Shhhhhhh, it's a secret

President Bush has finally announced his plan to fix Iraq, a floored treatise on the folly of ultimate power. Rightly, he discussed the plan with Mr Howard prior to its public release. And what does Howard do? Nothing. A big fat zero.

Where is our strategic plan for engagement in Iraq? What does Howard intend to do? Does he intend to actually do anything? As I said yesterday at a doorstop interview:

"So, it’s okay for Mr Howard to have a private conversation with President Bush about future strategy for Iraq but he won’t tell the Australian people what our future strategy for Iraq will be in our own right. This is simply unacceptable. It’s nearly four years since this war began. A war initiated by the United States and supported by Mr Howard. And yet, still as of today, we have no clear-cut statement of the mission statement. No clear-cut statement as to what the future strategy will be.

My challenge to Mr Howard is this: if you’re having a conversation with President Bush about future Coalition strategy for Iraq, please also now have a conversation with the Australian people about future strategy for Iraq.

The challenge more basically is this: what is Mr Howard’s strategy for winning the war in Iraq? Our troops have been there for a long, long time. He says that they’ll be there for an indefinite period. What is the strategy therefore under which those troops are deployed?"

Tell the Australian people now Mr Howard. Or perhaps, you can't tell them because there is no plan. There is no strategy. Perhaps there is only politics, the politics of the vague and clever.