Australia's opposition Labor leader Kevin Rudd, leading opinion polls ahead of an election this year, supports a staged withdrawal of Australian troops from Iraq. Rudd said he would consult with U.S. leadership about the staged withdrawal of troops if he won power. Prime Minister John Howard has said Australian troops would stay in Iraq ``until the job is done''. ``A staged withdrawal is the way to incrementally apply pressure on the Iraqis to begin to fashion a political settlement,'' Rudd told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio today in Canberra. ``Howard's alternative strategy is business as usual: that's continuing four years of failure.''
Iraq has dominated Australian newspaper headlines after U.S. Senator Barack Obama criticized Howard for saying al-Qaeda terrorists in Iraq were praying for the Illinois Democrat to triumph in next year's presidential election.
Rudd, 49, has challenged Howard, 67, to a national televised debate on Iraq and on Feb. 12 attempted and lost a vote of no confidence against the prime minister in parliament. ``Iraq is a rolled gold failure in which Howard has been the cheerleader in chief,'' Rudd said. ``A civil war in Iraq lies at the heart of this.''