Former foreign minister Alexander Downer has criticised the United States' strategy in the Iraq war, saying more troops should have been deployed in the early stages of the conflict. 

Mr Downer says getting rid of Saddam Hussein was the right thing to do but the Americans failed to back up their gains with sufficient troop numbers after the initial invasion. 

President Bush used the fifth anniversary of the start of the war in Iraq on Wednesday to make the case for persevering in a conflict that will in all likelihood have many more anniversaries. 

Mr Bush, speaking before troops, officers and defense officials at the Pentagon, acknowledged in some of his bluntest language yet that the costs of the war, in lives and money, had been higher than he had anticipated — and longer. 

Casting aside any hesitation about an aggressive interest rate cut, investors sent stocks soaring to their highest gains in five years on Tuesday as shares of financial firms surged in the hopes that the Federal Reserve has finally taken hold of the credit crisis. The Dow Jones industrial average gained 420 points. 

Florida's Democratic Party chairwoman on Monday officially buried the possibility of redoing the state's disputed January presidential primary, saying there was no practical or affordable way to conduct a new election. 

US Vice-President Dick Cheney declared the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq a 'successful endeavour' during a visit to Baghdad, on the same day a woman suicide bomber killed 40 people. 

'If you look back on those five years it has been a difficult, challenging but nonetheless successful endeavour ... and it has been well worth the effort,' Cheney, an architect of the invasion, said after meeting Iraqi leaders. 

from Crikey ….. 

Bear Stearns and the decline of American prestige 

Stephen Mayne writes: 

United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice & Defence Secretary Robert Gates are due in Moscow today for talks with their Russian counterparts. 

The quite probable next president of the United States continues to demonstrate why we should all be very, very afraid.  

Did you ever lie awake worrying about the prospects of Dubya forgetting how to breathe one night and the world being subjected to the terrifying reality of President Cheney?  

Tony Blair is to lead a new international team to tackle the intractable problem of securing a global deal on climate change which would have the backing of China and America. 

Almost everything seems to be going wrong for the American economy at once. People are buying less, but most things are costing more. Mortgage rates are rising, the dollar is falling and prices of key commodities like oil are leaping from one record high to the next. 

Five years since the conflict in Darfur began, BBC News website's World Affairs correspondent Paul Reynolds asks why international concern has not been translated into effective intervention. 

The deep concern about Darfur felt internationally has not been matched by a similar determination to intervene. 

New South Wales Attorney-General John Hatzistergos says the Government is considering extending the life of special powers given to police during last year's APEC summit. 

A review of the APEC meeting, discussed in Cabinet yesterday, has concluded the event was conducted peacefully, largely due to the scale of the police operation and the powers available under the Act. 

Although Putin stressed continuity in foreign policy in his statements, Merkel's meeting later with Medvedev had a somewhat different character. The two met at his government residence, located near Putin's and bearing the German name of Mayendorf, or 'May Village.' 

It has been decades since calls for greater independence in Tibet have been so vocal. Now acts of defiance against Chinese rule in the region are springing up all over the world. 

I felt like I wanted to cry because it made me feel like I wasn't an Australian, like I wasn't wanted there.