Howard Announces New Australian Iraq Strategy : "Patience" And Total Commitment To Failed US War Policies

Devotes Most Of Iraq Anniversary Speech To Attacking Opposition, Pumping Fear And Hyping Terror Threat

Australia Must Stay In Iraq To Protect American "Power And Prestige"

Whatever President Bush decides to do in Iraq in the coming years, he can count on Australia to be right there with him, never questioning his judgement, never disputing his claims of progress, never daring to rock his world with the slightest hint of dissent.

Well, that's what Australia will be doing as long as John Howard remains prime minister. Which may not be much longer than the end of this year, if his terrible poll numbers are any indication.

Tonight, John Howard delivered what had been promoted as a key speech in the Australian history of the Iraq War.

It was supposed to be an informative, enlightening speech by Howard, to mark the fourth anniversary of the start of the illegal War On Iraq.

We were supposed to find out exactly how the prime minister was planning to get Australian troops out of Iraq, his version of an eventual exit strategy, and how he intended to ramp up pressure on the Iraqi government to take control of the country and deal with the sectarian conflict.

We were supposed to learn what the prime minister's vision was for how the coalition would deal with the next few years of the Iraq War.

What we got instead was a plea for "patience" and an insulting spew of fear, distortions and previously discredited talking points and near laughable NeoCon-approved conspiracy theories.

Howard claimed a pullout of the 500 or so Australian combat troops in Southern Iraq would mean an increased threat of terrorism to the Australian people and Australia's "national interest".

But worst of all, for Howard at least, such a troop pullout could mean a loss to America of "power and prestige."

What planet has he been living on?

As surely as it is recognised that Baghdad is the most deadly, most dangerous city in the world today, so it is an indisputable fact that the Iraq War has utterly destroyed America's international credibility and prestige.

Just as the incomprehensible failure of President Bush and Iraq War architects like Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney, to adequately prepare and plan for and then contain the insurgency, that Saddam Hussein himself announced before the war began would fight back against "the invaders" has shown every terrorist and wanna-be jihadist across the globe that America's military power is not as great nor as awe-inspiring as a thousand big budget action and war films had led them all to believe.

Howard didn't used this speech to explain to Australians why the war had gone so terribly wrong, or why he had been justified in spending more than $3 billion of taxpayers money in such a clearly desultory manner, and nor did he spell out in precise terms what Australia's role in the ongoing war would now be.

He gave no clear acknowledgement of the sacrifices made by Australia's defence forces in Iraq, nor did he adequately recognise how the war he promised would be over in months has impacted on thousands of Australian families as the conflict enters its fifth year.

No. He did none of those things that Australians were rightly expecting that he would.

Instead, Howard used the speech to air already widely discredited conspiracy theories about the global threat of "Islamist extremism" instead of explaining the reality of why there are multiple insurgencies and resistance movements across the world, many of whom are fighting back against military dictatorships, brutal totalitarian regimes and anti-democratic warlords.

Howard used the speech to try and scare Australians into thinking that a pullout of troops from Iraq would automatically mean we would face a greater, more vivid threat of being blown to pieces in the streets of our towns and cities.

After skipping all the detail Australians were waiting to hear, Howard then used the second half of his speech to play pathetic political games and to try and discredit his political opponents plans to encourage the Iraqi government to take control of their country and rein in the Maliki government-allied militias depopulating the country of rivals and tribal enemies.

Howard claimed that any staged withdrawal of troops from Iraq would leave our American allies "in the lurch".

Howard, however, failed to mention what impact the thousands of British troops now beginning their withdrawals from Iraq would have on American "power and prestige", and how much of "a lurch" Tony Blair's actions will leave the United States in.

As the Opposition government's foreign minister, Robert McClelland, has clearly spelled out, the Opposition's plan is to withdraw Australia's combat troops from Southern Iraq in stages, while leaving key naval support, transport and air support in place, all in consultation with the American allies.

The Opposition has a detailed plan for the future of Australia's role in the Iraq War.

Here's the prime minister's plan for how Australian will fight the Iraq War for the next few years :

"Success in Iraq requires a military and a political strategy, each reinforcing the other.

Security is the precondition for political and economic progress. That's why the international community must stay in Iraq. What the Iraqi people need most is our sticking power in their midst."

"We believe that restoring security in Iraq is critical to creating the space and time Iraqis need to find a lasting political solution. This means that we are opposed to a precipitate withdrawal. It means we are opposed to setting timetables for withdrawal."

That's it. That's all the strategy John Howard was willing to share with the Australian people after four long years.

When he wasn't making absurd cracks about Kevin Rudd, the Opposition leader, he was echoing President Bush's mantras, distortions and propaganda almost to the letter.

The prime minister did, however, remember to replace the word "America" in his replaying of recent Bush speeches on Iraq with the word "Australia".

For what that's worth.


Key quote from Howard's speech :

"I believe strongly that to signal our departure now would be against Australia's national interest, the stakes are extraordinarily high for Iraq, for the wider Middle East, for American power and prestige and ultimately for our region and our own national security."

Edited Text Of Howard's Speech

Prime Minister Attacks Labors Plans To Conduct Staged Withdrawal Of Troops From Iraq

Howard Addresses Australian Troops In Iraq

Press Conference For Howard and Iraqi Prime Minister

Hating Howard : The New National Sport Everybody Wants To Play

By Darryl Mason

How many Australians silently whispered the words "C'mon snipers..." when they first saw footage of prime minister John Howard fleeing, at speed, out the back of a smoking Hercules on a wide-open airstrip in Iraqi insurgent territory.

Hundreds of Australians? Thousands? Millions?

'Howard Hating' is now officially Australia's new national sport of choice. But do the vast majority of Australians merely dislike John Howard? Or do they hate him? Do they despise him? Do they wish for his political or physical death? Or both?

I know I've cited the unofficial caravan park campfire poll before, but I think the vibe from such gatherings of lower and middle class Australians aged 20 to 80 from all states of the nation can be extremely revealing.

On a trip through ten caravan parks and campgrounds in West Australia in late February and early March, the raw fury and teeth-grinding hatred that virtually everyone I met held for John Howard was disturbing in the extreme.

They could smell the blood of Howard's coming electoral savaging, and they didn't want to wait another month for it to become a flesh-splashing reality. They wanted it, needed it, right there and then. If the prime minister were a newborn baby, they would have tossed him to the dingos.

As Newspoll results today show, not only has Kevin Rudd and his policy-focused front bench ministers opened up a completely unbeatable lead of 61-39% over the "conga-line of suckholes" that leer out from the prime minister's quivering shadow, John Howard himself is now the primary target of choice for the loathing of a nation.

Naturally, the opposition leader's numbers will rise in the polls if the prime minister's popularity and approval ratings fall. But Howard's numbers aren't falling, they're plunging into the basement like a lift crammed full of concrete blocks that's snapped free of its cables. He's almost in George W. Bush territory. And Rudd has led Labor to their best numbers in two decades.

