CANBERRA - Australian combat troops serving in Iraq will return in time for them to march in a welcome-home parade in Brisbane on June 28.
But their armoured vehicles will take much longer, with a special extraction team bringing them out through Kuwait in a process likely to
run into August. The 550-member battlegroup has officially ceased operations, fulfilling Labor's election promise to withdraw combat forces from Iraq.
Defence Minister Joel Fitzgibbon said: "Our troops are overstretched, with commitments in East Timor, Afghanistan and Iraq.
"Roughly half of our infantry and cavalry is somehow tied to those deployments. This is an unsustainable position."
Some 300 Australian troops will remain in Iraq, and a further 500 will remain in the region.
- AAP
