We need to learn lessons of Iraq War

Future military commitments should primarily be directed to the security needs of our region.

MOST Australians, including many who supported the Howard government's decision to join in the invasion of Iraq five years ago, will welcome the news that the combat component of our ground forces in that country is coming home. Australia's commitment to the US-led "coalition of the willing" was bitterly divisive from the outset, and grew more so as the Bush Administration's original justification for the war, the Baathist regime's supposed possession of weapons of mass destruction, was shown to be false.