The US-led coalition in Iraq suffered another political blow yesterday when the Danish Defence Minister resigned amid a growing scandal over the intelligence used to justify Denmark's support for the US campaign to oust Saddam Hussein.
Svend Aage Jensby said he was stepping down because of a "smear campaign" by critics who claim the Danish Government lied about Hussein's weapons of mass destruction, which have yet to be found 12 months after the fall of Baghdad. The resignation came amid continuing violence in Iraq as suicide bombers targeted oil installations, and at least 47 people, including eight US soldiers, were killed in fighting across the country.
Mr Jensby, 59, becomes the first minister from a coalition nation to be forced from office over public concerns that the war was based on flawed intelligence. Denmark has about 500 troops in southern Iraq.
Asked yesterday if Mr Jensby's decision prompted any thoughts about his own position, Australian Defence Minister Robert Hill, in Gallipoli for the ANZAC commemorations, said: "No." As The Australian reported earlier this month, the Danish scandal mirrors similar rows in Australia and Britain, with a defence establishment whistleblower accusing the Danish Government of abusing pre-war intelligence.
The Government tried to quash debate on the issue by filing criminal charges against former intelligence officer Major Frank Soeholm, who leaked classified reports to two journalists.
However, opposition politicians and other critics have continued to question the Government's official case for joining the war on Iraq.
"I don't want to burden the Government and my family with the smear campaign that has been targeted at my person," Mr Jensby said.
Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen, who has just returned from a trip to the US, said he would appoint MP and former army officer Soeren Gade, 41, as the new defence minister. "I deeply regret Svend Aage Jensby's decision," he said.
In Iraq, two US crew members were killed in co-ordinated waterborne attacks on oil terminals in the northern Gulf, the US Navy said. In Taji, north of Baghdad, four US soldiers died when a rocket was fired at their base at dawn. Another two US soldiers were killed in a rocket-propelled grenade attack on a convoy near the southern city of Kut.
The latest casualties take the US death toll since the war started to 720.
In another incident last night, four schoolchildren were killed by gunfire in Baghdad shortly after a roadside bomb ripped through a US military vehicle.
Some witnesses said the children, aged about 12, were shot dead by US troops after the bombing, but this could not be independently confirmed and the US military said it had no immediate word on the incident.
Meanwhile, the ceasefire in the flashpoint town of Fallujah has been extended indefinitely, according to a mediator involved in talks between US authorities and local officials.
"We have reached a new deal that extended the ceasefire indefinitely and secured an agreement on several new points," said Iraq Islamic Party spokesman Hashim al-Hassani.
The deal included a ban on carrying weapons in the city from tomorrow, and the start of joint patrols by coalition troops with Iraqi police and Iraqi Civil Defence Corps forces on the same day.
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