Well, ladies and gentlemen, I'd just like to say again how very proud I know all Australians are at the job that the men and women of the ADF have done so far in the war in Iraq. And the ship's company of the Sydney go with our good wishes and hopes for a safe return. It may well be that the hostilities as such could have formally ceased by the time it gets to the Gulf region, but there'll still be important work even if that is the case.
Could I just generally report that as I speak all of our men and women in the Gulf are safe and sound. I can particularly report that overnight our Special Forces intercepted a convoy about 200 miles - 200 kilometres rather, from Baghdad. It included the establishment from the Russian Embassy in Baghdad and including the Ambassador. Some of them had been wounded, we provided some - our forces did - provided some first-hand medical assistance and even offered to provide a medical evacuation for any people that needed it. We treated the Ambassador of Russia and his colleagues from the Embassy courteously and professionally, and after the appropriate checks and normal things that you'd expect an alert, professional Special Force to do, they were allowed to go on their way, having been assisted, offered medical help and, as I say, offered medical evacuation. It's typical of the highly professional way in which all of our forces in the Gulf have conducted themselves.
The military operation continues to go extremely well. There's little doubt that the regime is crumbling, just exactly when hostilities will cease I can't predict, and it would be foolish to imagine that it's going to be in the next couple of days. But clearly, the advantage is very decisively with the coalition and what has happened both in Baghdad and also what has happened in Basra by the instance of the British has been very gratifying. It is a military operation where unprecedented steps have been taken to prevent civilian casualties and where, given the distance that's been travelled and what's been achieved, it has been an extraordinarily successful military operation. And Australia has played a very significant role and all Australians should be very proud of what our men and women have done.
JOURNALIST:
Mr Howard, can you confirm that that Russian convoy was the one that was shot at, the Russian's claim, by the Americans?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I'll leave it to the Russians to make claims and I'll leave it to the Americans to deal with those claims. I'm speaking for Australia and I'm speaking for what our Special Forces did.
JOURNALIST:
And you can say it wasn't Australian soldiers that shot at that convoy.
PRIME MINISTER:
No, no.
JOURNALIST:
Prime Minister, as we speak, as you know President Bush and Prime Minister Blair are discussing the war to date and the future of Iraq, do you expect to have a conversation with either today? And secondly, how long would our troops stay on in a post-war Iraq?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I talk regularly to both of them and I have in the past, and I'll do so in the future, and I expect to be going to the United States in the next few weeks to have further discussions with President Bush. So, I'm in very regular contact with both of them and I expect that process, and I know that process will continue. We have always said, and the Defence Minister who's with me said as recently as this morning, that we provided particular forces for particular roles and when those roles are completed, we would expect to bring those forces home. I don't know exactly when that will be and I'm not going to speculate. We will have a role potentially of a different kind in the post-war reconstruction phase. We see that as very important and we will naturally not only have a say but we'll have a role, but we have never seen part of that role being the deployment of a large number of Australian forces in some kind of peacekeeping operation.
JOURNALIST:
[inaudible] Sydney as leaving this morning as being [inaudible]?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well that will certainly be, I expect, part of their role, yes. Now, we have to be careful we don't run ahead of ourselves. It's going well and we're all optimistic, but you shouldn't assume it's going to be over in the next couple of days, nor should you assume that once it is over you won't have hold-out operations by individual groups of militia or Fedayeen and there will always be the worry of suicide bombing missions on sea as well as on land. Now, the possibility of that on sea diminishes over time but it's still there, and there could also be a very important role in facilitating and safeguarding the flow of humanitarian assistance.
JOURNALIST:
Sydney's role, essentially, that would be included in the protecting humanitarian aid.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, Sydney's role is what I have just said.
JOURNALIST:
So you're not envisaging a broader policing role for Australian forces.
PRIME MINISTER:
No, what I have said is that I don't see a situation where we'll deploy large numbers of ground forces as part of a peacekeeping operation - that's what I'm saying.
JOURNALIST:
What about the HMAS Sydney when it's in the Gulf, will it be helping protect the Iraqi oil when it eventually flows?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, its role will be to... I mean, it's being deployed as part of the campaign, as part of Operation Falconer and I envisage that it will have the roles that I've described to it and any other roles that may be requested of it and we approve. But as yet, different roles have not been requested of it and therefore, they've not been approved.
JOURNALIST:
But Australia was part of the UN interdiction force and will that continue?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, my understanding is that the UN sanctions after a regime change will cease because they were imposed because Saddam Hussein refused to rid himself of weapons of mass destruction.
JOURNALIST:
Prime Minister, were you personally disappointed today that there were some protesters? They obviously weren't in view of the sailors, but protesters were here.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, people have a right to protest, as long as they protest against me and not against our men and women.
JOURNALIST:
Is it the right day for it though?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, look... you go and ask them, don't ask me to be an interlocutor for the protesters, for heaven's sake.
JOURNALIST:
On the issue of weapons of mass destruction, we're already seeing some evidence of that. Are you confident though that we'll see significantly more evidence?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I am confident that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction, but I've said repeatedly that I don't think until the war is over and you've had a chance to talk to all the scientists and they feel free to speak that you're going to get the full story. As to what has been discovered to date, let's not jump to any conclusions, let's wait until its been examined and if there's something in it, well we'll know pretty quickly. But my gut feel is that the full story won't be known until well after the hostilities have been finished because, its not actually being lying on the road under a sign saying 'WMD here', I mean it doesn't work that way.
Thank you.
[ends]