CLARK:
The Prime Minister joins me on the line this afternoon. Mr Howard, good afternoon to you.
PRIME MINISTER:
How are you Phillip?
CLARK:
I am very well. You';ve had an exciting few days.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, it certainly was an experience. It was an opportunity primarily to thank the men and women for the job that they';re doing – that was my main reason for going. It was also an opportunity to talk to the American field commanders and representatives of the Iraqi governing council and to get their views and to be reassured, certainly by the Iraqi figures, that the overwhelming majority of the Iraqi people want a democratic future and it';s a reminder that what is at stake if the insurgents and the terrorists succeed Iraq will not be free and that will be a terrible setback to the cause of democracy in the Middle East and that won';t help anybody.
CLARK:
No, indeed. It';s fair to say that the issue of the post-combat resolution in Iraq hasn';t gone as we';d hoped it might. I mean, sometimes you get the impression from reading the media that all is disaster and all is hopeless. What';s a fair reading of the situation as you know it?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, a fair reading of the situation is that on the ground people are far better off than what they were under Saddam Hussein. I mean, let me give you some examples: the majority of Iraqi households now have access to electricity and power production and that power production is greater than what it was before the war, over 500 schools have been refurbished, 240 hospitals are now fully functioning as well as 600 primary health care clinics, public health spending is 26 times greater than it was under Saddam Hussein. There are 255 municipal councils that have been established since July 2002. The central criminal court is operating and Iraq has a single unified currency for the first time in 15 years. Now those facts give the picture of a country in, despite the enormous difficulties, of being properly established and the sort of things we take for granted being available for the first time to many people in Iraq. Now against that you do have a group, a hard core group of insurgents and terrorists and there';s no doubt that international terrorist organisations are certainly in different ways cooperating and helping. I mean, that';s clearly the case.
CLARK:
Well, we know that that';s right, and that Iran has also been stirring up trouble in the country.
PRIME MINISTER:
Of course, and there';s no doubt about that and what is at stake is whether that attempt to deny the people of Iraq a free and democratic future is going to succeed or not and the next two months are very important both politically and militarily and if the attempt by those forces is successful, well, it will be a very bad outcome for Iraq, it will be a bad outcome for the Middle East and it will be a very bad outcome for the world and that is really why, more than anything else, I am determined that Australia will do its bit to complete the task and see things through.
CLARK:
How do we read the situation, is it that the Shiite elements in Iraq are in a struggle for power, post the hand over, are we seeing insurgent Sunni';s still carrying on the battle?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, it';s a mixture. There';s a hard core of people in Fallujah and many of them are obviously former Saddam loyalists and others who through a combination of reasons want to cause chaos. The two people I saw from the Iraqi governing council was the current chairman who is a Kurd and another gentlemen who is going to be the national security adviser in the interim government and he is a moderate Shiite, a doctor, a medical doctor, an extremely articulate man and he said quite simply to me that Moqtada Sadr, the leader of the Shiite group, does not have the support of the Shiite community, is regarded as a very marginal peripheral figure in the Shiite community. Now, it remains to be seen how he is dealt with in that context. But he was a man speaking on behalf of the majority religious component of the Iraqi population expressing that view. I mean, as best as I can recall them, they were his words. Now, you wouldn';t get that impression with the footage because when there are attacks and there are bombs and people killed you naturally see the whole situation in terms of that coverage. I';m not criticising the media, I';m just making the observations…
CLARK:
Well, it';s the age old thing though, that';s the trouble with the media sometimes… they concentrate on the disasters rather than the rest of it…
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I';m not particularly criticising them and but I think it';s very important, and that really underlines the value to me and the government and I hope the country of my going to Baghdad. I mean, there';s nothing quite like spending a half an hour with these two blokes and hearing their views on behalf of the Iraqi governing council. Now, I';m not saying they speak for everybody but when you get somebody who';s in that position and he comes from the majority faction and he';s regarded as a moderate and he was a life long opponent of Saddam Hussein, he';s spent a lot of time in other parts of the world, not all his time, and he';s quite a respected figure and somebody who ought to be listened to. Now, what he says is that the majority of the Shiite people are not supportive of the insurgency. They certainly want the Americans to go as soon as possible, who wouldn';t? I mean, we would want, if we were in that situation, we would want to run our…
CLARK:
I';m sure most Iraqis ….
