By NNN-Bernama,
Melbourne : The Australian troop withdrawal from Iraq will not automatically mean more troops will be sent to Afghanistan, Australian Defence Minister Joel Fitzgibbon says.
Australia has made it clear that it is already doing more than its share as the largest non-NATO contributor to the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan, he adds.
“We are doing substantial work there (Afghanistan) and we have no intention of doing more while so many other NATO countries, I think, could be doing much more themselves,” Fitzgibbon told Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) Radio.
Bringing home the Overwatch Battle Group from Iraq by the end of this month would leave the Australian Defence Force better able to tackle regional contingencies, he said.
“It doesn’t mean that suddenly we have what you might describe as excess capacity and an opportunity to do extra, for example, in Afghanistan . It simply doesn’t,” he said.
Australia officially ended its combat role in southern Iraq this week with the 550-member battle group now preparing to return home.
Fitzgibbon said the key lesson from Iraq was never to get involved in the invasion of a sovereign country without being sure of the basis for intervention and without clear goals.