Iraq War: Hungary says, You're keeping Bush? We're outta here!

The Coalition of the Willing continues to shrink: Hungary Sets Iraq Pullout as U.S. Election Ends by Balazs Koranyi, Reuters 11/03/04.

Hungary's 300 troops will be withdrawn from Iraq by the end of March 2005, the government said, in an announcement officials said was timed to avoid influencing the U.S. presidential election.

Officials said the decision was announced between the end of voting and the official result of the U.S. presidential election, so as to avoid making it a campaign issue and to show it would have been made irrespective of who was U.S. president.

"The timing of the decision is not a coincidence, there is no result yet in the U.S. election and we wanted to demonstrate it does not depend on who is president. If we had made this decision earlier it could have become a campaign issue," Defense Minister Ferenc Juhasz told a news conference.

I guess Rummy will now list Hungary as part of Old Europe.  The Iraq War is Bush's War for another four years.  Ain't nobody pulling America's irons out of the fire one this one.  I guess Britain will hang on as part of the coalition as long as poor, fawning Tony Blair is still Prime Minister.