Canberra, Sept 05: Australia will not send peacekeepers to Iraq even if the UN Security Council supports a new multinational force to help US troops there, Prime Minister John Howard said today. A staunch US ally, Howard defied public opinion earlier this year to send 2,000 troops to join the coalition assault on Baghdad. Once Washington declared the war over, Howard ordered most of them home. Howard said he had told US President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair before war broke out that Australia would only be involved in Iraq during the conflict and not provide peacekeepers afterward. ``We are not going to send any more peacekeepers, no,'' Howard told Melbourne-based radio station. ``I made that clear right at the beginning of this whole thing.'' Facing increasing violence, a series of bombings and mounting troop casualties, the Bush administration on Wednesday offered the United Nations a bigger role in Iraq's security, political transition and reconstruction.
Bureau Report