World>Terrorism & Security
posted February 23, 2005, updated 12:00 p.m.

Australia signs up, Canada signs off

Australia to send more troops to Iraq despite election promise to contrary, while Canada says no to US missile shield.

By Tom Regan | csmonitor.com

As US President George Bush travels around Europe attempting to mend fences with several important European allies, two other allies took steps Tuesday that signaled very different directions for them in their relationship with the United States.

While the Australian government was announcing that it intended to send 450 more troops to Iraq, despite an election promise by Prime Minister John Howard to the contrary, the Globe and Mail of Toronto reported that the Canadian government said it would soon announce that " it will not participate" in the US's "controversial planned missile defence shield." ( Terrorism and Security: A Daily Update reported on the repeated technical problems with the planned missile shield defense system last week.)


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In Australia, The Sydney Morning Herald reports that Mr. Howard came under heavy criticism for the new troop deployment, intended to provide protection for a 600-member engineering contingent from Japan, which Howard called a " major regional partner."

Among those who strongly criticized Howard was the former head of the Australian Army during the Vietnam war, Major-General (retired) Alan Stretton, who "warned that Iraq was shaping up as another Vietnam and called for Japan to pay for Australians protecting its troops."

Although one poll of 17,000 Australians showed that as many as 71 percent were opposed to the new deployment, Howard said he would still not rule out sending even more troops to Iraq. Other polls shows Australians have a " more pragmatic" attitude to the new deployment.

In an analysis piece for The Age of Melbourne, Mark Forbes writes that the US and Britain were behind the pressure for Australia to send more troops to Iraq, "regardless of the Howard Government's protestations that the request originated from Japan." Mr. Forbes also writes that the announcement "reveals the real face of power" in Iraq; despite the election of a new government and claims that Iraqis will not run their own affairs, "the Iraqis appear to have been consulted only as an afterthought."

Struggling to hold together a crumbling coalition in Iraq, there is no doubt Washington would have strongly supported the hard word being put on Canberra. For months, Bush Administration insiders have muttered that Australia was reaping much political capital for a small contribution. Finally, a reluctant Howard Government caved in, after ensuring the commitment would be as small and as safe as possible.

Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer denied that the US had pressured his country, and said that Australia had little choice after a decision by Dutch authorities to withdraw their troops left the "Japanese exposed."

Japanese government officials said they were very happy with the Australian announcement, saying it showed further evidence of the "friendly relations" between the two countries. Australia's ABC News reports that other Japanese officials said the troop deployment would " strengthen bilateral relations between the two countries."

In Canada, Reuters reports that " after a political uproar," the Canadian government said Tuesday that it will not "sign on" to the US missile defense program, "a decision likely to be seen as a snub to President Bush."

In this case, the political turnabout came in the other direction – during the recent Canadian election, Prime Minister Paul Martin had said Canada "should be part of a system designed to protect the North American continent." But as Reuters points out, Mr. Martin (unlike Howard in Australia) didn't win a majority government, and is staying in power with the help of a left-wing party strongly opposed to working with the US on this issue. The BBC reports that opinion polls also show that more than two-thirds of Canadians are also opposed to participation in a US missile defense program.

In another move that further complicated the issue, the new Canadian Ambassador to the US, former New Brunswick Premier Frank McKenna said Monday that that Canada has " done its share for missile defense."

"There's no doubt, in looking back," McKenna told reporters yesterday, "that the NORAD [North American Aerospace Command] amendment has given, has created part – in fact a great deal – of what the United States means in terms of being able to get the input for defensive weaponry." While McKenna was hardly as direct in his exchanges with MPs, he did stress that the Bush administration had asked neither for Canada's financial participation in the plan, nor for Canadian locations for its missile interceptors �� two facts that begged the question of what more could be required of the federal government to make missile defence happen.

The Associated Press reports that officials in Ottawa later said Mr. McKenna was only talking about the NORAD agreement and not about missile defense, but opposition leaders used his comments to attack the government for " secretly signing up" with the program, despite claims to the contrary.

Perhaps in an effort to soften the rejection of the US missile program, CTV News reports that Martin took a tough position on Iran during this week's NATO summit in Brussels, attended by Mr. Bush. Martin said that while diplomacy "remains a top priority...The world community must be prepared to stand behind its words with stronger measures."

Strangely enough, The Canadian Press reports that Martin may get to have the ultimate US political perk - a visit to President Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas. Martin may be going there as part of the multilaterial talks between Canada, Mexico and the US on the future of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).