While Australia has fewer than 900 military personnel in Iraq -- protecting diplomats, instructing the new Iraq army or staffing the control tower at Baghdad airport -- their deployment now looms as a major issue in the election Prime Minister John Howard is expected to call in October or November.
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/afp_asiapacific/view/89525/1/.html

"Highlighting his inexperience and inconsistency, Mr Latham made the backflip just when his Foreign Affairs spokesman was in Washington telling the United States that Labor would cut and run by Christmas," Downer said in a statement.