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Aussie PM defends Bush veto of troop pullout from Iraq

Australian Prime Minister John Howard yesterday strongly defended US President George W. Bush's veto of a law setting out a timeline for withdrawing US troops from Iraq.

Howard, an ardent supporter of Bush and a key ally in the four-year-old US-led war in Iraq, said that pulling out troops too early would cause chaos in the already violence-ridden country.

"As part of the coalition of the willing, my attitude ... is clearly the same attitude President Bush has taken," Howard told Australia's Sky Television.

deeper chaos

"If the coalition pulls out before the Iraqis are able to look after themselves then Iraq will be plunged into deeper chaos than they are experiencing at the present time," he said.

On Tuesday, exactly four years after declaring the end of major combat in Iraq, Bush used his presidential veto to kill legislation passed by the Democrat-controlled congress that would have pulled troops out of Iraq.

The bill linked the allocation of emergency funding for US troops in Iraq to a plan for US combat troops to start coming home by Oct. 1, and for most of them to be withdrawn by March 2008.

The showdown with congress set the scene for a reinvigorated battle between the administration and supporters of the war on one side, and anti-war forces keen on ending US involvement in the conflict.

Howard said the only suitable way to decide when to withdraw troops was by evaluating security conditions on the ground in Iraq.

no timetable

"Withdrawal of American, and indeed Australian forces, should not be according to a pre-determined timetable," Howard said. "It should be according to the conditions that prevail in the country."

"It is not helpful for me, or the president, or the American administration to be setting a timetable, rather .... [it] should be conditions-based, as conditions improve then it will become possible to look at these things.

"But until they have improved it is entirely premature ... and I therefore support what President Bush has said and done," he said.

Australia has about 1,400 troops in and around Iraq.

Howard, who faces re-election later this year, has conceded that his war policy is unpopular at home but insists he will not be swayed as he believes it to be right.

Also see story:
Bush vetoes Iraq withdrawal bill

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