Australian troops to leave Iraq by mid-2008: Rudd

---

SYDNEY, Nov 30 (AFP): Australia's prime minister-elect Kevin Rudd Friday said that Australia's 550 combat troops in Iraq would be withdrawn by the middle of next year.
Rudd was elected in a landslide Saturday which ousted veteran conservative prime minister John Howard, a staunch supporter of the US-led war 'War on Terror' and a friend of US President George W Bush.
Former diplomat Rudd had promised to withdraw the battle group from Iraq if elected but said he would leave behind some Australian soldiers, including those providing security at Australia's embassy in Baghdad.
"The combat force in Iraq, we would have home by around about the middle of next year," Rudd told a Melbourne radio station.
"We've not begun our discussions with the United States on that.
"We'll have a meeting with the United States ambassador before too long to set up the appropriate processes for discussing that."
Australia has some 1,500 troops involved in Iraqi operations, although most are outside the country. Only the 550 combat troops deployed in the south of the war-torn nation are subject to Rudd's withdrawal plan.
Iraq was a key point of difference between Rudd's centre-left Labor Party and Howard's conservative coalition during the election, but in his victory speech Rudd moved to allay US concerns about the troop withdrawal, describing the US as a great ally.
US ambassador Robert McCallum has said Washington will work with Australia's new leader on the plan to withdraw combat troops from Iraq.
"It's a situation where Australia is determining how it is going to reposition forces and how it is going to deploy its resources in a new and different way, and we are looking forward to working with Rudd in achieving that," McCallum said earlier in the week.
Howard was Bush's last major partner in the "coalition of the willing" that once included former prime ministers Tony Blair of Britain; Jose Maria Aznar of Spain; Silvio Berlusconi of Italy; and former Polish president Aleksander Kwasniewski.
Blair's successor, Gordon Brown, has announced that the number of British troops in Iraq will be cut by more than half early next year.