PRIME MINISTER:
And the Americans understand that. I can tell you, having talked to those two American generals, they don';t want to occupy the place indefinitely.
CLARK:
I';m sure the Americans want to get out too.
PRIME MINISTER:
Of course. It';s not easy, it';s not very pleasant work, but they understand how disastrous it would be if we went and left chaos behind, it would be …
CLARK:
But it is just not an option is it? It is just not an option to leave Iraq in anything other then on some basis of stability?
PRIME MINISTER:
Of course, it is not…. It would be an absolute abdication of any sense of national responsibility to do so and therefore the policy that is being urged by the Labor Party, which incidentally is not really to bring the troops home by Christmas, they actually think the troops should be out by June, but in practice that can';t happen unless they win the… they can';t come out prematurely unless they win the election.
CLARK:
Wouldn';t it better if a situation evolved if there was less of a United States presence and more of a multinational presence?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, it would obviously be a good thing that the more countries .. there are involved, but other countries have been unwilling to get involved and there are many other countries that are long on talk but short on action… and I believe there';ll be another UN resolution. I think there will probably be quite a satisfactory UN resolution covering the period after the 30th of June but the lions share of the military burden will be carried by the Americans. The British are contributing a lot, given the relative size. But the great bulk of the burden is being carried by the Americans and I have a lot of sympathy for their position. And, of course, they are losing people and they have the delicate task of stabilising the situation militarily but also promoting the hand over to Iraqis as soon as possible. And that';s why something like training the Iraqi army, which we are doing, is so very important. I mean, you can';t say in the one breath well the thing should be handed over to the Iraqis as soon as possible and we, meaning the west, should get out as soon as possible. And then in the next breath oppose the device by which that transition can occur. And that is really what is being urged on us by our critics at the present time and that is one of the reasons why I';m resisting it so very strongly. I don';t want to keep Australian forces in Iraq any longer than necessary.
CLARK:
How long is that? I mean, do you have a notion in your mind though as to when that could be?
PRIME MINISTER:
It is literally impossible to say, it will certainly be beyond of this year and we will be providing in the budget for the funding right through the coming financial year. Now that doesn';t mean it automatically stops on the 30th of June next year and it wouldn';t preclude if things develop very successfully and very quickly, it wouldn';t preclude them perhaps some of them at least coming home early. But realistically, it will go beyond the end of this year…
CLARK:
But in a theoretical framework, do you have a notion that if there is an elected government in operation in Iraq, then that';s the time to leave or what?
PRIME MINSITER:
No, I don';t have that in mind because it may be a government, although elected by a clear majority, inherits a very difficult security situation. You';ve got to remember that if you';ve got a difficult security situation and we have an embassy in the country, we';ve got to have troops there to protect that embassy.
CLARK:
Yes, look, just this comment by Mark Latham today in a second, but is there a proposal that we might send some more troops or some more police… and when might the decision be made?
PRIME MINISTER:
On the question of police, there';s been in the news a bit today, we really don';t have a capacity to send a contingent of federal police to Iraq. Apart from anything else, we have a very big commitment in the Solomon Islands and we have an upcoming commitment of about 250 to go to Papua New Guinea. They are very important immediate at home regional tasks. Separately from that, there';s been a request at various stages for us to contribute a small number of police to the training of Iraqi police in a police training centre in Jordan. I mean, we have a capacity perhaps to send a couple of officers to carry out that work and that';s something that the federal police are looking at at the present time. But I can confidently say that in terms of a contingent of police going to Iraq, or a large number going to be involved in training, we just don';t have that capacity because of these other commitments.
