The Wire

Prime Minister John Howard is having to run a veritable obstacle course through his election campaign, his latest hurdle being British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s announcement that he will be withdrawing 16 hundred troops from Iraq by August of this year. But whilst the UK might be pulling out troops, the US is beefing up its presence in what the White House is terming “a serge”. The Wire spoke to Dr Rod Lyon of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute to try and understand this seemingly glaring contradiction.