Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
Wall Street Journal (wsj.com)
February 21, 2008
CANBERRA (AP) -- U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates and U.S. Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte will meet with their Australian counterparts this week for the first strategic summit since Australia's new center-left government was elected.
Foreign Minister Stephen Smith told Parliament on Thursday that he and Defense Minister Joel Fitzgibbon would meet the two Americans on Saturday in the national capital, Canberra.
The meeting comes after the new government announced this week a review of the previous government's decision to buy 24 U.S.-manufactured F/A-18 Super Hornet fighter jets.
It also comes as the new government, elected in November last year after 11 years in opposition, plans to implement its election pledge to withdraw 550 combat troops from Iraq by mid-2008.
"This carrying out of our election commitment in no way disturbs the fundamental nature of our alliance relationship," Smith told Parliament, referring to Australia's 57-year-old defense treaty with the U.S.
"The alliance transcends either governments in this nation or administrations in the United States," he added.
The last such meeting between the two sides was held in Washington in 2006.
February 21, 2008
CANBERRA (AP) -- U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates and U.S. Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte will meet with their Australian counterparts this week for the first strategic summit since Australia's new center-left government was elected.
Foreign Minister Stephen Smith told Parliament on Thursday that he and Defense Minister Joel Fitzgibbon would meet the two Americans on Saturday in the national capital, Canberra.
The meeting comes after the new government announced this week a review of the previous government's decision to buy 24 U.S.-manufactured F/A-18 Super Hornet fighter jets.
It also comes as the new government, elected in November last year after 11 years in opposition, plans to implement its election pledge to withdraw 550 combat troops from Iraq by mid-2008.
"This carrying out of our election commitment in no way disturbs the fundamental nature of our alliance relationship," Smith told Parliament, referring to Australia's 57-year-old defense treaty with the U.S.
"The alliance transcends either governments in this nation or administrations in the United States," he added.
The last such meeting between the two sides was held in Washington in 2006.