Corporal Chris Shevlin of the Royal Australian Defence Force is having a rough day.

The 23 year-old native of Adelaide was cleaning his AUSTEYR F-88 after an intense battle with insurgents in what the Western media have commonly dubbed “The Sunni Triangle of Death” when his platoon leader John J. Carlson called him aside. The call was by now familiar:

“We need more Australians up here!”

The “coalition of the willing” as it is still sometimes referred to by Bush administration staff has fluctuated wildly since the March 2003 invasion of Iraq led by the United States. At that time Australia had sent 2000 troops to support the toppling of Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein.

After his toppling, Australian Prime Minister John Howard, bowing to intense public pressure, quietly withdrew most Australian forces, flying out a few troops each month.

Currently Australia is represented in the Iraq conflict by Mr. Shevlin.

“Iceland sent two guys; we were friends,” said a bushed Shevlin as he shouldered a load of ammo and started off to lead his platoon in a patrol of a local Iraqi village. Iceland formally withdrew its 2 soldiers recently citing “prior commitments.” “Sven told me he had to ‘run some errands’ and then he stopped showing up for guard duty,” Shevlin said.

Other members of Shevlin’s outfit echoed his suspicion of Iceland’s excuses for withdrawing its soldiers from Iraq: “I’ve got to do ‘that thing’ at ‘the place’ is not a proper excuse to use to relieve oneself from military service it seems to me,” said David Jespers, a sniper with the US Marines. “I guess Iceland controls the world.”

Australia’s Defense Minister Kim Beazley has promised to look into the matter as soon as “I have time.”