About 550 Australian combat troops in Iraq should be withdrawn by about the middle of next year, Prime Minister-elect Kevin Rudd said on Friday, setting a broad timetable for the soldiers to return home.
Australia has about 1,500 troops in and around Iraq, but Rudd won power at the Australia’s national election on November 24 with a promise to bring frontline forces home.
“The combat force in Iraq we would have home by around the middle of next year,” Rudd told Australian radio.
