US President George W. Bush has been heckled inside the Australian parliament and was jeered by protesters outside as he attempted to defended his invasion of Iraq and the "war on terror".
Mr Bush, wrapping up a six-nation Asian tour, told a joint session of parliament that Australia and the United States had a "special responsibility throughout the Pacific" to help keep peace.
The American president is on a visit to Australia to thank conservative Prime Minister John Howard for help in Iraq.
But his tagging of Australia as a regional "sheriff" and staunch defence of the Iraq war angered left-leaning Green politicians whose yells twice stopped the president's speech.
"We are not a sheriff," shouted Greens leader Mr Bob Brown who ignored an order to leave the house. The heckling did not rattle Mr Bush who is on his first trip to Australia and will head home later today. "I love free speech," he quipped, to cheers from the house.
Security guards removed one person from the chamber packed with well-known Australians, including TV-celebrity Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin in his trademark khaki shorts and tennis star Lleyton Hewitt.
The 18-year-old son of Mr Mamdouh Habib, one of two Australians held at a US military prison in Cuba for two years without charge after the Afghan invasion, was dragged out, arms pinned behind his back, after yelling: "Hey Bush, what about my Dad?"
While tempers flared inside the hill-top parliament, a crowd of up to 2,000 protesters outside chanted anti-U.S. slogans and waved banners reading: "Yankee Go Home" and "US Sucks."
Through the crowd weaved an Osama bin Laden lookalike, carrying a placard reading "Come and Get Me" and two activists dressed as Saddam Hussein and Bush holding hands.