Nick Minchin (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Finance and Administration) Share this | Hansard source

Perhaps not as eloquent. I am not sure that I have much to add to my answer to Senator Evans, with great respect to Senator Allison. I will just repeat that the UK has made an enormous commitment to the people of Iraq. I think they started off with some 46,000 troops in order to bring freedom to the people of Iraq as part of the original coalition. They have been gradually reducing their commitment since 2003. Their latest announcement will bring their troops down to some 5,500—still some four times the total contribution being made by Australia. So there is still a very significant UK commitment to the people of Iraq and to the efforts by the coalition to bring peace to that country.

We think the most significant role we can play, indeed, is to assist in training the Iraqi security forces to provide for their own security. Of course, that is the condition upon which we base our presence in that country: that at the point we believe the Iraqi people can provide for their own security is the point at which it is appropriate for us to leave. The best way to achieve that is to ensure that we provide, as we are capable of doing, some of the best training in the world. We are pleased that we can increase our training commitment by some 70 personnel to enhance the coalition’s capacity to train Iraqi security forces and thereby hasten the day on which the Iraqi people can provide for their own security. We stand strongly by our ongoing commitment. We note and appreciate the UK’s continuing commitment of some 5½ thousand troops at the same time that they are significantly increasing their commitment to the war on terror in Afghanistan.