wait until they're almost ready. And what if we guess wrong Natasha? Typical liberal idiot.
They did it by introducing a disease (myxomatosis).
Maybe with a little alteration the plan will also work on demorats.
Hmmmm....
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