Battlelines over prime minister’s visit to Iraq

leadership so far. But Labour has been on the wrong side of public opinion in opposing the deployment. People see the horrors visited on the Middle East by Islamic State and believe there should be a response. The massive tide of refugees from Syria and elsewhere are further reason to accept that standing back is not a solution.

There is huge debate about whether the work being done at the likes of Camp Taji – training Iraqi troops to take the fight to IS – is the answer. . But everyone seems agreed that putting US and coalition ‘‘boots on the ground’’ is no solution either.

The view of the soldiers based at Taji is that they are genuinely making a difference – even if that difference is only to keep alive Iraqi soldiers who would otherwise be killed on the battlefield. But there are more tangible successes: Iraqi soldiers trained by the Kiwis are said to have had battlefield successes. That is what motivates our soldiers to get up and go to work each day in one of the most inhospitable environments on earth.

People see the horrors visited on the Middle East by Islamic State and believe there should be a response.

It would have seemed like Labour was throwing that back in those soldiers’ faces had it used Key’s trip to criticise the deployment.

Taking media along for the ride might have seemed like a cynical move to boost Key, with GI Joe-type pictures of him riding around in helicopters and wearing a flak jacket. It may even have been a calculated move by Defence to put a human face on the deployment. Whatever the motivation, there will inevitably be criticism that the media travelling with Key (I was one of them) were being manipulated. That is always the risk.

But this trip was unusual in the level of access it gave media to key Defence personnel. It was also a watershed moment in terms of the frankness with which senior staff opened up about the challenges they face. Neither of these things come naturally to the NZDF. From a media point of view it was reassuring.

Among the challenges were the Iraqi government’s unwillingness to take troops off the frontline for training and frustration that the training falls well short of what would be considered acceptable at home, particularly given the lack of senior leadership in the Iraqi army.

As one noted: ‘‘We’re trying to cobble this thing together in six weeks, identify those leaders and throw them out in a fight for their lives. No Western army does that.’’

But the soldiers are just getting on with the job. And the addendum to those frustrations is that is they do not see their task as hopeless. In Iraq, that may be as good as it gets.