Armed forces chief, General Peter Cosgrove, said carefully prepared plans for the war had always recognised the nature and size of the task, in which 2,000 Australians are the third force in the US-led coalition.

"It's clear from were I stand that, notwithstanding some of the unexpected and unusual events that have occurred, the war is right on its timeline and well within the success parameters that the plan envisaged," Cosgrove told reporters.

"After less than two weeks large sections of Iraq are under coalition control and the Iraqi army has been severely weakened. The regime has been hit precisely and hard.

"The south of the country will be progressively secured and cleared of Iraqi forces of all types over the coming days and weeks."

The successes, he said, would allow further humanitarian relief to flow and the liberation of the Iraqi people to begin, setting the stage for the "decisive defeat of a regime that harbours weapons of mass destruction."

Cosgrove, a popular and trusted figure in Australia after leading its successful military intervention in East Timor in 1999, blamed the media for helping obscure what he called "the bigger picture".

While correspondents had given the public an unprecedented view of the war, their inevitable focus had been on detail -- "a skirmish here and a battle there"

"My view is that the bigger picture is one of dramatic success and a plan on time in achieving the goals it set for itself," he said.

But some of Australia's leading defence experts painted a different and grim picture of the political consequences of the war.

Alan Dupont, of the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre of Canberra's Australian National University (ANU), said the coalition is losing the battle for Iraq hearts and minds although it may be regaining the military advantage.

He described the deaths of seven women and children shot by US troops when their vehicle failed to stop at a checkpoint as a public relations disaster.

His ANU colleague, professor Des Ball, said the coalition partners had probably already lost the political war. "Saddam and his regime will go but the coalition's other war aims, I believe, are in tatters," he said.

Their assessment coincided with two new polls showing growing public support in Australia for the war.

A poll for The Sydney Morning Herald showed 44 percent support, up sharply from six percent in January, while opposition to it had almost halved to 48 percent from 92 percent in January. A poll for The Australian newspaper, found 51 percent support, up six points since the war began.

Cosgrove admitted to being disappointed but not surprised that weapons of mass destruction had not been found so far, but said this meant only that further work had to be done to find them.

He said there had been a few surprises such as the use of human shields and the fact that Iraq troops had been wearing civilian clothes, mingling with civilians and firing on coalition forces. "That is a terrorist act under any definition," he said.

He said the war had so far been a great success for a force that was relatively small compared to the 1991 Gulf war coalition, and it had achieved its successes with a concern to avoid civilian casualties and damage that was unique in war.

SPACE.WIRE