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MP on Iraq: "How do you train cowards?"

Author
Newstalk ZB staff,
Publish Date
Tue, 26 May 2015, 3:09PM
Photo: Getty Images
Photo: Getty Images

MP on Iraq: "How do you train cowards?"

Author
Newstalk ZB staff,
Publish Date
Tue, 26 May 2015, 3:09PM

UPDATED 3.56pm: New Zealand First's Ron Mark says New Zealand troops are in Iraq on a fool's errand.

Mr Mark, who was formerly in the military, says the troops were sent there to appease the Prime Minister on other fronts.

As ISIS creeps closer to Baghdad, he says they're wasting their time training the Iraqi military.

"How do you train cowards? They got routed they outnumbered ISIS 10-1 and they were routed."

Mark claims you can't train an army with a record like that and New Zealand troops shouldn't be in Iraq trying to do it.

"New Zealand forces are on a fool's errand, sent there by a Prime Minister who is appeasing other people for other reasons and other objectives."

However, Prime Minister John Key doesn't believe New Zealand troops stationed near Baghdad are in any more danger now that ISIS has moved closer to them.

Key says our deployment to Iraq to train their military is always under review and that f the situation gets desperate there are ways of getting them out.

"There's early warning systems of making sure that if the situation needs to be reviewed it will be reviewed.

"But none of those have been triggered at this point and it's unlikely they'll be triggered."

Defence minister Gerry Brownlee told parliament it was a cheap shot.

"This question, I think, cheapens the desire by some Iraqis to overcome that evil.

"We would not be there if the Iraqi government had not made that request."

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