When Washington called for help to fight a war in Iraq, Australian Prime Minister John Howard dispatched troops and pledged to stay the course. A year later, Howard shows no sign of wavering, despite political fallout and withdrawals by other nations.
Howard underscored his resolve on Sunday by making a surprise visit to troops in Baghdad for a dawn ceremony commemorating Australia's involvement in the ill-fated World War I Gallipoli campaign. He wore camouflage body armor as automatic gunfire crackled in the background.
Bulgarian President Georgi Parvanov also visited his country's 485 soldiers on Sunday. Six Bulgarian soldiers have been killed since the war began.
Howard, seeking a fourth term, has cast his nation's alliance with the US as a political jewel. To further display solidarity with US President George W. Bush, Howard is expected to call for voting around the time of US presidential elections in November.
Howard's trip to Baghdad, on Australia's national veterans day holiday, echoed Bush's Thanksgiving visit to boost morale but also depicted him as a man of action keen to listen to the troops on the ground.
"They take enormous risk. It's a small risk I take," he said.
But the US-Australia alliance is turning into one of the year's biggest political issues, a dramatic departure for federal elections in which candidates' fortunes usually rise and fall on domestic topics.
Howard's government is firm in its resolve to remain part of any coalition trying to introduce stability to Iraq even as that effort descends into greater uncertainty. He has condemned other coalition members -- Spain, Honduras and the Dominican Republic -- for deciding to pull their soldiers out of Iraq.
"It's likely to encourage those who are opposed to the coalition to believe that, if they can cause more bloodshed and trouble, then more will pull out," he told ABC radio last week. "It will encourage the insurgency. It will not encourage more peaceful activity in Iraq."
The Australian government has earmarked funds to keep troops in Iraq until mid-next year, and Howard hinted yesterday that more troops could be sent to Iraq in addition to the 850 already in the area.
"I have made it very clear all along that we did not have the capacity to have large numbers of additional troops ... and that remains the case," Howard told ABC radio yesterday.
"That doesn't mean that if there is a small increase for whatever reason in the number of people deployed that that should be seen as some reversal of that original policy."
The opposition Labor Party has promised to bring back all Australian soldiers by Christmas if it wins the elections.
Howard's resolve could backfire. The conservative coalition of his Liberal Party and the rural voters' National Party has slipped behind Labor in recent polls, although Howard remains preferred leader. If elections were held this week, Howard would lose.
He also has an unsettling precedent to consider in Spain, where Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero's opposition to the Iraq war contrasted sharply with Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar's unflinching support.
Terrorist bombings in Madrid that killed 191 people preceded last month's elections in Spain by three days, and the country responded by unseating Aznar. Now Zapatero is fulfilling his campaign promise to bring Spain's troops back.
Labor leader Mark Latham, whose lack of foreign policy experience has been criticized by the government, has made his pledge to bring the troops home a central theme of his campaign.
"Labor's strategy is not to desert Iraq. We've just always said that we don't see a long-term military involvement as being appropriate," Latham told ABC TV. "From day one, we said the troops shouldn't be there in the first place."
Labor is seen as being strong on welfare, education, health and employment -- all key issues. But Howard and his conservative government have pushed national security and anti-terror efforts to the forefront.
Revelations that prewar intelligence about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq was faulty have not led to formal investigations -- unlike in Britain and the US.
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