Fed: Vietnam comparison wrong, politically motivated: Howard

AAP General News (Australia)
04-08-2004
Fed: Vietnam comparison wrong, politically motivated: Howard

SYDNEY, April 8 AAP - Any comparison between the Iraq conflict and Vietnam is politically
motivated and historically wrong, Prime Minister John Howard said today.

Senior Liberal Party figures, including former prime minister Malcolm Fraser and former
party president John Valder, have likened the Iraq conflict to the Vietnam war.

Labor leader Mark Latham has also made the comparison but Mr Howard today dismissed
the suggestions.

"Those comparisons are politically inspired, historically inaccurate and designed not
to help but to hinder," he told reporters in Sydney.

Times were tough in Iraq but the Iraqi people would not want Australia to pull out, he said.

"They need our support and our solidarity, not our notice to quit at a time like this.

"It would be a retreat from what Australia believes in, and stands for, for it to bail
out at a time of difficulty and trial."

Mr Howard said the psychological effect of Australia even speculating publicly about
a troop withdrawal was damaging.

The nation was committed to ensuring that every element of its deployment completed
tasks given to it, he said.

But it was impossible to put a time frame on when the job would be done.

AAP sal/ld/cmc/br

KEYWORD: IRAQ AUST HOWARD

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