CANBERRA, Oct. 10 (Xinhuanet) -- US President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair were among the first to make phone calls to congratulate Australian Prime Minister John Howard on his re-election on Saturday.

    Howard is the first of the three, who are all troubled by criticism and accusations for making mistakes in launching the Iraq War, to have won the election. Bush and Blair are to meet their election fates in November and May or June respectively.

    No details of the phone calls are available. But as the Australian Associated Press pointed out that Bush and Blair "no doubt took heart that Mr Howard suffered no voter backlash from the war in Iraq."

    At a campaign rally in Iowa, Bush described Howard as "the right man to lead that country (Australia) " and "the (US) president will always work with our friends and allies."

    All of the three Iraq war allies face mounting domestic criticism on Iraq policy as violence continues in the war-torn country and more than 1,000 US soldiers have been killed since the beginning of the Iraq war in March last year.

    A new report from chief US weapons inspector Charles Duelfer released last week, which said Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction (WMD) before last year's Iraq war, was in sharp contrast to what Bush and his administration believed. It left the three leaders in even more awkward position.

    Unlike Blair who apologized for the wrong pre-war intelligence on Iraq's WMD, Howard remained tough, saying he will deal with the issue in his own way.

    Australia sent 2,000 troops to join the US-led coalition in the war last year and still maintains 850 military personnel in and around the Middle-East country. Howard has insisted that the Australian troops will only withdraw until "the job is done."

    Howard's success in election is surely a relief to Bush and Blair as Howard's political rival, Opposition leader Mark Latham, has promised to bring the Australian troops home by Christmas if his Labor party wins the federal election.

    The policy on Iraq is one of the key factors in Australia's election. In a pre-election opinion poll, 69 percent of respondents said the issue of Australia's participation in the Iraq war would be a factor in how they vote.

    Moreover, Australia is thought to be one of the legs of the Pacific defense triangle of the United States. Howard's re-election, as analysts say, will make the leg of Washington's Pacific defense triangle more solid.

    Australia had led the UN-backed peace enforcement force in East Timor and sent troops and police to Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands to help restore law and order in the two Pacific countries. Enditem