Australia rules out timetable for pullout from Iraq
2005-08-09

CANBERRA, Aug. 8 (Xinhuanet) -- Australian Prime Minister John Howard on Monday ruled out a timetable for pulling Australian troops out of Iraq as Australia's former defense chief called for an early withdrawal.

"I don't and I won't commit myself to a date," Howard told Sky News.

He argued the Australian troops should remain there until they finish their missions particularly the training of the new Iraqi military.

His remarks came when Peter Cosgrove, the newly-retired head of the Australian Defense Force, said withdrawing foreign troops from Iraq by the end of next year would reduce the terror threat against Australia.

Australia, now keeping some 1,000 troops in and around Iraq, isthe only core member of the US-led coalition forces in Iraq that is free of terrorist attack on its soil.

"We've got to train the Iraqis as quickly as we can and to a point where we take one of the focal points of terrorist motivation away, and that is foreign troops," Cosgrove told Australian Broadcasting Corporation television.