The decline of John Howard's political kingship has already become an amusingly harrowing spectacle. But the laughs won't last. The cacophony of lies, deceit and fear mongering that have punctuated his reign have deafened the masses and deadened their souls. Now they want their revenge. They want to scrape the filth off their shoes and put the past decade of derision and division, of Tampa, of Truth Overboard, of legitimate refugee toddlers razor-wired into desert prison camps, of Australia-funded missiles slamming into Iraqi civilians, of propping up Saddam's hideous regime by plausibly-denying the bribes of the AWB, all of it, all that muck and filth, Australians in the overwhelming majority now want to push it all deep into the back corner of their memories.

Perhaps appropriately enough, the kiss of death for John Howard was delivered in the main editorial in The Australian today. Two kisses, actually. One for each cheek.

"The record shows that far from being too close to the Howard Government, as our detractors would argue, this newspaper has in fact been a fierce critic."

"....for a government that argues its strongest virtue is economic management, the real economic achievements of the past 11 years are slim pickings."

The Australia's editor is trying to force the lid shut on Howard's political coffin before the fetid stink of death seeps into his pleasant suit.

There is no going back now. The opinion makers and fakers of The Australian can go for the throat, and the arms and the legs and the bloated liver, of Howard for all they are worth.

Australia has been transformed under the War On Human Decency waged by John Howard for 11 solid years, and many of us have become more like Americans than perhaps even John Howard and Tony Abbott and Piers Ackerman and Andrew Bolt might like to realise.

The Fair Go For All has faded. Give The Little Bloke A Chance is not so popular anymore. But most of all, we don't seem to like Losers as much as we once did, even the ones who try really hard. That's the chief reason why the Iraq War is so vastly unpopular in the United States today. America is losing, and Americans don't like to lose. And now, neither do we.

Howard is a Loser. And everyone knows it. When you're a Loser in Australian politics, you don't get a second chance anymore, as Mark Latham so comprehensively learned.

The stumbling, bumbling, simpering, whimpering decline and fall of John Howard is really going to be almost too cruel to watch. Alan Ramsey called the coming spectacle of Howard's downfall "delicious" in the Sydney Morning Herald last week. Maybe. But there's nothing pretty about a six month long autopsy.

John Howard is like a once glorious multiple Melbourne Cup winning racehorse that's gone lame and now needs a well-lubricated fist to clear its bowels in the misty morning. Peter Costello and Malcolm Turnbull must do the decent thing, the humane thing. The only thing that can and should be done. They must feed Howard a handful of sugar cubes and coax him down into the back paddock and do what the insurgent snipers failed to do in Iraq on the weekend: put him out of his misery.

Politically speaking, of course.



John Howard Sees Only "Faint Glimmers Of Hope" In Iraq

On the night Australian troops enter their fifth year of war fighting in Iraq, Australian prime minister John Howard was downbeat on the prospects of any eventual result approaching great success in the Iraq War.

Two days ago, the prime minister visited Iraq, meeting with prime minister Maliki, and Australian troops, before he committed Australian forces to at least a few more years of support for the embattled Maliki government. Howard is also expected to announce further increases of troops to Iraq in the coming weeks.

When asked, on the 7.30 Report, about whether he thought the Iraq War would deliver the kind of freedom and liberty promised to the people of Iraq in 2003, Howard said he still saw a "faint glimmers of hope".

"Australia will continue its presence in Iraq to assist in bringing about a situation where the Iraqi people are reasonably able to provide for their own future and for their own security," Howard said while in Iraq, last weekend.

This is yet another example of Howard's steady, sustained deflating of expectations of what state Iraq will be in, as a society, as a nation, when Australia eventually withdraws its troops as the United States does so.

John Howard will give a major speech on Wednesday evening to mark the anniversary of the Iraq invasion, where he is expected to downplay earlier claims and boasts of success in Iraq, and to prepare Australians for a long commitment and the likelihood of Australian casualties, as insurgents chased from Baghdad by the US troop "surge" relocate to Australian controlled areas in the south of the country.

During the 7.30 Report interview, John Howard was completely busted by interviewer Kerry O'Brien trying to portray Iraq as a country besieged by Al Qaeda terrorists before the 2003 illegal invasion began :

KERRY O'BRIEN: You've just come from Afghanistan, too, where the Taliban and Al Qaeda have been able not only to survive but, it seems, rebuild strength, in the case of the Taliban. In the case of Al Qaeda, its ongoing strength is clear for all to see, it would seem. You must have pondered what might have been if America and its coalition partners had focused on that primary battle front in Afghanistan after September 11 rather than the disastrous four year distractions in Iraq?

JOHN HOWARD: Well, I've pondered two things about Afghanistan. I pondered, firstly, why is it important to defeat the terrorists in Afghanistan, but it doesn't matter in Iraq?

KERRY O'BRIEN: Well, what was the evidence that Al Qaeda was a terrorist force in Iraq when you invaded?

JOHN HOWARD: But I am talking of the present, Kerry.

No, you were talking about pre-war Iraq, post-Afghanistan pullout when you said you had pondered why "it was important to defeat the terrorists".

Nice try, though.

Dick Cheney Down Under - Part 5

Cheney Makes His Case For War On Iran

20% Of World's Oil Supply "Is Vulnerable To Iranian Military Action"

By Darryl Mason

It must be years since US Vice President Dick Cheney sat down for an interview with someone who wasn't a kindly old friend or simply too terrified to actually ask him some tough, uncomfortable questions.

No big surprise then that Cheney's main interview while in Australia was with journalist Greg Sheridan, who just happened to have backed the War On Iraq, through late 2002 and all through 2003 and 2004, with a white-hot fervour that threatened to spontaneously combust his heard.

Just how much of a good friend to Cheney is Greg Sheridan?

They've known each other for at least 16 years, met half a dozen times or more, and once attended a conference together where "a young man undressed on the stage".

Or you can try this description of his old mate for calibration: "...you never find Cheney hiding in the shadows, he's always in the bright light of the day"

Or this :

There is something bracing about Cheney's unrepentant attitude generally

Or this :

(Cheney) certainly presents as the very model of sweet reason...

Good God man, have you no shame?

Sheridan's the chief foreign affairs writer for Rupert Murdoch's flagship 'The Australian' newspaper, so you might think the idea of the United States launching a War On Iran would fill him with unease, even a tinge of horror, considering the near ceaseless slaughter of civilians in Iraq over the past four years of war and the general state of calamity and fallout the war has produced across the Middle East.

Well, you'd be wrong :

US Vice-President Dick Cheney believes a military confrontation with Iran would be a lesser evil than an Iran with nuclear weapons.

Yeah, but they don't have nuclear weapons. In the same way that Iraq didn't have nuclear weapons, even though Cheney infamously insisted Iraq did. Again and again and again.

But then, it's not really the the threat of Iran's nuclear weapons that concerns Cheney the most.

Sheridan helpfully cuts through the miasma of standard Cheney 'War on Terror' rhetoric and NeoCon-plated recent history lessons on the Middle East with this lone, floating sentence, which is probably the most important thing Cheney has said in months, and all but confirms a War On Iran will begin with or without the support of the UN Security Council :

Cheney also points out that 20 per cent of the world's oil passes through the Strait of Hormuz and is vulnerable to Iranian military action.

