Think about life without the US: Armitage
By Peter Hartcher in Washington
June 11, 2004
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/06/10/1086749842549.html
Frosty relations threaten to sour alliance

The US Deputy Secretary of State, Richard Armitage, has suggested that Australians imagine living without the American alliance, further increasing Bush Administration pressure on Mark Latham.

Mr Armitage said the Labor leader had politicised the alliance in a way that had no precedent in either country since the ANZUS treaty was signed in 1951.

In an interview with the Herald in Washington, he said that if Australians believed the alliance did not bring any benefit, then they may want to re-examine it.

Mr Armitage quickly added that he was not proposing an end to the alliance "because no one here in the United States wants to even contemplate the possibility".

He made plain that he thought Mr Latham neither understood nor appreciated the alliance.

"I don't think he has a sense that Americans feel very strongly about the relationship. It's personal and it's also professional.

Mr Armitage is the fourth senior Administration official to criticise Mr Latham in the past week

President Bush said that Mr Latham's policy of withdrawing from Iraq was disastrous. The US trade representative, Bob Zoellick, told the Herald that Mr Latham's position on the free trade agreement was politically motivated and unrepresentative.