New Zealand airline caught sending troops to Iraq even though Prime Mininster refused to send them

[ck4829]

The government criticized national carrier Air New Zealand on Wednesday for ferrying Australian troops on charter flights to the Iraq war, which New Zealand does not support.

The airline, 76 percent owned by the government, said it had operated two flights carrying Australian troops bound for Iraq, flying into Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates.

Air New Zealand said the flights were commercial operations but the carrier had told government officials about them "as a courtesy."

"It's certainly not appropriate from our point of view that ... our national flag carrier should be conveying troops to fight in a war that we do not support," Defense Minister Phil Goff told reporters.

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Prime Minister Helen Clark's government has been staunch in its opposition to the war, refusing to send fighting troops, although it did send about 100 engineers for one year to aid reconstruction in the south of the country.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070815/ap_on_re_au_an/new_zealand_airline_iraq_1