You can pin that quote to the fridge, because you are going to be hearing that reasoning for why a War On Iran is necessary a hell of a lot in the coming weeks.

It also explains why the US currently has two massive battle cruiser fleets near the Strait of Hormuz.

Now that the US can control the flow of 20% of the world's oil supply, by confronting Iran over its non-compliance with UN Security Council backed demands to halt its nuclear enrichment programs, you can pretty well guess what kind of bargaining chip the US will now use to get the backing from China, Russia and the rest of the Security Council for more hardcore sanctions against Iran.

Cheney will soon claim that US action on Iran will help to guarantee the continuing flow of 20% of the world's oil supply to oil-hungry countries like Indonesia, India, China and the US itself.

But that's all for later, let's get back to Sheridan's fawning portrait of the man himself :

...in person he is avuncular, softly spoken, often deploying a little wry irony.

One of Cheney's most appealing qualities is that he tells it exactly as he sees it. There is never a trace of ambiguity in what he says...

Particularly when what he says is 80% distortion and spin.

Cheney had a lot to say to Sheridan, or through Sheridan, and the journalist appears not to have challenged or confronted Cheney on anything, least of all the real-time horrors of the Iraq War. But then, they're both guilty of creating that reality.

And to be fair to Sheridan, time for the interview was limited, and questions from the journalist would have cut into valuable propaganda time for Cheney.

Far be it for me to get in the way, too. Here's some highlights of the interview, where Cheney clearly spells out the case for a coming soon War On Iran :

"We've seen Iran in recent years led by a man who is a radical by most definitions - Mr Ahmadinejad - who espouses an apocalyptic philosophy and has made threatening noises to Israel and the US and others.

"They (Iran) are the prime sponsor of Hezbollah, working through Syria in the conflict with Israel last summer in an effort to topple the Government of Lebanon.

"Working through Hamas they have added to the difficulties of getting some kind of peace process started with respect to the Palestinians and the Israelis. They clearly frighten most of their neighbours.

"We believe they have engaged in providing improvised explosive devices to insurgents in Iraq. We've taken action recently to crack down on identifiable Iranian agents operating inside Iraq. We've made it clear to them that their conduct has been inappropriate."

Cheney also plenty of praise for Australia, for John Howard and Australia's troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, and there's also fresh reasoning from Cheney of why they can't leave Iraq any time soon.

To do so would disappoint all those who believed in, and committed, to the War On Iraq.

People like Greg Sheridan, and others :

"People, hundreds of thousands, maybe even millions, who've signed on in this global conflict, with our backing and support - the thousands who've signed on to the Iraqi security forces, the millions who voted, people like Hamid Karzai in Afghanistan and (Pervez) Musharraf in Pakistan - they didn't have to make the choices they've made. They decided to sign on with the US and its allies to fight the extremists. If the US were to decide it's too tough and to go home, it would have devastating consequences, for all of those people who bet the farm on this struggle."

And just in case the War On Iraq turns out to actually be the worst foreign policy decision in the history of the United States, Sheridan supplies a closing bit of praise for his old mate, that utterly ignores the humongous death tolls, destruction and third world living conditions that are now daily realities for more than a third of all Iraqis :

You may not agree with Cheney but he certainly lets you know what he thinks. If the US fails in Iraq, it certainly won't be because he lost his nerve.

No, if the US fails in Iraq it will because Cheney and his old mate, Donald Rumsfeld, denied repeatedly for more than TWO YEARS that the Iraqi insurgency was a reality and was ripping the country to pieces and both of them did nothing to try and stop it, even when veterans back from the war publicly begged them to face the reality.

Instead, Cheney said the "Saddam dead enders" were in "their last throes" and Rumsfeld shrieked about how well-informed people who tried to warn of how powerful the insurgency actually was were "Chicken Littles" crowing on about how "the sky was falling."

And all the while hundreds of American and British soldiers were being blown to pieces in roadside IED attacks and car bombings.

Obviously the most important thing of all in the scale of this monumental tragedy is that Cheney didn't lose his nerve.

Imagine if he had.

That might have constituted a livid horror beyond anything the Iraqis, or the thousands of Americans and Brits who lost family members over there, are now suffering through.

Well, for Cheney and his good mate Greg Sheridan at least.


Iran Vows To Defend Nuclear Program

Cheney Warns Of Iran Strike

Cheney : China's Military Build-Up "Not Consistent With Stated Goal Of Peaceful Rise"

US Keeping "All Options" Open Regarding Iran

John Howard Denies Snubbing Cheney, Twice, "Absurd Proposition"

Howard Announces Australian Troop Withdrawal Strategy Based On "Our National Interests"

Defence Minister : "There Will Be No Victory In Iraq"

Australia's prime minister said before the Iraq War began that he thought the conflict would last "months, not years". He is sharp enough to not make the same mistake again when it comes to the withdrawal of Australian troops from Iraq.

While John Howard spent the two weeks before US Vice President Dick Cheney came to town lambasting any talk of a troop withdrawal as giving in to Al Qaeda and betraying "our good friends" in the United States, he has changed his tune dramatically in the past three days.

Howard has now decided he must leave himself the option of pulling out Australia's combat troops well before the United States does, and without their permission, and on extremely short notice.

This could be called the "Australia's interest" option, and the key to it may be an outbreak of violence in the troubled island nations to Australia's north, like East Timor.

"If we thought (withdrawing troops) was in our national interest to do so, yes," Howard said during a radio interview yesterday.

The marker for when Iraq is stable enough to warrant a total withdrawal of Australian forces has now been pegged by Howard as a "sustained reduction in the level of violence".

Talk about leaving your options open.

So only five car bombings a week instead of fifteen? Only 200 executed Iraqis found on the street every seven days instead of 600 or 700?

The prime minister, and a stream of government ministers and MPs have been buttering Australians up for a withdrawal from Iraq while the country still locked in explosive sectarian conflict.


Howard now insists it will be up to Iraqi Army and police forces to look after their own security and to end the sectarian conflicts.

"Some level of (violence) will go on, yes," he said. "You can't establish, as a test of whether you ultimately go or stay, a situation where there is no violence at all.

"Some level of violence goes on in a lot of democratic countries."

True enough. But Iraq is currently the murder, kidnapping, execution, car bombing capital of the world.

"We shouldn't set ourselves an impossibly pure standard of non-violence before we decide to go.

"At the present time the level of violence is totally unacceptable, and until the Iraqis are able to contain it to a reasonable level we should stay."

Naturally Howard refused to be drawn on what actually constitutes a "reasonable level" of violence.

So the prime minister has now left himself two options for his strategy on withdrawing troops from Iraq.

Firstly, he can withdraw the troops through the wide-open "in Australia's interest" option, or he can claim that Iraq is only suffering from a "reasonable level" of violence and withdraw.

