Thanks to the AGE - 14/11/07

Women angered by silence on Iraq war

Sam McMillan and Louise Barry want an Iraq exit strategy.

PICTURE: JARRA McGRATH
Photo: Supplied

WHEN Prime Minister John Howard launched his campaign for

re-election this week, he did not mention the war in Iraq.

That omission has outraged two young Australian women —

one badly injured in the 2005 London bus bombing and

the other the partner of an American soldier who was killed in Iraq.

Now Louise Barry and Sam McMillan want to talk to Mr Howard to

tell him of the war's human toll.

They have written Mr Howard a letter and telephoned

his office several times to be told a meeting was under consideration.

Yesterday, they launched a "Hounding Howard" campaign to

put the war back on the political agenda. Brett Solomon, head

of the GetUp! campaign, said the two women knew something

about the real cost of the war on terror.

Ms Barry was on the No. 30 Islington bus in London in 2005

as a suicide bomber sitting on the floor above her blew himself up.

Her neck was broken and she spent months in hospital recovering.

Ms McMillan's story had a fairytale beginning when she met

American soldier Jacob McMillan at a bus stop in Italy. They fell in love and married.

Mr McMillan served in Afghanistan and came out with what his wife believes was post-traumatic stress disorder.

He was sent, untreated, to Iraq, where he was killed in action last December.

The two women want to meet the leaders of all political parties

to deliver a 40,000-strong GetUp! petition calling for a clearly

articulated exit strategy from Iraq. Ms McMillan said there was

no magical solution for Iraq.

"But ignoring it certainly won't make it go away," she said.

"We don't want what happened to us to happen to anybody else,

and that means changing our approach in Iraq."

Ms Barry said she wanted to pass on the concerns of

tens of thousands of Australians to the men who had

the power to help end the mess in Iraq.