
“Mr Howard also reinforced his determination not to leave Iraq before his US allies, saying it would be ‘very bad for Western prestige’.”
More pointed version here. More disturbing version, if that could be possible, here (via Jon). And, still disturbing, but in a very different way: Brendan Nelson’s interview on Lateline. The transcript is funny, the video hilarious - “it’s peace-keeping, it’s counter-insurgency, it’s rebuilding Iraq all of it within the same country at the same time, principally in Baghdad and al-Anbar province”, among other gems of ungrammatical masculine indignancy over the prospect of “premature withdrawal”.