<B>BRINGING</B> Australian soldiers back from Iraq by Christmas has become a major political issue as an election looms, and the opposition?s popular new leader insisted yesterday that the troops had to come home.

Opposition Labor leader Mark Latham, who has taken the lead in opinion polls, has vowed to bring Australia?s 850 troops home by Christmas if his centre-left party wins power in an election widely expected in October or November. But Prime Minister John Howard, a close US ally who sent 2,000 military personnel to Iraq, has accused Latham of sending the wrong signal to terror groups, Australia?s allies and the Iraqi people and called on him to reconsider his commitment. US Ambassador to Australia Tom Schieffer, who has previously been rebuked for interfering in domestic politics, jumped into the row on Thursday by warning of dangerous consequences if troops were withdrawn prematurely from Iraq.

But Latham, who once called President George Bush ?dangerous? and ?incompetent? over his decision to go to war in Iraq, has refused to change his pledge or kow-tow to the United States. He said the handover to an Iraqi government when occupation formally ends on June 30 was the logical time to withdraw troops as this ended Australia?s international responsibility to Iraq. ?Labor has a realistic proposal here and we are sticking to it,? Latham told Australian television. ?Australians are worried about security in this country and we are going to be much safer as a nation if we have our troops here instead of on the other side of the world.?

A Newspoll survey this week found 65 per cent of Australians thought the country?s role in Iraq had put it at greater risk of a terror attack.

Spain?s new prime minister, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, swept to power this month after promising to withdraw Spanish troops from Iraq and in the aftermath of the Madrid train bombings which killed 190 people and blamed on Islamic militants. Latham?s row with the government over troops in Iraq has finally given Labor the chance to take the lead on national security, an area dominated by Howard for more than two years.

Howard was elected to a third term in 2001 aided by his strong stand on security after the September 11, 2001, US attacks, which bolstered his conservative government?s standing. Howard, who has denied Australia?s role in Iraq put it at greater risk of an attack, warned against withdrawing troops.

?It is regrettable that the alternative prime minister of this country should be sending the wrong signals at the wrong time,? Howard told parliament. ?It?s not the Australian way to cut and run. It?s the Australian way to say and do the job and see it through and that is what we intend to do,? he added, saying his government had set no timetable for withdrawing troops. His office declined to comment on reports that Howard was planning a trip to visit Bush in Washington next month to discuss Iraq and sign a free trade deal struck earlier this year.