AUSTRALIA PULLING OUT OF IRAQ. BUSH WANTS $70 BILLION MORE FOR IRAQ WAR

The "coalition of the willing" fighting the war in Iraq has been reduced again as Australia has announced they are pulling their troops out of Iraq

Great Britain has already reduced their troop size from 7,000 down to 2,000.

That leaves the United States military to continue to fight the Iraq war with only a handful of small countries lending support troops.

Because most of the "coalition of the willing" have left Iraq, President Bush is planning on asking Congress for another $70 BILLION to fight the Iraq war.

By Bill Corcoran, editor of CORKSPHERE http://corksphere.blogspot.com/, the only blog dedicated to reporting on what the mainstream media no longer reports--the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Australia Announces Troop Withdrawal From Iraq

http://tinyurl.com/29gqca

1/29/2008 12:32:01 AM In a severe blow to US efforts to bring about stability in war-torn Iraq, Australia has announced its decision to withdraw its military troops from the country.



The announcement comes even as President George Bush in his last State of the Union address said that the al-Qaida is on the run in Iraq.Australian Foreign Affairs Minister, Stephen Smith conveyed his country's decision to US secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, US Secretary Robert Gates and Vice President Dick Cheney on his first official visit to Washington since Kevin Rudd Government's election last year.



"We came to office in November last year with our longstanding commitment that we would withdraw our combat troops from Iraq by the middle of this year," Smith said."I advised the Secretary of State that when the current rotation from the Overwatch Battle Group is completed in the course of the first half of this year, those troops will be withdrawn," he said.

Bush to seek $70 billion in partial 2009 war funding


Tue Jan 29, 2008 4:40am IST
By Andrew Gray


http://tinyurl.com/22r4jl


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Bush administration will ask the U.S. Congress next week for $70 billion to pay for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and related operations for part of the 2009 fiscal year, the Pentagon said on Monday.


The new request is likely to set up another battle with Democrats who control Congress and are critical of President George W. Bush's handling of the Iraq war. Congress has yet to approve most of Bush's fiscal 2008 war funding request.


Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said the administration probably will not submit another war funding request after this one before leaving office next January. That would make war funding one of the first issues facing the next president.


Since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, Congress has approved $691 billion to pay for wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and such related activities as Iraq reconstruction, the Congressional Budget Office said last week.


Of the total, the CBO estimated that $440 billion had been spent on the war in Iraq.