CLARK:
So there';ll be no more?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well except in the one or two that I was talking about that we could afford to send to Jordan in the training centre.
CLARK:
Just by the way, there';s a newsflash through, you may be interested in this as well, Mr Howard. No charges will be laid over any Bulldogs players over those allegations. The director of public prosecutions has just told detectives there is insufficient evidence to charge any of the players. It';s a newsflash just through.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I won';t… it';s always been a matter for the police and it remains a matter for the police and I';m interested as a citizen and a follower of Rugby League, but I won';t make any comment on that. You can understand why.
CLARK:
Mr Latham said that the presence of the troops is symbolic. I mean, that';s pretty insulting to those troops who are there, isn';t it?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I';ve got two reactions to that. First, it is very insulting, there was nothing symbolic about the attitude or the demeanour of the men and women I saw a couple of days ago and that is a terrible insult to them. And interestingly enough, he';s taking the side of his Defence Spokesman Senator Evans against his Foreign Affairs Spokesman Mr Rudd because Mr Rudd said yesterday that everybody should support the troops. I';m not saying he said they should support our policy, I';m not trying to be cute about that, I';m just saying everybody should support our troops because they were doing very difficult and very dangerous work. Now you can';t on the one hand say they';re doing difficult and dangerous work and in the next breath say their presence is purely symbolic. And there';s a clear difference between Mr Rudd who takes what I regard as the more pro-American view within the Labor Party and the more understanding view of the difficulty of this situation and the view being espoused by many others such as Senator Evans and apparently, and I think very alarmingly, Mr Latham has thrown in his lot with Senator Evans. I mean, to say that they';re there symbolic is a terrible insult. But in the next breath also, the next consideration is that it';s wrong because they are doing very important work. The HMAS Stuart was helping Americans out of the water after those suicide attacks near the oil refinery on Monday.
CLARK:
Yes and…
PRIME MINISTER:
You';d hardly call that symbolic. I don';t think the Americans who were fished out of the water by people on HMAS Stuart regarded that as symbolic. I don';t think the personnel in the Australian Embassy in Baghdad who are being guarded by a detachment of the ADF regard that as symbolic. I don';t think other people who are doing different things in Iraq regard anything as symbolic and I think that is both factually inaccurate and insulting and of equal importance it shows that inside the Labor Party this very big division is opening up. I mean, Mr Rudd said everybody should support them, they';re doing very important work, it';s very dangerous, it';s very risky. Senator Evans says, oh it';s just symbolic. And Mark Latham is agreeing with Senator Evans. I';m amazed.
CLARK:
Alright. Prime Minister, just on one other topic – the issue of gay marriage which is a noted topic in some parts of the community. There are two issues here. One is the reluctance by some of the community to approve of gay marriage in the sense that they would see that as a heterosexual union and secondly there';s the issue of the discriminatory effects which gay people, gay couples say operate against them in terms of superannuation, life insurance and all of that sort of thing. Now no-one wants to discriminate against gay couples.
PRIME MINISTER:
No, we certainly don';t and we don';t want to discriminate against people, but we do believe that marriage is commonly understood by everybody, including gay people, is a bedrock institution of society and the only reason this has come up is that there has been in other countries a tendency of courts in the absence of a clear definition to construe marriage in a way that most people don';t agree with and that is to include gay unions and that is the reason it';s come up. It';s not come up as an instrument of discrimination against…
CLARK:
But is it possible to get to the point where you can end the discrimination without the need to formalise marriage as it were?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I think the elements of discrimination are pretty limited. I mean, people can leave their assets to anybody they like. But you don';t want a situation where you have no margin at all for what we regard as ordinary marriage. It is a very stabilising institution in our community and I don';t think we should systematically remove all of the elements of marriage that are different from other relationships. It';s a very important institution and we should do everything we can to protect it in a way that doesn';t discriminate against other people and I think we are pretty close to having that balance here at the moment.
CLARK:
Good to talk with you Prime Minister.
PRIME MINISTER:
Thank you.
[ends]