Doug Lorimer
Almost two-thirds of Australians want all Australian troops to be withdrawn from Iraq immediately or no later than May, a telephone poll of 500 randomly selected Australians conducted from March 10-13 found.
Australia was one the three original participants in the March 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq (along with Britain), and has some 1300 Australian Defence Force (ADF) personnel serving in the Iraq war theatre, which includes Kuwait and the Persian Gulf. There are 460 Australian troops serving in Iraq itself, ostensibly providing protection to 600 Japanese military engineers in the southern province of Muthanna.
On March 6, ABC News Online reported that during a visit to the Australian troops in Muthanna, defence minister Brendan Nelson told them that they would remain in Iraq "well into 2007" or be replaced by a similar-sized ADF force.
The results of the poll, which was conducted by UMR Research on behalf of Hawker Britton, one of the country's leading public affairs consultancy firms, were released on March 19.
The poll found that 28% of respondents want all Australian troops withdrawn from Iraq immediately, while 37% want them withdrawn when the Japanese engineers pull out of Iraq in May. Support for the withdrawal position was highest among respondents aged 18-29, 74% of whom were for pulling Australian troops out of Iraq no later than May.
Only 24% of respondents said they wanted Australian troops to remain in Iraq until the country was "considered to be peaceful and stable, even if it takes a long time",
while 8% said they should stay until US troops were pulled out.
The poll also sought people's views on the reasons for the US decision to invade Iraq. Forty-nine per cent said it was "to protect oil interests", 22% said it was to remove Saddam Hussein's regime, 12% said it was to remove weapons of mass destruction the government believed existed, and just 3% said it was to promote "democracy" in the Middle East.
A poll conducted during the week March 1-8 of 1000 Australians by UMR Research found that 59% were against Australia's participation in the US-led invasion of Iraq. In a poll in November 2002 by UMR Research, 51% were against such an attack.
From Green Left Weekly, March 29, 2006.
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