Just to help out his master, Australia's defence minister, Brendan Nelson, meanwhile, has declared "There is no such thing as victory in Iraq."

This means, of course, that Howard will never have to declare victory in Iraq before pulling out Australia's troops.

That "there is no such thing as victory in Iraq" will come as something of a surprise to US President George W. Bush and US Vice President Dick Cheney who were stating late last year that "nothing less than total victory" in Iraq would be accepted by the crumbling Coalition of the Willing.

"...the Iraqis who've shown enormous courage to vote on three occasions to elect their own government, they should be the inspiration for what we do," Nelson said, "but there'll be no such thing as victory.

"The most important thing that we do is to make sure the Iraqis have control of their own destiny, and have the moral fortitude and courage to see the job through until they're in a position to do it."This also puts the death-knell on Howard's previous claims that Australia would only withdraw from Iraq when "the job is done". Now it is up to the Iraqis to "see the job through".

Nelson waffled endlessly about "handing victory to the terrorists" in Iraq as recently as February 12.

If he now says that the coalition will never be able to declare victory before pulling out, then doesn't it stand to reason that the insurgents and Al Qaeda terrorists in Iraq would regard themselves as victorious once large scale withdrawals of American, Australian and British troops begin?

Here's Nelson's hyper-charged warnings about what a non-victory in Iraq would mean for, primarily, his own children :

"If the United States is defeated in Iraq...along with the United Kingdom, Australia and other thinking countries throughout the world, my children will face challenges that they will never overcome."

Ten days after that interview, Brendan Nelson announced "There will be no victory in Iraq" on the back of Australia committing to sending another 70 soldiers into the war zone.

The question remains why John Howard and his team of propagandists have so dramatically changed their tune in the course of just one week.

Perhaps it has something to do with the rumours infecting Britain today that Tony Blair was partly motivated to withdraw almost 1/3 of British troops from Iraq due to expected military action on Iran by the US and/or Israel in the coming months.

A sudden and unexpected announcement by John Howard that he is pulling Australian troops out of Iraq (well before the security situation improves) to deal with events related to "Australia's interest" in island nations to the north of Australia may well be the next big surprise from the prime minister.

How To "Cut And Run" Without "Abandoning Your Mates"

This post was originally published on 'The Road To Surfdom' blog

By Darryl Mason

As expected, the wild and unhinged rantings of John Howard, Alexander Downer, Brendan Nelson and Peter Costello regarding the Kevin Rudd plan for pulling Australian troops out of Iraq, is about to bite them back in the worst way.

Tony Blair is but a few hours away from announcing the withdrawal timetable of UK troops from Iraq, with around 1500 to be pulled out within weeks, another few thousand by Christmas and all but a few ‘trainers’ out by the end of 2008.

John Howard’s first comment on the news that Blair was withdrawing troops from Iraq - by his own rhetoric an act of "cutting and running" and "abandoning your mates" - was met with a fear-grinnning “I’ll talk to you guys later” when the media descended.

Yeah, once he sorts out how the hell he’s going to spin his way clear now he and his muck-pack have pre-tagged the British as a bunch of cowards and terrorists appeasers.

Not surpisingly, the British want to focus on training the Iraqi Army up to take care of their own security, and you can expect Tony Blair to announce that such training will take place in Jordan, or Aman, or another neighbour of Iraq.

Of course, this is very much like the plan for Australian troops proposed by Kevin Rudd, and another plan now being considered by the American Democrats.

Despite the bile-drenched spewings of the Australian foreign minister, Alexander Downer, Rudd has made it abundantly clear that he intends to leave Australian troops in place to guard Australian diplomats and visiting corporate executives for as long as necessary, but to shift ‘trainers’ to a neighbouring country to continuing training Iraqi Army units.

Howard recently, and repeatedly, claimed this was as good as abandoning your mates when they need you most, and Downer, Nelson and Costello took the PM’s rhetorical football and ran for the try line, spouting gibberish all the way through the past week.

Downer in particular disgraced himself, and insulted millions of Australians, when he claimed in Parliament that voting for Labor would mean handing victory to the terrorists because an Australian troop withdrawal would follow, and troop withdrawal means “victory” for Al Qaeda and “terrorists” in Iraq, and around the world.

The man is a pathetic moron who continually embarrasses Australia internationally and insults our allies and members of the Australian, British and American military. And he does this repeatedly.


Go Here For The Full Story

Australian Troops Under Fire In Iraq

It is still unclear exactly why the Howard government deems it so necessary to keep details of what has happened to Australian diggers in Iraq away from the public.

While there is an argument to be made for some "classified" status to be put on certain security and operations related details, Howard and his defence minister, Brendan Nelson, could be viewed as hiding the true facts of the Iraq War, as far as Australians are concerned, from the public. Particularly the casualty figures, including an admitted 20 battle related injuries.

As the following story explains, Australian troops in Iraq have fought for their lives against insurgent attacks numerous times. They've been hit by sniper fire and grenade attacks and engaged in full-blown firefights :

In one fight, Diggers were defending their patrol against insurgent positions as a rocket-propelled grenade skidded towards an Australian group that had been under heavy fire.

"The (patrol) was targeted unsuccessfully by an RPG round from a roof top," an ADF message from Iraq to Headquarters Joint Operations Command in Canberra states.

"(It) was also targeted by an RPG round which passed behind the vehicle and bounced off into a vacant area."

More RPGs were fired, as were automatic pistols on a number of flanks as the Australians returned fire, neutralising one building where insurgents were holed up.

In heavy traffic on the deadly roads of Baghdad, Diggers have also been forced to fire on civilian vehicles suspected of being suicide bombers at least nine times.

The exchanges have caused about five deaths including an apparently drunken Iraqi driver, an Iraqi government bodyguard, a US security employee and a soft-drink seller.

Incidents included Australian troops chased and fired on insurgents running along a levee and hiding in a palm forest, after they aimed five mortar rounds towards a Coalition area and an Australian patrol fired on with RPG fire and returned fire, moving through the ambush.

A lone insurgent sniper fired on Australians with an AK-47 from a roof, so they returned fire, and an Australian patrol returning to base was fired on by two mortars and a light machinegun.

Close calls for Australian troops in Iraq came with the territory, Brig. Gus Gilmore said.

"There is no doubt Iraq is a dangerous place, that's why our force protection measures and our training are so important," Brig. Gilmore, back from six months in Iraq, said yesterday.

"Our soldiers are well trained and well equipped and very professional, and that's contributed to our relatively low rate of injuries," Brig. Gilmore said.

"It is important not to understate the risks they face daily."

Brig. Gilmore said major attacks on Australian troops, like the insurgents firing rocket-propelled grenades, were to be expected.

"It's just one example of a number of occasions where our troops have found it necessary to repel an attack."

It is a mark of the professionalism of the Australian soldiers that none have been killed in such a hostile environment by insurgents, and civilian casualties, compared to the Americans, resulting from ADF operations are extremely low.

