War based on a lie, says Rudd

THE withdrawal of Australian combat troops from Iraq reopened old wounds yesterday, when Kevin Rudd accused the Coalition of taking the nation to war based on a lie.

In a terse statement to Parliament, the Prime Minister said the Howard government had embarked on the mission using abused intelligence and "without a full and proper assessment" of the consequences.

Supporting the war without approval of the United Nations had set a dangerous precedent and undermined the international system, Mr Rudd said.

The Minister for Defence, Joel Fitzgibbon, said the military was overstretched with its commitments in East Timor, Afghanistan and Iraq.

"Roughly half of our infantry and cavalry is somehow tied to those deployments," he said. "This is an unsustainable position." The Iraqis had not asked the Australian troops for help in 20 months, he said, and they were needed elsewhere.

The Howard government had cited several reasons for the war, including preventing more terrorist attacks, stopping Iraq giving weapons of mass destruction (WMD) to terrorists, preventing other rogue states giving WMD to terrorists, and ending the crisis in Iraq.

"On every count, we on this side of the house rejected these arguments then as we continue to reject them now," Mr Rudd said.

"Have further terrorist attacks been prevented? No they have not been. Has any evidence of a link between WMD and the former Iraqi regime and terrorists been found? No...