Goff Phil: Ministerial Statements — Iraq—Deployment of Military PersonnelText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeGoff Phil: Ministerial Statements — Iraq—Deployment of Military Personnel[Sitting date: 24 February 2015. Volume:703;Page:1836. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon PHIL GOFF (Labour—Mt Roskill): There is no decision more serious for a Government to make than to commit its personnel to a war conflict zone where some of them may not return. Yet this decision is being made in the House today without a vote—without a vote—because there is no majority in this House to support the deployment of troops to Iraq. In fact if there was a conscience vote on the National side there would be a minority in this House in favour of deployment because that decision in the National caucus was not a unanimous one.Just 8 short months ago—8 short months ago—John Key issued this statement. It is headed: “No New Zealand Forces to Iraq”—“No New Zealand Forces to Iraq”. He said there would be no boots on the ground not even in an advisory capacity. He said that New Zealand did not take these actions without a United Nations sanction. Every one of those comments made before the election represents a broken promise. The reason that we are going to Iraq is because after the election when a little bit of pressure was put on by the Australians the British and the Americans John Key courageously said: “I will deploy but don’t tell New Zealanders. I need a length of time to soften them up. I need distance from this promise here before the election that we would not be doing it.”There is no doubt that the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) is a brutal and a barbaric organisation but in that sense it is not that much different from the regime in Syria of President al-Assad who has slaughtered 100000 of his people. It is not much different from the Shi’a and the Sunni militias who have committed crimes against humanity and committed war crimes. The one difference is this: ISIS sets out deliberately to publicise its actions to shock and to lure the United States and its friends deeper into committing military forces and the Government needs to think about why it might be doing that and what the consequences might be. You see this Government has not thought through the consequences of its actions. National did not when John Key and Bill English supported committing New Zealand troops to Iraq in 2003. They said we should be there and any analysis of why ISIS has thrived—has thrived in Iraq—relates to the National Party - supported invasion that failed in its objectives and actually made the situation much worse than it was.We are doing the wrong thing today for the wrong reason. It is for the wrong reason because we are doing it—as Mr Key said in one of his more honest moments—because we are part of the club. It is not like he told the press gallery at yesterday’s press conference that this was the club of 62. Read the Key statement. It nominated members of the club. It said who they were: the Western nations. And we are doing the wrong thing because when you put people’s lives at risk there must be achievable objectives. There must be achievable objectives otherwise the sacrifice that you might indulge in is going to be futile. And we know this. We know that of the 143 people we are putting in harm’s way just 16 will be there to train—just 16 of 143. We know that in the last 10 years the Americans have put thousands and thousands of trainers into the Iraqi army. They have spent $25 billion in arming and equipping that army to no effect. We know it will not succeed because that army is deeply corrupt it is highly sectarian it is incompetent and it has low morale. There is no way that New Zealand can do for the Iraqi army what it cannot and will not do for itself. We do not support sending the troops but our thoughts and prayers will be with them for a safe return home.