Howard Declared "A National Security Risk"

Kevin Rudd Claims The Iraq War "Is The Single Greatest Security Disaster That Australia Has Seen Since Vietnam"

Prime minister John Howard was clearly shocked when a reporter told him what opposition leader Kevin Rudd had said about him said about him yesterday morning :

"Mr Howard's strategy on Iraq is the greatest single failure of national security policy since Vietnam, and Mr Howard himself represents a national security risk for this country in the future."

"Really?" Howard asked, as a split second of raw terror flashed across his face, followed by a flicker of bulging eyes and a visible flinch.

He couldn't believe it. How dare Rudd say accuse him, the prime minister, one of the closest BushCo allies in the 'War on Terror', of being a threat to national security.

The little bastard.

National security was Howard's territory, not Rudd's. As an issue to divide and conquer his political enemies, national security had been good to Howard. In fact, it had been brilliant. He had used 'National Security' as a security blanket, weapon of mass destruction and blast shield for years.

Now Rudd had claimed 'National Security' as his own by accusing the prime minister of acting in ways that threatened the country's safety, and future.

Rudd didn't retract the controversial claim. He refined it, and repeated it later in the day, with slight variations and greater emphasis :

“Mr Howard is looming as an increasing risk for Australia's long-term national security...Mr Howard can't say that he has learnt any lessons from the Iraq debacle. I think that represents for the future a risk for national security.

“Mr Howard is presiding over the single greatest security disaster that Australia has seen since Vietnam.”

It was a bold, savage and brilliant air strike on Howard, on the same morning that Newspoll revealed Rudd had overtaken the prime minister on virtually every key issue of our time, and had gained ground on Howard's all important 'National Security'.

"Really?" Howard asked the reporter, the disbelief in his eyes so evident he looked like someone shaken awake from a deep, comfortable sleep.

Howard replied to Rudd's accusation with the first thing that popped into his head, and it was miserably hopeless. A mere splutter from the man who had, until only recently, had the most razor-sharp mind-mouth combination in Australian politics.

"I think he's getting a bit full of himself," Howard said.

What kicked off the most brutal exchange of insults seen so far in the unofficial federal election campaign was the announcement that John Howard was about to send 70 extra 'trainers' from the Australian Defence Force to Iraq.

Howard is widely seen as being subservient to the Bush administration over Iraq, and Australian troop deployments, and with US vice president Dick Cheney due here tomorrow, the prime minister had to get in quick to announce the extra troops so it didn't appear that he was caving in to Cheney's demands for more support from Australia in the Iraq War.

Rudd doesn't want to send more troops, or 'trainers', into Iraq. He wants them deployed neighbouring countries, like Jordan, where the Australian troops can more effectively, and safely, get Iraqi soldiers trained up and ready to take over the responsibility of security in their country.

Howard is clearly rattled, not only be the effectiveness of Rudd's attacks, but the steadily increasing public support his plans for the Iraq War and Australia's future are finding with the public.

Rudd's opposition now leads Howard's coalition by a stunning 54 to 46 per cent, according to the latest poll numbers. While Rudd is on the rise, Howard and his government are falling back on last year's numbers, and fast.

When it comes to who the Australian public want to lead the nation, Rudd now leads Howard by a whopping 10 per cent - 47% to 37%.

Rudd's personal approval rating has hit 68 per cent, a 21 year record for an opposition leader.

Rudd and Howard's bloody exchange over the future of Australia's involvement in the Iraq War came after Rudd changed his schedule to follow Howard to Western Australia, where he now shadows the prime minister.

Rudd promised Howard, in an interview two weeks ago, that he was going to "mess with his mind."

The strategy is clearly working.

John Howard not only has to restore confidence in Australian voters that he deserves to become prime minister again, he has to counter Rudd's increasingly effective attacks and rhetoric, and also shake off the growing infection of utter desperation clearly seeping from the pores of senior government ministers like Alexander Downer and Phillip Ruddock.

The arrival of Dick Cheney in Australia is extremely unlikely to boost Howard's numbers. If anything, being seen grinning it up with Cheney is going to foul Howard's numbers even more, and if Cheney makes one wrong move on how he discusses Australia's role in the Iraq War, the public will punish John Howard.

The Australian newspaper ran a bizarre headline yesterday for an editorial discussing the new poll numbers, that showed increasing confidence and belief in the Opposition :

'Rudd Enters Danger Zone.'

Clearly the more accurate headline would have been : 'Howard Enters Loser Zone.'


"John Howard Is In Strife. Real Strife"

Rudd Goes For Howard's Throat As The War Of Words Gets Bloody

Rudd Refuses To Reverse Pledge To Pull All 520 Australian Combat Troops Out Of Iraq

Blogocracy : Howard Is At Odds With The Great Majority Of The Australian People Over Iraq And David Hicks

Big Dick Down Under

US Vice President Dick Cheney will visit Australia from February 22 to 27.

Officially he's here to thank Australia, and Australian soldiers, for support in the Iraq War, and to talk up the benefits of a continued close alliance between Australia and the United States.

Unofficially, depending on who is doing the speculating, Cheney will be meeting the prime minister, John Howard, to tell him he can bring Australia troops home from Iraq before the November elections.

Or to gauge Howard's support for Australian troops becoming more involved along Iraq's border with Iran when/if the US begins air strikes on Iran's nuclear energy facilities.

Or to get in John Howard's face and demand he commit more Australian troops to the fight in Iraq, after turning down two or more near begging requests from former defence secretary (and Cheney's best mate) Donald Rumsfeld in the last quarter of 2006.

For whatever other reasons VP Cheney has decided to grace the nation with his presence, his will not be a popular visit with the public at large. The general reaction to the news of his visit could well be described as largely hostile.

Cheney Down Under is expected to provide a pivotal focus point for anti-war protesters, who have had few international targets to rally against in Australia since the Howard government first sent troops to Iraq, starting in late 2002.

Prime Minister Howard said that because "we do not live in a very certain world," it would be seen as to "rat on your ally" to disappoint the Bush administration when it comes to the Iraq War, and, more generally, the 'War on Terror'.

"I think this would be a very bad time, difficult though it is, a very bad time to be seen to be letting the Americans down," Mr Howard said.


You can see what some of the locals think of Cheney's visit (in comments) here, and here.


Cheney Visit To Grow Debate Over The Value And Future Of The Australian-American Alliance.

Australians Ready To Dump Howard From Office Over Iraq War

Shocking Poll Results Reveal The War Weary State Of The Nation


As you chew through the below stats from today's Newspoll on how Australians feel about the War In Iraq, Prime Minister John Howard in general and the PM's virtual non-efforts to ensure David Hicks faces what we know as true justice in a court of law, consider that 'The Australian' newspaper used the following headline to announce these absolutely breath-taking poll results :

Public Loses Heart For Howard's War

Now it's "Howard's War"?

Of course, the majority of Australians are now firmly opposed to it. So now it's time to change the editorial tone.

There was probably no greater champion of the 'War On Iraq' across the entire Australian media spectrum than 'The Australian' newspaper. They weren't calling it 'Howard's War' back when it looked like they were onto a winner.


