Australia's new leader said yesterday that he would pull his country's combat troops out of Iraq by mid-next year -- setting a timetable for the withdrawal he has promised.
The move is likely to disappoint the US government, which counted Australia as one of its few staunch allies in the unpopular war in Iraq until Labor Party leader Kevin Rudd was swept to victory in elections last Saturday.
The prime minister-elect said yesterday he would move quickly to keep his election promise of bringing Australia's 550 frontline troops home from Iraq.
"The combat force in Iraq we would have home by around about the middle of next year," Rudd told a radio station in the southern city of Melbourne.
The new government plans to leave several hundred other Australian forces in and around Iraq in non-fighting roles such as guarding diplomats. Australia also has about 1,000 troops in Afghanistan, a deployment Rudd supports and has no plans to reduce.
US President George W. Bush was the first foreign leader to phone Rudd to congratulate him on his election victory, and the Australian leader said he would visit Washington early next year, with Iraq certain to be at the top of the agenda.
Rudd said yesterday that his government had not begun discussions with US officials about the withdrawal plan, and that a meeting with US Ambassador Robert McCallum would be arranged soon.
Earlier this week, McCallum said US officials looked forward to talking the plan over, and noted that it did not mean all Australian troops would be leaving Iraq.
"It's a situation ... where Australia is determining how it's going to reposition its forces, how it's going to deploy its resources in a new and different way, and we are looking forward to working with Mr Rudd in achieving it," McCallum told Australian Broadcasting Corp radio.
Outgoing conservative Prime Minister John Howard sent 2,000 troops to support the US and British forces that invaded Iraq in 2003, and about 1,600 remain in and around the country.
Howard, who had close personal ties with Bush and was a staunch ally in the war on terror, had refused to set any timetable for pulling out the troops.
He said terrorists worldwide would be emboldened if they left, or if the US-led forces were defeated in Iraq.
Rudd says the Iraq deployment has made Australia more of a target for terrorism.
DOUBLE-MURDER CASE: The officer told the dispatcher he would check the locations of the callers, but instead headed to a pizzeria, remaining there for about an hour A New Jersey officer has been charged with misconduct after prosecutors said he did not quickly respond to and properly investigate reports of a shooting that turned out to be a double murder, instead allegedly stopping at an ATM and pizzeria. Franklin Township Police Sergeant Kevin Bollaro was the on-duty officer on the evening of Aug. 1, when police received 911 calls reporting gunshots and screaming in Pittstown, about 96km from Manhattan in central New Jersey, Hunterdon County Prosecutor Renee Robeson’s office said. However, rather than responding immediately, prosecutors said GPS data and surveillance video showed Bollaro drove about 3km
Tens of thousands of people on Saturday took to the streets of Spain’s eastern city of Valencia to mark the first anniversary of floods that killed 229 people and to denounce the handling of the disaster. Demonstrators, many carrying photos of the victims, called on regional government head Carlos Mazon to resign over what they said was the slow response to one of Europe’s deadliest natural disasters in decades. “People are still really angry,” said Rosa Cerros, a 42-year-old government worker who took part with her husband and two young daughters. “Why weren’t people evacuated? Its incomprehensible,” she said. Mazon’s
‘MOTHER’ OF THAILAND: In her glamorous heyday in the 1960s, former Thai queen Sirikit mingled with US presidents and superstars such as Elvis Presley The year-long funeral ceremony of former Thai queen Sirikit started yesterday, with grieving royalists set to salute the procession bringing her body to lie in state at Bangkok’s Grand Palace. Members of the royal family are venerated in Thailand, treated by many as semi-divine figures, and lavished with glowing media coverage and gold-adorned portraits hanging in public spaces and private homes nationwide. Sirikit, the mother of Thai King Vajiralongkorn and widow of the nation’s longest-reigning monarch, died late on Friday at the age of 93. Black-and-white tributes to the royal matriarch are being beamed onto towering digital advertizing billboards, on
POWER ABUSE WORRY: Some people warned that the broad language of the treaty could lead to overreach by authorities and enable the repression of government critics Countries signed their first UN treaty targeting cybercrime in Hanoi yesterday, despite opposition from an unlikely band of tech companies and rights groups warning of expanded state surveillance. The new global legal framework aims to bolster international cooperation to fight digital crimes, from child pornography to transnational cyberscams and money laundering. More than 60 countries signed the declaration, which means it would go into force once ratified by those states. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres described the signing as an “important milestone,” and that it was “only the beginning.” “Every day, sophisticated scams destroy families, steal migrants and drain billions of dollars from our economy...
RSS