Australia backs Bush on Iraq but won't boost troops

SYDNEY, Jan 11: Australia, one of Washington's staunchest allies in the Iraq war, backed President George W Bush's plan to send more troops but would contribute no more forces of its own, Prime Minister John Howard said today.

''An American or Western defeat in Iraq will be an unbelievable boost to terrorism and if America is defeated in Iraq it is hard to see how the longer-term fight against terrorism can be won,'' he told reporters in Sydney.

He said Australia's current level of about 1,400 troops in and around Iraq was ''appropriate''. Most of the Australian troops in Iraq are based in the less violent south of the country, where they are training Iraqi security forces.

He said that this work was ''enormously important'' because the final goal of the withdrawal of foreign forces could only be achieved once Iraqis took full responsibility for security.

''We are some time away from that, let's be realistic,'' Howard said.

Bush outlined a fresh infusion of troops in a war that has now lasted almost four years. Most of the extra 21,500 troops will be sent to Baghdad in an attempt to secure the Iraqi capital, with another 4,000 for the restive Anbar province in western Iraq.

Australia was one of the first countries to commit troops to the war in Iraq and also has troops serving in Afghanistan.

Howard's conservative government has consistently maintained that its troops will stay in Iraq until Iraqis can handle their own security, although recent opinion polls have shown that two out of three Australians want their troops brought home.

Howard described Bush's plan as ''realistic and sensible''.

The alternative was to ''effectively indicate the West could not win in Iraq and start making arrangements, however it might be camouflaged, for a withdrawal'', he said.

The centre-left Labor opposition, which says it will bring Australian troops home if it wins elections this year, said Bush's plan was ''putting a band-aid patch over Baghdad'' that will marginally reduce the number of casualties.

''He (Bush) will use that hoped (for) reduction in casualties to say that Americans are winning the war,'' Labor foreign affairs spokesman Robert McClelland said.

REUTERS