Australia to withdraw Iraq troops

Australia to withdraw Iraq troops

Mr Howard committed 2,000 troops to the US-led war effort

Australian troops will start pulling out of Iraq by the end of May, Prime Minister John Howard said on Thursday.

Mr Howard said the elite special forces, fighter aircraft and warships it sent to join the US-led Iraq conflict were no longer needed, following the fall of Baghdad.

The prime minister also ruled out a request by coalition partners the United States and Britain to send a sizeable peacekeeping force to Iraq to aid the post-war restructuring programme.

"I don't think Australia should be in a situation where we have a large number of peacekeepers... simply because we have responsibilities of that kind going on in our region," Mr Howard said.

Australian forces are already involved in peacekeeping duties in the former Indonesian territory of East Timor as well as in other Asian hotspots.

But Mr Howard did say that Australia would provide "niche" areas of post-war support to Iraq, including military air traffic controllers and trained specialists to help in the search for weapons of mass destruction.

Homecoming

About half of Australia's 2,000-strong military force will be home by mid-June, Mr Howard said.

Mine clearance personnel are due to leave in June

Its FA-18 Hornet aircraft are due to return in May, along with Special Air Service troops. These will be followed in June by the transport ship HMAS Kanimbla and navy mine clearance divers.

Australia suffered no casualties in the Iraq war, and its special forces have been praised for their work in disabling missile sites and gathering information.

Mr Howard's decision to contribute Australian troops to the war effort was at first largely unpopular with the Australian public.

But an opinion poll published earlier this week showed that the prime minister's popularity had risen sharply, and most Australians now supported his stance on the war.

On Thursday the Australian foreign ministry eased its travel warnings for 11 Middle Eastern countries, including Israel, Bahrain, Qatar and Saudi Arabia.

The ministry said Australians should still "exercise extreme caution" in these countries, but was no longer advising its citizens to "defer all non-essential travel" to these nations.

It continued, however, to advise against travel to Kuwait, Lebanon, Syria and Iran.