The NEXT coming Oz election thread!

Keating. For similar reasons to Hingehead.

Stott Despoja. She is the only politician around that actually seems to give a damn about young people.

Gillard. Potential PM material.

That's about it as far as federal politics goes.

Brown I would respect if he wasn't a nutjob greeny.

JOHN HOWARD: Well, America is contributing 100 times the military presence in Iraq that Australia is. That doesn't mean to say that America doesn't value very deeply and dearly our contribution, but obviously in an arrangement like that both Britain and Australia and other countries all of us must acknowledge that the great bulk of the burden is being carried by the Americans. That's not to say they ignore views that we express. But my view very strongly is what I said a moment ago, that if the coalition leaves Iraq in circumstances seen as a defeat, that will be a terrible blow to the prestige of the United States, a huge defeat for the West and a spur, a boost, an encouragement, whatever you want to call it, to terrorist recruitment in our part of the world. {Hinge's emphasis}

KERRY O'BRIEN: But isn't this a dilemma of your own making? Like Mr Bush and Mr Blair, you went to war on a false premise. To the extent that Iraq is a mess, if it is becoming an impossible conflict to win, it is a mess of your own making, is it not?

JOHN HOWARD: Kerry, we went to war believing there were weapons of mass destruction and we were not alone. Even our political opponents said there were weapons.

KERRY O'BRIEN: But the bottom line is, it was a false premise. You went to war on a false premise and you're now in a quagmire.

JOHN HOWARD: Well, Kerry when you are presented with intelligence which you believe is credible and you make a judgment, you are always accountable for that judgment and I'm a person who accepts accountability for the judgments I made. I don't regret the decision was taken on the available intelligence. Intelligence can never be 100 per cent perfect. It was intelligence widely believed throughout the West, believed on both sides of politics. Even the French President, who was a profound Iraqi sceptic if ever there was one, acknowledged that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, or believed they did. But we've got to deal with

KERRY O'BRIEN: But the bottom line is that in the end you took a decision on poor information; no matter how many people believed in it or not, you took a decision on poor information. Iraq, by almost anybody's calculation, is now a mess. That makes it a mess of your making?

JOHN HOWARD: But, Kerry, the judgment I've got to make now is, is it in the interests of the coalition - the West, America, Britain, Australia and other countries - to withdraw in circumstances of defeat and retreat, and the answer to that is emphatically no.

KERRY O'BRIEN: You've made that point a number of times, but my question is, this is a real dilemma for you, for George Bush and Tony Blair, a real dilemma, knowing when to get out of Iraq, Iraq now being in a mess. Is that not a dilemma of your own making?

JOHN HOWARD: Kerry, I'm not going to engage in political commentary, I'm going to tell you what my policy is and my policy is to be part of a coalition that does not leave Iraq in circumstances where it is seen as a defeat for the West and a boost for the terrorists. That is the most important responsibility I have at the present time. The Australian people will make judgments about any claimed dilemmas I have; the Australian people will pass a judgment. I would expect the Australian people to think very carefully about a Prime Minister or a government that took part in an action that fatally or very badly damaged the prestige of the United States around the world.

I would expect the Australian people to think very carefully about a Prime Minister or a government that took part in an action that fatally or very badly damaged the prestige of the United States around the world.