As election issues go, it should be a huge asset for Labor as the Iraq War has been a foreign policy nightmare for the Howard Government.

Four and a half years after Coalition forces drove Saddam from Baghdad, sectarian violence still fills the country’s power vacuum, and our involvement is hugely unpopular on our shores.

But could Kevin Rudd’s Labor do any better in Iraq than the Howard Government? If elected, will it keep its troops involved in the dangerous work of trying to fix the mess, or withdraw and fail to see through a war we helped start?

This week SUNDAY goes to Baghdad, where the Nine Network’s National Security Correspondent Tim Lester travels with the Australian Defence Force by armoured vehicle along the dangerous Route Irish – the violent 12 kilometre stretch of road which links Camp Victory to the international zone in the middle of the city.

He speaks to Australian and US forces, who give us a Ground Zero overview of the situation in Iraq, their “Overwatch” role and the consequences of early withdrawal.

Labor lost the last election on the back of a promise to remove Australian troops by Christmas 2004, and this time they’re again trumpeting troop withdrawal – with a host of caveats.

Shadow Defence Spokesperson Joel Fitzgibbon says: “Well this is no doubt the largest foreign policy blunder in Australia’s history, probably greater than the Vietnam War and it’s about time we got our combat troops out of Iraq.”

But Labor has only committed to pulling 500 troops out of 1500 – that’s a far cry from withdrawal. But it’s an old idea which has been bogged down in the realities of Iraq.

Defence Minister Dr Brendan Nelson says: “He’s trying to make the Americans believe and the Iraqis believe that in some way he’ll still be committed to the campaign in Iraq, but at home here in Australia, to make the average Aussie think that he’s going to bring the troops back.”

“It’s important that as Australians, if you think about the values for which our country stands, that we don’t diminish ourselves by just dropping our bundle and make sure that somebody else has to carry it for us. That’s never been our way.”

The battle for the hearts and minds of the Iraqis is paralleled back here in Australia as both sides of politics battle for the hearts and minds of the voting public.

IRAQ: HEARTS AND MINDS: Sunday, September 30 from 9am-11am