All Australian combat troops to leave Iraq in months - See ya mates

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/2/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10489476

CANBERRA - Australia's new Labor Government has formally told the United States it intends to bring its combat troops home from Iraq by the middle of the year.

Foreign Minister Stephen Smith told US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in Washington that the more than 500 troops and armour in the southern province of Dhi Qar would fly back to Australia when the present rotation ended.

Smith's confirmation of longstanding Labor policy - a direct u-turn on former conservative Prime Minister John Howard's open-ended commitment to Iraq - came as the Government also indicated a re-think of the nation's defence needs.

This could include the cancellation of a number of programmes launched by Howard, including the hasty decision to spend A$6 billion ($6.8 billion) on 26 American Super Hornet strike jets to plug the gap between the early retirement of the Air Force's aging F111 bombers and the planned arrival of new US-made joint strike fighters.

But Defence Minister Joel Fitzgibbon yesterday pledged to protect Australia's A$22 billion defence budget from severe cutbacks in government spending in the May Budget, and to increase real spending by an annual 3 per cent until 2016. snip

Iraq is an unpopular war and one which is regarded by most Australians as exposing the nation to greater danger of terror attack.

[Harkpark]

1. Wah they got smart

:rofl:

[tabasco]

2. You forgot Poland!

They're pulling out the last of their troops too.

[thunder rising]

3. 500 troops and armour ... they never "really" believed. They were just trying to go along ...