The US will maintain close relations with Australia even if a new government withdraws Australian troops from Iraq, US Secretary of State Colin Powell said.
Powell reiterated statements by US President George W. Bush that the withdrawal of Australian troops by a Labor government, which might win an election later this year, would be "disastrous."
But in an interview with Australian Broadcasting Corp television, Powell stopped short of Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage's recent statement that withdrawal of Australian troops could put the countries' 53-year-old alliance at risk.
"Australia will always be a close friend of the US and we are participating in so many ways with Australia and in so many different areas," Powell said in the interview broadcast yesterday.
"We would always have discussions with whoever the prime minister of Australia is and we will always respect the decision of the Australian people as to how they would be led or the policies their leader would pursue," he said.
Powell said in the interview broadcast on Sunday.
Last Thursday, Armitage asked Australians to imagine what life would be like without the alliance with the US and without close sharing of intelligence on security threats.
The conservative government of Australian Prime Minister John Howard, a strong supporter of the US-led invasion of Iraq, has 850 soldiers in and around Iraq and has stated they will be kept there "until the job is done."
Labor opposition leader Mark Latham says he will bring the troops home by Christmas.
"If Australian troops were removed from the campaign effort we have underway now in Iraq, it would be a disaster, a political disaster," Powell said.
"It would be disastrous for Australia to say `Well, we see this international consensus, we see this new [UN] resolution but we are going to head for the door'," he said from Washington.
"I don't think that's the Australia that I have known and respected for so many decades," Powell said.
Latham, elected as Labor leader six months ago and neck-and-neck with Howard's government in polls ahead of elections later this year, is standing by his troop withdrawal policy despite the pressure from the US.
"Our policy hasn't changed," he said this weekend.
Latham denied that the possibility of keeping some Australian troops in Iraq after Christmas to protect Australian officials represented a watering-down of his policy.
Australian Labor Party President Carmen Lawrence accused the US of trying to help Howard's by attacking Latham.
"I think they're probably working to support Mr. Howard," she said after negative comments about Latham by Bush, Powell, Armitage and US Trade Representative Bob Zoellick.
Howard, a close friend of Bush, is facing a battle to retain office after heading the government for eight years.
Latham, who once described Bush as "dangerous and incompetent" over his Iraq policy, has said he supports the Australia-US alliance but does not see it as a rubber stamp.
The military alliance between the US, Australia and New Zealand is formalized through the 1951 ANZUS treaty, which regards an attack on one as an attack on the others.
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