Mitchell Mark: General DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeMitchell Mark: General Debate[Sitting date: 05 November 2014. Volume:701;Page:656. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]MARK MITCHELL (National—Rodney):I felt fortunate to be given a general debate spot today by the Hon Gerry Brownlee especially in relation to the announcement that was made today by the Prime Minister as to what we are planning or looking at doing to help with the threat that the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL) presents not just in the Middle East but as a growing global threat. There are just a few facts that I want to remind everyone in the House of because I have listened to the contributions and it is good to see that there is general support and consensus around what our Prime Minister is doing.Iraq is a sovereign country. I was lucky enough to be there and help to deliver the first elections after the toppling of Saddam Hussein. It is a sovereign country. It does have a democracy and its people have voted in a democratically elected Government. They have asked for help because they are having a tough time of it there at the moment. They have got a terror group that has grown and that is operating across two borders. It is well-organised. It is well resourced. Never before have we seen these groups have access to the types of funds that they currently have access to. The Hon Gerry Brownlee made a very good point that they are not just operating in the Middle East; they are operating in places like Somalia Yemen and Nigeria and their tactics are changing.The one thing that I was very pleased and relieved to see as a member of the National caucus was how carefully our leadership group is approaching this. I do not feel like we could have a stronger team leading our country into this than our Prime Minister; the Hon Gerry Brownlee the Minister of Defence; and the Hon Murray McCully our Minister of Foreign Affairs and who is probably at the moment in this country—in fact he would be in this country—the one person who has got more knowledge than anyone in terms of what is happening globally with the work that he has put in and the fantastic result that he and his team delivered in our securing a seat on the United Nations Security Council; and of course Chris Finlayson the top legal mind in the country in terms of making sure that we remain compliant.I was lucky enough back in 2002-03 to be responsible for overseeing the training of the newly formed security forces inside Iraq which included the Iraqi Police Service the Iraqi National Guard the Facilities Protection Service the border and customs police and the tactical support unit. As part of that role I oversaw the training that was delivered by Kiwis Brits and also Americans. I can tell you now that it made a huge fundamental difference in the way that the Iraqi security services were able to deploy and operate. So I was very pleased to hear that the Prime Minister is considering this as an option—for us to make a contribution—because it would make a real tangible contribution to helping Iraq out in its struggle against ISIL.I just want to acknowledge the Peshmerga fighters who are really taking the fight to ISIL at the moment. I was lucky enough to work with them also. They are certainly a group that are not short on courage and they are passionate about their homeland and they are showing that they are putting up a stiff resistance. I acknowledge the Iraqi forces as well which are doing the best that they can within the environment that they have to operate in.I will just say a little bit about that environment and some of the risks that they face. We do not hear about it and we do not really talk about it too much but you have to remember—and I think the Prime Minister alluded to it today—that a big part of how these terror groups operate is through kidnapping. Actually families of members of the armed forces are targeted. That of course puts them in a very difficult situation. What would any of us do if we were faced with a situation where our family our children or our wife has been taken and there are demands put on you in terms of whether or not you will actually turn up the next day and deploy with your colleagues? So this is one of the challenges that they really face.In terms of their tactics I think David Shearer made a very good point and the Prime Minister backed it up. We are not being alarmist. No one wants to be alarmist. Every single night we go to bed and probably most of us are unaware that the police are out there dealing with all types of crimes that we will never see that will never touch us but that are happening. But they are trained and they understand how to deal with those.