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New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark said Monday that she was not convinced coalition forces were making quick progress in Iraq, but for the sake of Iraqi civilians she hoped the war ended quickly.
"I don't think it is making any dent at all. Clearly this war is going to be prosecuted to the bitter end. I guess from the point of view of the Iraqi people, the sooner it ends the better," Clark said on TVNZ's Breakfast program Monday morning.
Clark said New Zealand faces a greater threat from terror attacks in the wake of the war in Iraq.
Every country faces greater risk due to the international world order becoming unstable as the United States, Britain and Australia invade Iraq, she said.
"I take the view that anything that further destabilizes international order and causes more terrorism in the end endangers everyone ... Terrorism is indiscriminate to who it hurts."
Clark was worried about the future of international relations once the war did come to an end.
"One of the longer term issues is what it does to the international system. To have two big and powerful countries like the United States and Britain to walk outside the framework ... there is going to be lot of soul searching now at the United Nations' Security Council, and within NATO, and within the European Union about what this means for the future ... it does set very dangerous precedents," Clark said.
Clark told the National Radio Sunday night that New Zealand's contribution to post-war Iraq would be in cash rather than peace-keeping forces or other expertise, because the United States plans its own military bureaucracy to run Iraq in the short term.
"It's not likely that we will be contributing peacekeepers," she said, adding that her government was keen for a strong UN role in Iraq's reconstruction, as was Britain, but the Americans seemed headed for a post-Saddam Hussein government there.
The New Zealand government has opposed the military attack on Iraq without a specific UN Security Council sanction, preferring the diplomatic process and the UN weapons inspection process to have continued.
(Xinhua News Agency March 24, 2003)
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