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Iraq fails to sway Australia poll

By CNN's Grant Holloway, in Sydney

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SYDNEY, Australia (CNN) -- A long-awaited U.S. report that concludes Saddam Hussein did not possess weapons of mass destruction is unlikely to sway the outcome of Australia's national election being held this weekend.

Australia was one of four countries to send troops to the invasion of Iraq and the conservative coalition government has been a steadfast supporter of the Bush administration's foreign policy.

Prime Minister John Howard used intelligence reports of Iraq's WMD program to justify committing around 2,000 troops to the "coalition of the willing", a stance now discredited by the release of the CIA's probe into the issue.

However, Australia's involvment in Iraq has been barely registering on the campaign trail with the closely fought contest focussing almost exclusively on domestic issues such as economic management, health care, education and the environment.

"Iraq has not been a defining issue," leading Australian political analyst Malcolm Mackerras told CNN Thursday.

While many Australians disapproved of the war and thought it was a negative for Howard, the issue would not be enough to change their vote, he said.

This was partly because the Australian commitment had not been particularly costly and no Australian soldiers had been killed in the Iraq action.

Mackerras predicted a comfortable victory margin for Howard's coalition of around 12 seats in the governing 150-seat House of Representatives.

Speaking on Australian radio Thursday, Howard said the CIA report did not change the government's thinking on the Iraq action.

"They (the CIA) did find very strongly that Iraq had been in breach of UN Security Council resolutions, that there was a clear intention on the part of Saddam Hussein -- once UN pressure had been relieved -- to resume his WMD ambitions and the capability was there," Howard said.

Howard said he believed people who disagreed with the government's decision to invade Iraq might still vote to return his government for a fourth consecutive term.

"I think there are a lot of people who disagreed with me on Iraq and will for other reasons still vote for the government," he said.

"I think there are also a lot of people who disagreed with me on Iraq who agree with me that, now that our forces are there, they should stay until the job is done."

Opposition Labor party leader Mark Latham has promised to bring home the 900 or so Australian troops remaining in Iraq by the end of the year.

Latham said Thursday that Howard should apologize to the Australian people for the war in Iraq, saying the CIA report was proof the Prime Minister had misled the public.

" He made a terrible mistake, and the evidence today is further confirmation of that,'' Latham said.

Latham said Howard had made Australia less safe by diverting resources to the war on Iraq instead of focusing on the destruction of the al Qaeda-linked terror group, Jemaah Islamyia, in the Asia-Pacific region.

While opinion polls show the race is now evenly poised, the trend has been edging away from the Labor challengers in recent days.

An ACNielsen poll in The Sydney Morning Herald on Monday showed Howard's three-term administration leading the Labor Party 52 percent to 48 percent.

A Newspoll in The Australian newspaper on Tuesday showed Labor had lost a 52 percent to 48 percent lead recorded last week and now trailed the government by half a percentage point.

Under Australia's preferential voting system, votes for minor parties such as the Greens can be redistributed to major parties if no candidate wins more than 50 percent of the primary vote.

This system is expected to favor the Labor party on polling day.

However, the Liberal-National coalition will still hold onto power if a handful of key marginal electorates, particularly in suburban Sydney and Queensland state, remain in its hands.


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