Howard denies Australia in Iraq for oil

Australian Prime Minister John Howard insisted oil had nothing to do with Australia’s involvement in the Iraq war, contradicting his defence minister who said protecting Iraq’s oil supplies was one of his country’s motivations for keeping troops there.

Defence Minister Brendan Nelson’s inclusion of global energy security as a reason for keeping troops in Iraq is likely to add weight to war protesters’ arguments that the 2003 US-led invasion was more an oil grab than a bid to uncover Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction, which proved to be non-existent.

Howard responded with media interviews today in which he denied any connection between Iraq’s oil and the invasion and ongoing occupation four years later.

“We are not there because of oil and we didn’t go there because of oil,” Mr Howard told Sydney Radio 2GB.

“A lot of oil comes from the Middle East – we all know that – but the reason we remain there is that we want to give the people of Iraq a possibility of embracing democracy,” he added.

Earlier Mr Nelson, who became defence minister in January last year, told Australian Broadcasting Corporation radio that the foremost reason behind Australia’s decision to remain in Iraq was “to make sure a humanitarian crisis does not develop between Sunnis and Shiites and driven by al Qaida if we were to leave prematurely.”

He said other reasons – which the government has previously stated – included supporting a key ally, the United States, ensuring stability in the Middle East and defeating terrorism.

The Middle East, including Iraq, “is an important supplier of energy, oil in particular, to the rest of the world, and Australians ... need to think what would happen if there were a premature withdrawal from Iraq,” he told ABC.

In a speech on Australia’s current and future security threats, Mr Howard highlighted diminishing oil supplies as a danger to global peace.

Mr Howard, a close ally in US President George Bush’s war on terror, sent 2,000 troops to support US and British forces in the Iraq invasion.

Australia maintains 1,000 troops in Iraq supported by 600 air force and navy personnel in the region.

The opposition Labour Party, which opposed the war, has pledged to remove most of Australia’s troops from Iraq if it wins elections due late this year.

Labour defence spokesman Robert McClelland accused the government of shifting from its denial that oil was a motivation for the war.

“It’s taken them four years to acknowledge that fact,” Mr McClelland said.