Here's the poll results :

62% of Australians Oppose John Howard's "handling of the conflict".

Barely 1 in 10 Australians said they "strongly" supported Howard when it came to the Iraq War.

71% said the 'War On Iraq' will affect the way they vote.

56% don't like how their government has treated David Hicks, and less than 3 out of 10 Australians now support Howard on this issue.

Five years without a trial, held in an American torture hell, with no clear proof offered that he has committed any crime at all, eats away at peoples' faith and trust that their government is doing everything they can to ensure that he faces justice, and a fair trial.

47% of Australians said that what happens to David Hicks will affect the way they vote in the elections.

Someone in John Howard's office has seen those numbers last night, sucked in their breath and muttered, "Oh, fuck..."

Hear those bells bonging? They be the bells of doom. And they're sounding for John Howard.


------------------------------------------

Now to that extraordinary headline.

Public Loses Heart For Howard's War

Do ya think the 'The Australian' would be calling it "Howard's War" if it had turned out the way Howard, Bush and numerous columnists and headline and leader writers for 'The Australian' all chimed together that it would, back in the first two months of 2003?

You remember those bright and shining days, don't you?

That was the time when 10 million people around the world marched for diplomacy and against war as a method of regime change and were labelled as "demented" and "treacherous" and "supporters of Saddam" and accused of "giving aid and comfort to Saddam" all over the pages of 'The Australian', for weeks on end.

Almost a million Australians marched against the war. One million out of a total population of 20 million.

The marchers included veterans from World War 2, Korea, Vietnam, the Malaysian Emergency, Somalia, East Timor and the First Gulf War. Walking proudly alongside the thousands of veterans were tens of thousands of children, doctors, lawyers, schoolteachers, off duty cops and politicians, plumbers, shop assistants, CEOs, taxi drivers, nurses, paramedics and firemen.

The media droogs who railed viciously against those who wanted peace instead of corpse-choked war (a war that few respected military, intelligence and Middle East experts, historians and analysts ever believed was likely to produce anything but sectarian violence and a raging insurgency) dreamed of an Iraq so unlike Iraq today it might as well have been another country completely.

A country that is not one where 100 people die every day, on average, from acts of terrorism and where the streets of the capital city are not littered with the corpses of men, women and children who've been shot, bludgeoned, hung, burned, drilled and blown to shreds.

The Iraq War fantasists dreamed of a country where the streets would be paved with oil-gold and where an always crowded public park in the centre of Baghdad would be filled with laughter and song and praise for the Coalition of the Willing, and its leaders, and its soldiers.

Some of them actually believed that by now there would be a memorial to the Coalition of the Willing dead in that park, and a statue of President Bush, and perhaps even one of Donald Rumsfeld (who once grinned at the idea and shrugged, clearly delighted), and a big Wall Of Thanks to regime-overthrowers like John Howard.

Ex-administration officials have revealed that the inner White House actually had made vague plans before the war began for such a park. It was to be called 'Freedom Park', in 'Freedom Square' (where the felled statue of Saddam once stood).

'Freedom Park' in 'Freedom Square' was supposed to become a reality, not in a decade, or two, but by the end of 2003.

There were plenty in the Australian media who believed this nonsense as well. And many of them worked for 'The Australian'. Some still do.

And what do some of those same clowns now say about this war, now they are clearly terrified of being tarnished with the well-bloody brush of this horribly failed experiment that came to the people of Iraq on the tip of hundreds of missiles fired from our warships in the Gulf?

Hey, it's 'Howard's War'.

Now who's cutting and running?


Howard was called 'Coward' before the war, and still is now, but at least he doesn't try and pretend the appalling fallout of the 'War On Iraq' belongs to someone else.

He's claimed the Iraq of today as something of his own making. He's not happy about it. Who would be?

Howard's not fond of admitting his errors (like his claim that the war would "probably" be over in a few months), but he refuses to back down from his mantras that Iraq will become a peaceful, free and democratic nation.

Eventually.

(Maybe).

Unlike 'The Australian', who (sometimes gleefully) betrayed a million or more of their own patriots; the people who could see in early 2003 what 'War On Iraq' would actually mean for the Iraqis, and for the rest of the world; the same newspapers who happily ran the crazed fantasies of NeoCon "crazies" who had trouble getting their trash published in mainstream media just about anywhere else in the world, and the very same newspaper who made it their editorial chief mission to beat down, to subjugate, to slander, insult, degrade, trash, and sometimes destroy, any and all opponents of the 'War On Iraq'.

Even if those opponents included conflict-weary World War 2, Korea and Vietnam veterans, along with young children, schoolkids and thousands of Iraqi-Australians.


The 'War On Iraq' will probably cost Howard the 2007 federal election now.

It's hard to imagine anything so astonishingly wonderful happening there in the next six to eight months that will change the mood of the Australian public.

Support for the war, and approval for Howard's involvement and handling of the war has been steadily falling for more than 18 months.

It will continue to fall.

'The Australian' newspaper isn't waiting. They're bailing out now.

"For the Iraq War? What do you mean? We were never for the Iraq War. We're a newspaper of repute. We never take sides. Our mission statement is 'To Keep The Nation Informed'."

How long before the lead editorial in that newspaper reads : 'It's Time, Mr Howard. It's Time To Bring The Troops Home'?

Two months? Twelve weeks?

You will see a variation on those words sometime before the federal election. And it's likely to be sooner rather than later.


One day, maybe five or ten years from now, Howard will visit Iraq and will find a more peaceful and free nation than the killzone it is today.

Many Iraqis will be shell-shocked and grieving, emotionally shattered, but where there just may be something close to peace in their time, a new generation of Iraqis will grow up without the sounds of car bombs detonating across their cities.

Howard will go there and see the future of Iraq, and he will die knowing, that in the end, despite the slaughter, the deprivation and devastation, that maybe just maybe he did do the right thing for Iraq and its people, even if he never fully explored the other options that were available when he decided to tell the Australian Army to get ready for the invasion in mid-2002.

Did Howard do what he believed in his heart was the right thing? Or did he do what Bush told him was the right thing to do? What had to be done? What was going to be done, with or without Australia's help?

You can only take Howard's word for it, that he trusted his heart, and his head, and did what he believed was right.

Anyway, Howard will never appear on Denton to tell you any different.

When Howard visits Iraq, hopefully he won't allow a reporter or photographer from 'The Australian' to tag along on his (eventual) victory lap.

Hopefully he will tell them to fuck off, remembering that dismissive, crippling headline : 'Howard's War'.

And he should tell them to get lost, even if they do promise him a front page headline like this :

'Exclusive To The Australian : Iraq Is At Peace, And Howard Is Happy'


Howard's War, indeed.

And they wonder why Australians have lost respect for the mainstream media?

Australian Soldiers Battle Insurgents In Baghdad Streets

We don't hear much about exactly what Australian troops are actually doing in Iraq, but every now and then the Defence Department throws out a few bones

There's about 120 Australians doing security detail in Baghdad for Australian diplomats, primarily. Here's a report about a blitzing encounter between Australian troops and insurgents.

