Fed: Iraq could be Howard's Vietnam

AAP General News (Australia)
04-09-2004
Fed: Iraq could be Howard's Vietnam

By Maria Hawthorne

CANBERRA, April 8 AAP - Sending troops to Iraq? $154 million. Contributing to rebuilding
the country? $140 million. Getting bogged down in a Vietnam-style conflict? Unthinkable.

There are some things money, a long-defined policy and a turnaround in the opinion
polls just can't buy, as Prime Minister John Howard is discovering.

Last week it was Opposition Leader Mark Latham who seemed to stumble on Iraq policy
with his promise to bring Australian troops home by Christmas if elected.

This week it was the government which was struggling to define what "getting the job
done" meant in terms of Australian troop deployment in the rapidly deteriorating country.

Mr Howard now finds himself under pressure to outline exactly what he means by seeing
the job through after the June 30 handover of power to the new Iraqi government.

The government started the week determined to keep the focus on the war in Iraq, convinced
Mr Latham had blundered with his Christmas timetable.

By Tuesday, it seemed they were right, with the Newspoll showing a 14-point drop in
Mr Latham's personal satisfaction rating, although Labor would still have won an election.

But in Iraq, some of the bloodiest fighting since the US-led coalition forces first
invaded last March was taking place.

By Thursday, the al-Mahdi army, loyal to anti-US Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, controlled
large swaths of three Iraqi cities, and 35 Americans and at least 459 Iraqis were dead.

As the United States considered sending more troops to stem the bloodshed, comparisons
began being drawn on both sides of the Pacific between Iraq and Vietnam, which lasted
11 years and claimed more than 58,000 American lives.

Mr Latham made the initial comparison in his speech to the Lowy Institute, when he
warned that Australia risked becoming bogged down in another Vietnam without a defined
exit strategy for the troops.

Mr Howard and Foreign Minister Alexander Downer immediately rejected his claims.

But the Labor leader was backed by two unlikely allies - former Liberal Party president
John Valder and former prime minister Malcolm Fraser.

Mr Fraser, the defence and army minister at the height of Australia's involvement in
Vietnam, sees clear parallels between Vietnam and the Iraq war.

"In both cases, you had a largely American army, not completely but largely, trying
to support or establish a state in a country that was foreign and alien to them," Mr Fraser
said.

"The real problem in Iraq is that you can say that it is just a few terrorists, whether
they are Iraqi or from outside, who are opposing the occupation.

"It's not just the Shi'ites that came out in force, or one section of the Shi'ites,
it's not just the Sunnis, it's not just the loyalists to Saddam Hussein, it's Iraqis who
want America out.

"And if that feeling grows, the more Iraqis that get killed, the more people will want
America out."

Historians and defence analysts were divided.

"No two wars are ever the same and environments and circumstances do change but the
important thing to look at in the terms of the current debate is the socio-political environment,"

said Derek Woolner, a strategic policy adviser to the federal parliament during Vietnam
and now with the University of New South Wales Defence Studies Forum.

"I see great similarities between the Vietnam war and our current situation, which
could lead to the situation in Iraq becoming this generation's Vietnam. They won't be
exactly the same and it hasn't occurred yet, but the danger is there."

Australian Defence Association executive director and former Army officer Neil James disagreed.

"Iraq and Vietnam are quite different in a geographic and historical instance and it's
a bit far-fetched to make the comparison," he said.

"In Vietnam, the allies were essentially locked into a paradigm of escalation where
the Johnson administration found it very difficult to call it quits.

"I don't think that applies in Iraq. I think if the situation became absolutely catastrophic,
the allies could just walk away from it."

Mr Latham said the government had to define when it would walk away.

"It's wise to have an exit strategy. That's what we had in Afghanistan, that's what
we had in Somalia. The government last year was saying months rather than years in Iraq
and pointing to an exit strategy," he said.

"Well, that's what Australia needs."

Mr Howard has already ruled out committing Australian peacekeepers to a post-war Iraq
and has played down the likelihood of committing extra troops to combat the current violence.

But he has yet to define when the job of the troops already there will be considered complete.

Mr Downer on Thursday defined the timetable as when an independent Iraqi government
could maintain law and order on its own.

But Mr Howard was less specific.

"We are committed to ensuring that every element of our deployment completes the task
given to it," he said.

Which, if Iraq does follow the Vietnam model, could take a long time.

AAP mfh/cmc

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