(Australian) Senate passes Iraq no confidence motion E-mail PM Howard Yahoo! Australia
Posted on 02/05/2003 4:53:20 AM PST by Ragtime Cowgirl
ONE of Australia's bravest soldiers has called for war against Iraq with or without United Nations support, saying it would be nothing like Vietnam.
Vietnam veteran Keith Payne, the last Australian to win the Commonwealth's highest bravery award, the Victoria Cross, has backed Prime Minister John Howard's stance on Iraq.
He said if the UN did not act, the US and Australia should.
"Saddam Hussein is an evil man who kills his own people," Mr Payne, 69, said. "He is just playing around with the Western world.
"We know he has these weapons of mass destruction and we know that he's crazy enough to use them. If the UN does not police its own resolution, the US and its major coalition partners have to do something."
Mr Payne said it was wrong to try to compare a potential war with Iraq to Australia's involvement in Vietnam.
"There's no parallel . . . because Vietnam was a country at war within itself, a civil war," Mr Payne said. "Here we have one nation that is bucking the UN resolution."
Mr Payne said Mr Howard had made the right decision, "bearing in mind that he is in the possession of far greater intelligence information than what we're getting and nor should we get at this stage".
The Sunday Telegraph
(Australian) Senate passes Iraq no confidence motion E-mail PM Howard Yahoo! Australia
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