Reports don't yet reveal whether or not the Australians were targeted specifically by the insurgents, or whether they were just the closest Coalition of the Willing patrol to insurgents ready to launch an attack :

The patrol was attacked on Tuesday evening, with Iraqi gunfire causing superficial damage to the vehicles.

The soldiers returned fire with more than 400 rounds. No Australian soldiers were hurt.

The patrol, which included three Australian light armoured vehicles and personnel from the Australian Security Detachment, was attacked by at least three armed gunmen.

Some more details here :

The three ASLAVs and an unidentified number of soldiers from the Australian Security Detachment (SECDET), which is charged with protecting Australian embassy staff in Baghdad, were on patrol at about 5.40pm local time when the insurgents struck.

Around three insurgents fired on the vehicles as they approached a road overpass.

"A number of rounds hit the ASLAVs, however, there were no injuries to Australian personnel," defence officials said.

"Australian personnel returned fire with machine guns and Steyr rifles as they moved through the incident location.

"There were multiple strikes against the Australian vehicles but the exact number was yet to be confirmed."

Last week, Australian soldiers opened fire with mounted machine guns on an Iraqi truck that approached a checkpoint some 200 metres away out from the Australian embassy.

The driver allegedly refused to stop and he was killed after three bursts of gunfire, five to ten rounds fired in each burst. The incident is being investigated.

STUNNING DROP IN AUSTRALIANS' SUPPORT FOR IRAQ WAR

70% OF AUSTRALIANS NOW THINK THE IRAQ WAR WAS A MISTAKE, HALF DEMAND EXIT DATE

IRAQ WAR SET TO BE KEY ELECTION ISSUE FOR 2007

Politicians always say they don't rely on polls. Except for the ones that make them sit up and scream in horror.

A poll like this one that reveals 70% of Australians don't think going to War on Iraq was worth it.

A poll that reveals more half of all Australians want the government to announce an exit date.

A poll that reveals only 21% think going to War on Iraq was a good idea and that the vast majority don't believe Iraq will be anything close to stable in the next few years.

The majority of Australians were opposed to the 'War On Iraq' in early 2003.

Once the war began, support went up, and climbed again following the deceptively quick overthrow and routing of Saddam Hussein's Ba'ath Party.

The poll today tells the story of a country steadily losing faith in its political, and war-time, leader, and the decisions he has made since the successful Iraqi elections provided an exit for Australian troops, with most missions accomplished.

Of course, Australian prime minister, John Howard, decided Australian troops had to stay in Iraq after elections.

One of the greatest mysteries in Australia at the moment is exactly what our 700 or so soldiers are actually doing in Iraq. They're protecting embassy officials and escorting corporate clients, and training up the Iraqi police and army, for the most part, but there has been minimal effort from the government's propaganda wing to market the ongoing war in the Australian media, and thereby in the minds of Australians.

Australian troops have been involved in countless clashes with insurgents. There have been a few deaths, the most infamous being that of Jake Kovko, who apparently shot himself by accident, and whose corpse was lost, was misplaced for days, as the Howard government furiously tried to spin its way clear of the fallout. Something they failed to do.

But does a lack of keeping the Australians role in the war front and centre really explain such horrendously low levels of support the war?

Just how deep an impact was made in the public mind by former SAS Iraq war planner Peter Tinley's revelations that no-one he worked with in pre-war planning in the United States took the Saddam Has WMD Threat seriously, and that the resulting war had been a moral and strategic blunder?

It's hard to tell. But Tinley's revelations were featured prominently in the Australian media in the weeks before the poll was taken.

John Howard knew such unease amongst Australians over Iraq was a harsh reality on December 8, when he timidly announced (as though forced to) that the Iraq War had not gone according to plan, and that "certainly things in Iraq are going very badly."

But neither the impact of Tinley's revelations and Howard's dawning reality-check fully explains why 70% of Australians don't think the Iraq War is worth fighting, and the vast majority now demand to know exactly when Howard plans to "bring the troops home."

It has been the steady thudding of terrorist attacks almost every night on the news which has induced a sense of helplessness and regret about the war. We think about all those terrorist attacks, and how virtually all of them have happened in Iraq, where we have deployed at least one-fifth of our fighting forces in the past three years, resulting in many hundreds of young Australians suffering depression, PTSD, traumatic injuries.

It has also been the rapidly increasing association of the name "Howard" with the words "corruption" "lies" "deception" in the headline news, radio talk back and double page spreads.

And it has been the vast awakening of Australians to the truth about why their country launched an unprovoked attack on Baghdad, and then an illegal invasion and occupation.

Nobody likes to feel that someone they trust has done the dirty on them, particularly not Australians.

The internet has certainly played its part in that education process. But so have the scandals directly involving Howard's near faultless use of 'plausible deniability' to cover his "I don't recall" and "I don't know" answers to important questions.

And it was the same for the AWB bribery scandal involving $300 million paid to Saddam Hussein as it was for Howard's astounding ignorance of key Australian intelligence reports about the lack of evidence for WMDs in Iraq before the war actually began.

So, to a large extent, the prime minister himself has aided in educating Australians as to the truth about the War on Iraq by the enormous amount of media time devoted to scandals either directly, or indirectly, involving him.

The prime minister has had to answer too many uncomfortable questions this year about Iraq, WMDs, bribing Saddam, the disappearance of Jake Kovko's body, Australia's relationship with the US and the 'War On Terror' in general, for all that defensiveness from Howard not to have impacted negatively with the public.

Clearly it now has.

When it came to yet more revelations about the illusions of why Australian went to war on Iraq and how the body of an Australian soldier could get lost, for days, Howard usually adopted a near pitiful, pathetic pouting face, as though journalists were being cruel asking him some tough questions.

And, surprisingly, Howard turns out to be a shockingly bad liar when cornered, particularly over Iraq.

Finally, there has been a slew of American books about the failings of the Iraq War, the chaos in the White House and how Bush Co. manufactured WMD evidence to order released in Australia this year.

From 'The One Percent Doctrine' to 'Fiasco' to Bob Woodward's 'State Of Denial', these books have received enormous publicity, and their extracts and revelations have filled front pages and featured heavily in weekend supplements.

Information and imagery derived of the steady flow of books, articles, documentaries and key interviews with dissenting ex-Bush Co. officials, generals, intelligence experts and soldiers (most of all this media coming directly from the US) have frequently book-ended news reports on appalling terror attacks in Iraq, and the inability of Iraq's government to get their country under control.

All that information - the AWB revelations, the lack of WMDs, mass media exposures of the deceptions that led to the war, the endless terror unleashed by the 'War On Terror' - adds up to a monumental re-education from The Facts As They're Known in late 2002 and early 2003.

There was a lot to unlearn in order to accept this New Reality, and it took time.

But now the questions to talk back radio, to letters to the editor, to comments and chat boards on the internet, on what the prime minister's true motivations for going to War on Iraq actually were, are coming thick and fast.

