Australian Prime Minister John Howard insists oil had nothing to do with Australia's involvement in the Iraq war.
Australian Prime Minister John Howard is shown around the deck of a US aircraft carrier in Sydney today. Image: Reuters.
In doing so, he contradicted Defence Minister Brendan Nelson who said protecting Iraq's oil supplies was one of his country's motivations for keeping troops there.
Mr Howard responded with media interviews today in which he denied any connection between Iraq's oil and the invasion and ongoing occupation four years later.
"We are not there because of oil, and we didn't go there because of oil," Mr Howard said. "A lot of oil comes from the Middle East - we all know that - but the reason we remain there is that we want to give the people of Iraq a possibility of embracing democracy," he added.
Earlier Mr Nelson said the foremost reason behind Australia's decision to remain in Iraq was "to make sure a humanitarian crisis does not develop between Sunnis and Shias and driven by al-Qaeda if we were to leave prematurely".
He said other reasons - which the government has previously stated - included supporting a key ally, the United States, ensuring stability in the Middle East and defeating terrorism.