I am not surprised to see we are lining up the Aussies. Besides the good work in Afghanistan, they did one hell of a good job in Nam. When Hackworth was a Battalion Commander in Nam, he used to send his new Officers to a Aussie unit for OJT before giving them a command.
Australia Likely to Back U.S. Assault on Iraq
Inter Press Service
July 23, 2002
PERTH, Australia, Jul 23, 2002 (Inter Press Service via COMTEX) -- There are strong indications that Australia's elite Perth-based Special Air Services (SAS) will be at the forefront, together with American and British troops, of an expected U.S.-led military assault on Iraq aimed at toppling its president, Saddam Hussein.
Australia's Defence Minister Robert Hill is in London on a three-day visit this week, meeting British and American military planners detailing the technical aspects of the assault, which analysts say could be within the next six months or early next year.
In Washington, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee is soon to convene hearings that will assess the threat posed by Iraq's alleged nuclear weapons, ask how a post-Saddam Iraq would be reconstituted and provide projections on how long U.S. troops might be expected to stay in Iraq.
The Age newspaper, quoting military sources in Europe, reported over the weekend that both the United States and Britain were "impressed with the Australian Special Forces in anti-Taliban and anti-al Qaeda operations in Afghanistan and want the SAS to be at the forefront of the military strike on Iraq."
Before leaving for London, Hill told Australian Broadcasting Corporation's Lateline program that Canberra's role in the strike against Iraq would focus on "specialist capabilities" -- a euphemism for the SAS.
In 1991, the Labor government of Prime Minister Bob Hawke backed the United States in the Gulf War against Iraq by releasing Royal Australian Navy ships for offensive action with the Allied Task Force.
But the present Labor, currently in opposition, has questioned Canberra's support of a U.S. "pre-emptive strike" against Iraq.
"Should Australia automatically support pre-emptive military action in Iraq outside the authority of the U.N. Security Council and in the absence of any credible information linking Baghdad to the events of Sep. 11 or a renewed nuclear, chemical or biological weapons program?" asked Labor leader Simon Crean in an opinion piece in The Australian daily.
The commitment of Australian ground troops by Canberra has also come under criticism by defence planners.
"Sep. 11 has raised again the great conundrum at the heart of Australia's defense policy: Do we build our defense forces to defend our own country and secure our neighborhood, or do we build forces to fight alongside our allies far from home?" asked Hugh White, director of the government-funded Australian Strategic Policy Institute.
White argues that Sep. 11 has not reduced regional challenges to Australia's security and that the government would be best advised to concentrate on defense closer to home before committing Australian troops to "distant battles."
"The fact is that for all the drama of Sep. 11, many things have not changed. None of our old problems have gone away. Indonesia is still on a knife edge. East Timor is still struggling for viability. Papua New Guinea is still a mess. The Solomons is still a failed state on our doorstep," he said.
"And China's rise to power and America's response is still an unresolved challenge to the stability of the whole Asia-Pacific region," White argued.
Added White: "We do not know where our next crisis will be, but we do know where our interests and responsibilities are greatest -- in our own front yard. That is a policy we know will last."
But British military author and historian Sir John Keegan argues that the United States will not be deterred in attacking Iraq as long as it secures the cooperation of those countries whose territories it needs as bases or whose forces Washington believes will help the mission.
"America will get the allies it needs. It can count on the support of several countries whose armed forces will be useful, particularly Britain, Australia and perhaps New Zealand -- which maintain highly efficient special forces units," said Keegan.
"The Bush administration will not be deterred by European protests or by the fear of alienating regional governments in the Middle East or South Asia," he added.
Committing special forces troops to a U.S.-led campaign in Iraq will, however, come at a cost to Australia given its continuing peacekeeping commitments in neighboring East Timor.
"The army receives about 15 percent of the total defense budget, but it invariably comes to assume a significant portion of the Australian Defence Force's responsibilities. The Australian army has also fulfilled a large share of the peacekeeping burden in East Timor," said Gerard Henderson, executive director of the Sydney Institute.
"The Australian Defence Forces are quite stretched at the moment and any reassessment of the country's defence policy will not come cheaply," added Henderson.
"Australian strategists usually sought to emphasize the primacy of naval and later sea-air-forces -- only to find that, in times of war or security crisis, the need has been mainly for soldiers," he added.
Henderson pointed out that this was the case for Australian troops in the first and second world wars, and also during the limited conflicts in Korea and Malaya, during the tense konfrontasi period with Indonesia in Borneo in the early 1960s, and during the Vietnam War.
The government is quietly working on a White Paper, due to be released later this year, that will set out Canberra's approach to foreign and security policy in the post-Sep. 11 world.
The big question is whether Australia will abandon 25 years of defence self-reliance and instead place priority on being able to help allies in distant places such as Iraq. |