Unfortunately for the prime minister, there are dozens of possibilities up for public discussions as to why Howard followed the US president into a war that was clearly illegal, unprovoked and unnecessary.

So many questions. Did it have something to do with the AWB scandal? Was it really just about Iraq's oil? Does Howard do everything Bush tells him to? Is the Iraq War a lead in to an Iran war? Is John Howard yet another NeoCon?

It is all but impossible to imagine a change in Iraq before the 2007 elections are held that could turn the public's opinion back to overwhelmingly positive for Howard, and the resulting holocaust of a war he helped to make a reality.

Howard has now announced he will commit no more troops to the Iraq War, which would seem to confirm rumours that the prime minister will "bring the troops home" by June-July 2007, just in time for the federal election.

But even this move - giving the public what it wants, making it feel like it had a big say in the fact that Australians troops had been brought home from Iraq - would not placate Australians.

The Iraq War is likely to still remain a deadly mess when the elections are held, and they will wonder if Howard only brought the troops home to win the election.

The War on Iraq has made Australians particularly cynical about their prime minister, and a shamefully high number of people now believe their leader lies to them on a regular basis.

Perhaps worse, they accept it as fact, as something to expect, that their prime minister would treat them this way.

How could such a loss of faith, such a widespread recognition of duplicity and deceit, do anything but turn the Australian people against their prime minister, and the War on Iraq that he simply had to have?


More numbers from the poll :

In October this year, 68% of Australians didn't think it was worth going to War on Iraq. The figure now is 71%.

In February, 2004, 40 percent of Australians thought it was worth going to War on Iraq. Now only 21% believe the War on Iraq was worth it.

In October, only 37% of Australians wanted the prime minister to announce a firm, decisive date for when Australian troops would leave Iraq. Now 47% of Australian want John Howard to make this decision, and make it publicly.

Nearly half of Howard's supporters want an exit date to be announced.

In October, 65% of Australians believed it was unlikely Iraq would be made stable in the next few years. Now that number is up to 69%

Two-thirds of Australians still believe that they are more likely to suffer a terrorist attack because of Howard's decision to go to War on Iraq.

May 2003 : Australian Foreign Minister Had To Warn BHP To Back Off From Plans To Claim Key Iraq Oil Field

Australians In Brutal Fight With Iraq Insurgents, Five Killed

Then And Now - John Howard On The Iraq War

Top SAS Major Says Iraq War "Helped Out Terrorists"

How John Howard Broke A "Moral Contract" With Australian Soldiers

AUSTRALIA PREPARES TO WITHDRAW MOST TROOPS FROM IRAQ BY JUNE, 2007

RUMSFELD REQUEST FOR AUSTRALIAN TROOPS TO BE EMBEDDED WITH IRAQI MILITARY REJECTED TWICE

The Australian Defence department, and the Minister for Defence, vetoed plans by Donald Rumsfeld for Australian troops to be embedded with Iraqi Army units.

A core part of why the request was rejected is Australia does not intend to have the majority of its current 750 troops stationed in Iraq through the second half of 2007.

The Australian newspaper reports that "the safety and security of small numbers of Australian troops who may serve with Iraqi units" was a core reason why the Government responded in the negative.

According to an interview given today by Australian foreign minister, Alexander Downer, Australia's key military contribution to coalition forces in Iraq at the moment is, "...we do training, we do mentoring for Iraqis and we provide an overwatch operation."

"We don't do day to day combat work," Downer said, on the ABC's 7.30 Report.

"Where we operate in Dikar and al Muthanna provinces, we are there to provide additional support to the Iraqi security forces if they get into trouble and can't help themselves out. But on the other hand, a lot of the day to day work is the training and mentoring job..."

The original request from Rumsfeld for Australian troops to move from training, mentoring and oversight to actually being embedded with Iraqi units involved in patrols and combat operations is believed to have been made in September this year.

Shortly before he resigned as defence secretary, Rumsfeld again asked the Australian Defence Minister for a renewed commitment to allow Australian troops to be placed inside the Iraq military.

This second request was also denied.

Downer confirmed that "we've been speaking to (the Americans) a lot in recent times" about the embedding of coalition forces with Iraqi military units.

Prime Minister John Howard is already moving into re-election mode, and is set to begin preliminary campaigning after the Christmas break. The new Opposition leader, Kevin Rudd, is going to promote the security of the region as a core issue of his election campaign while also promising to 'bring the troops home'.

But John Howard is set to trump Rudd on both issues, two of the most important to Australians, according to recent polls.

By withdrawing the majority of Australia's troops from Iraq in mid-2007, and announcing major increases to the size of the Australian Army, John Howard is expected to use the relative success of Australia's mission in Iraq as a launch pad for re-election on securing the region, and fighting terrorism closer to home.


The Australian Defence Department has recognised, in recent months, that the deployment of 750 Australian troops on six month rotations in Iraq has cut back its capacity to deal with outbreaks of violence, coups and rioting in the so-called 'Arc Of Instability', including East Timor, the Solomon Islands, Tonga and now Fiji.

Australia withdrew its remaining Special Forces troops from Afghanistan in October this year. A move that angered many members of the SAS, who believed that their mission in Afghanistan had not been completed.

The decision not to allow Australian troops to be placed within Iraq's Army is expected to be recognised by the defence minister as a preparatory step in anticipation of the withdrawal of most Australian troops from Iraq beginning in June, 2007.

From 'The Australian' :

The future of the US-led coalition's presence in Iraq will be a key issue at next week's annual AUSMIN defence talks in Washington.

Dr Nelson and Foreign Minister Alexander Downer will meet their counterparts, incoming US defence secretary Robert Gates and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, on Tuesday, together with their respective defence chiefs and top officials.

With security conditions relatively stable in southern Iraq and the British Government already canvassing troop drawdowns next year, there is a good prospect that Australia's 500-strong overwatch taskgroup based in Dhi Qar province could be phased down from mid-year.

Such a phase down will allow John Howard to go into the 2007 federal election claiming a successful mission in Iraq, while announcing plans to secure Australian interests in the Pacific realm alongside a major increase to the size of Australia's defence forces and operational capabilities :

The Howard cabinet's national security committee this week also approved the first stage of the plan to increase the size of the army, including the purchase of 34 extra Bushmaster infantry mobility vehicles.

The first stage of the army build-up will see the recruitment of an extra battalion next year, which will be deployable by 2010.

The total strength of the regular army is set to grow by an extra 2600 personnel to about 30,000 by 2012.

The expanded force will comprise eight battalions consisting of two mechanised, five light and one commando battalion equipped with more than 400 Bushmaster vehicles, as well astanks and light armoured transport.

Australian Defence Forces "Duped" By Prime Minister's Rush To War On Iraq

FLASHBACK : Australian Troops Kill Five As 60 Strong Insurgent Force Attacks

FLASHBACK : Australian Commandoes Fought Off Hundreds Of Taliban Fighters During Ten Day Long Battle

October, 2006 Poll : 80% Of Australians Think The 'War On Terror' Has Failed

Despite The Hype, Australians Don't Fear Terror