THE GUARDIAN: Australia's new leader, Kevin Rudd, has said he will pull his country's troops out of Iraq by mid-2008, fulfilling a promise he made during the election campaign.
Rudd said he would meet Robert McCallum, the US ambassador to Australia, soon to discuss the precise timing of the withdrawal.
The 50-year-old politician, who will be sworn in as prime minister on Monday, has said he believes the presence of troops in Iraq has made Australia more of a target for terrorism.
"The combat force in Iraq we would have home by around about the middle of next year," Rudd said in a radio interview in the southern city of Melbourne. >>> By Barbara McMahon
Mark Alexander
