WELLINGTON, Jan 12 (Reuters) - New Zealand's foreign minister rebuked a fellow minister on Friday for likening the United States' policy in Iraq to the Vietnam war. Jim Anderton, leader of the left-leaning Progressive Party, a junior partner in the minority coalition government, said he did not see how sending extra U.S. troops to Iraq would make any real difference to the situation there, which had "an eerie Vietnam revisited element to it"."One wonders whether the lessons I would have expected to be learnt from that fiasco have been learnt in any way at all," Anderton told a newspaper. However, Foreign Minister Winston Peters said Anderton's comments were "ill-informed and regrettable" and did not reflect New Zealand government policy. Anderton is the number-three ranked minister and was the duty government spokesman because much of the country is on summer holidays. Peters, who heads the NZ First Party and was appointed foreign minister as part of a deal to give the coalition a majority on key issues, was in the Philippines for an East Asia summit. "The challenge regarding Iraq is for the international community to find ways to assist the Iraqi government and all its peoples to overcome their differences and unite for the sake of the country's future," Peters said in a statement from Cebu. Prime Minister Helen Clark, who is also attending the summit, said Iraq faced enormous challenges and the situation there was of great concern to New Zealand and the international community. She did not comment on President Bush's decision to send more troops to Iraq. New Zealand opposed the U.S. invasion of Iraq in March 2003 without United Nations approval but sent a detachment of engineers in 2005 to help rebuild infrastructure in southern Iraq.
