Polish troops out of Iraq by summer 2008: report
WARSAW (AFP) — Poland aims to pull its 900 troops out of Iraq by the summer of 2008, Defence Minister Bogdan Klich said in a newspaper interview published Tuesday.
"I hope (the withdrawal) will be possible in the summer of 2008," Klich told the daily Rzeczpospolita.
Preparations are already under way to wind up the mission of the troops, who are stationed around 200 kilometres (125 miles) southwest of Baghdad.
On Friday, Prime Minister Donald Tusk had told lawmakers in his first policy speech since winning office that the withdrawal would "both begin and end" next year, but had not given details.
Tusk's liberal Civic Platform beat the conservative Law and Justice party in a snap election on October 21, and ending the Iraq deployment was one of his movement's campaign pledges.
Defeated conservative prime minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski, and his identical twin Lech Kaczynski who holds the office of president until 2010, were solid supporters of sticking with the US-led coalition in Iraq.
Tusk had made political capital of the Iraq issue when he trounced Jaroslaw Kaczynski in a pre-election televised debate, demanding: "What gives you the right, you and your brother, to extend the mission in Iraq ... to put the lives of Polish soldiers at risk?"
Jarolaw Kaczynski had responded that Poles "have never been deserters or cowards".
Tusk's Iraq stance struck a chord with ordinary Poles, however. A recent survey found that 85 percent of respondents opposed the deployment, while only around 12 percent supported staying put.
Poland has been one of Washington's most loyal allies over Iraq.
Around 2,600 Polish troops took part in the 2003 invasion, when the left-wing Social Democrats were in power.
The solid support offered by Poland and other ex-communist countries in eastern Europe for US President George W. Bush's military campaign against Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein sparked a bitter verbal tussle with anti-war nations, notably France.
US-Polish ties strengthened further after the election in 2005 of the Kaczynskis' party.
A total of 22 Polish soldiers have been killed in Iraq since 2003.
Tusk on Friday had said that Warsaw was withdrawing "in the knowledge that we have fulfilled -- and even more than fulfilled -- our commitments to our allies".
