The US presidential hopeful blasted John Howard's complaint about his plan to bring US troops home from Iraq as 'empty rhetoric'.
AMES: US presidential hopeful Barack Obama on Sunday blasted Australia's Prime Minister John Howard's complaint about his plan to bring US troops home from Iraq as "empty rhetoric".
The 45-year-old senator waded into a major foreign policy row just one day after formally announcing his candidacy, telling Howard he should dispatch 20,000 Australians to Iraq if he wanted to back up his comments.
"I think it's flattering that one of George Bush's allies on the other side of the world started attacking me the day after I announced," Obama told reporters in the Midwestern state of Iowa.
"I would also note that we have close to 140,000 troops in Iraq, and my understanding is Mr Howard has deployed 1,400, so if he is ... to fight the good fight in Iraq, I would suggest that he calls up another 20,000 Australians and sends them to Iraq. Otherwise it's just a bunch of empty rhetoric."
Howard earlier had attacked Obama's plan to withdraw US combat troops from Iraq by March 31, 2008.
The conservative leader said on commercial television that Obama's pledges on Iraq were good news only for insurgents operating in the war-ravaged country.
"I think he's wrong. I think that will just encourage those who want to completely destabilize and destroy Iraq, and create chaos and a victory for the terrorists to hang on and hope for an Obama victory," Howard said.
"If I were running Al-Qaeda in Iraq, I would put a circle around March 2008 and be praying as many times as possible for a victory not only for Obama but also for the Democrats."
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