Mark checks out troops at Camp Taji
Defence Minister inspects Kiwi mission to train the soldiers he once called cowards
Dpolitical editor efence Minister Ron Mark has just done his first inspection of Camp Taji training mission north of Baghdad where Kiwis and Australians are training Iraqi security forces, who in the past he’s called “cowards”.
Mark’s visit will feed into the Government’s decision on whether to agree to an Australian request to renew the mission past November.
He was accompanied by Justice Minister Andrew Little and National MP Simon O’Connor, who chairs Parliament’s foreign affairs and defence select committee.
“New Zealand is pleased to be doing our part in support of Iraq in the fight against the global threat of Isis,” Mark said from Dubai.
In Iraq he met Iraqi Prime Minister Haider as-Abadi, Defence Minister Erfan al-Hayali, and the Commander of the Combined Joint Task Forces Land Component, Major General Robert White.
At the weekend Mark also visited Afghanistan, where 11 New Zealanders are deployed as mentors and support personnel to the Afghanistan National Army Officer Academy. Ron Mark, Defence Minister
Mark, himself a former soldier, is about to head to a meeting of Defence Ministers in Rome focused on beating Isis and then a Nato Defence Ministers meeting in Brussels later in the week.
Public focus has turned to the Iraqi mission initially because of Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop’s weekend request for a further Kiwi commitment to the mission.
But human rights campaigner Harmeet Sooden is also reported on Stuff as saying the previous Government had quietly changed its training mandate to provide “advise and assist support to the Iraqi Army’s North Baghdad Operations Command”.
He said the Government had quietly approved a base from which it could assist Iraqi forces, Qayyarah West Airfield, 60km south of Mosul, and which it did not publicise.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern told reporters at Parliament the training role had been expanded to a mentoring role within the training camps in which New Zealand had been authorised to operate.
She had also been advised that the base close to Mosul had been approved but it had not been revealed for security reasons and it had, in fact, not been used by the New Zealanders.
“I am quick to say that I haven’t necessarily received the full information that the last Government received when they made their decisions,” Ardern said.
She also confirmed the claim by Sooden that New Zealand soldiers have been collecting biometric information of Iraqi trainees. She had been advised it was standard practice for all coalition forces as a security measure for those doing the training.
She said that in terms of extending the mandate it was important to make the decision in the context including elections in Iraq (in May) that could change the environment.
“I want to make sure that we make the decision at the time with all of the information around the current role we are playing, what’s required but ultimately a decision in the best interests of New Zealand.”
Labour, New Zealand First and the Greens all opposed the deployment of about 110 NZ Defence Force personnel (and 300 Australian person- nel) which began in May 2015.
Mark was questioning former Prime Minister John Key, saying the Iraqi forces had appeared to lack the will to fight: “Does he not realise you can’t train cowards to fight?”
The Anzac mission has trained 30,000 Iraqi forces, many of whom have gone on to recapture areas of Iraq held by Isis, including Mosul.
Meanwhile, Ardern said Labour’s promise to hold an inquiry into the claims of Kiwi war crimes in Afghanistan, contained in the book Hit and Run by Nicky Hager and Jon Stephenson, was in the hands of Attorney-General David Parker.