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Down Under
US announces plans to bomb Australia
2005-11-18
Made you look GIANT American strategic bombers will practise long-range raids on Australia under an agreement enabling the US to "project power" into the region. The bombers will hit the Delamere bombing range in the Northern Territory under an agreement signed yesterday at the Australia-United States ministerial summit in Adelaide.

While demonstrators outside the tightly guarded Adelaide City Hall chanted for an end to involvement in Iraq, Defence Minister Robert Hill and Foreign Minister Alexander Downer signed a deal with US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and US Deputy Secretary of State Bob Zoellick on closer defence and security ties. They also revealed they were looking for ways to link Australia's Jindalee Over-The-Horizon radar network into the proposed US anti-ballistic missile system. And the Shoalwater Bay training area in Queensland will be upgraded for joint exercises.

Senator Hill said Australia had not provided support for US strategic bombers for some time. He said the US was going through a transformation in the region, "which means it does not necessarily have to have the current mass up front but be able to project power from further afield". Training will start in the new year and involve bombers travelling a considerable distance to use the ranges and flying home without landing. Others would land and use facilities at Darwin.
Likely these will be flying out of Guam and Diego Garcia, as well as a few very long range missions from the States.
The Australian ministers also said they had not received from Iraq any official indication the Government wanted Australia to withdraw its troops from the southern al-Muthanna province. A spokesman for Iraq's Prime Minister, Ibrahim al Jaafari, said this week Australians were no longer needed in al-Muthanna. There are 450 Australian soldiers there protecting Japanese engineers involved in reconstruction and training Iraqi troops.

Mr Downer suggested that when that work was done the Australians might take on another role in Iraq. And Prime Minister John Howard also refused to rule out redeploying the troops to another region of Iraq.
But he said it was too early to judge whether the province could be managed by fledgling Iraqi security forces. Australia's formal commitment of troops to the region was still scheduled to last until May.

"I am not going to rule anything out 
 we will stay there while it is in the interests of achieving our goals, and that is a more secure Iraq where democracy is emerging," he said before the APEC leaders' summit in Busan, South Korea. "If we were asked to go by the Iraqi Government, we would obviously go. But we have not been asked to go . . and I did not interpret the comments made by his spokesman 
 as a request from the Iraqi Government to go," Mr Howard said.

Meanwhile, Mr Rumsfeld said Australian terror suspect David Hicks was receiving excellent treatment at Guantanamo Bay. He dismissed allegations of mistreatment of prisoners at the US naval base in Cuba.
Hicks, 30, has been held at Guantanamo Bay since his capture with Taliban fighters in Afghanistan in late 2001 after the September 11 attacks in the United States.

In an affidavit released last year, the Adelaide-born Muslim convert said prisoners were beaten while blindfolded and handcuffed, terrorised by dogs and forced to take drugs. He also alleged he was sexually abused during two 10-hour beatings on a US warship. But Mr Rumsfeld said there was no mistreatment of detainees and this view was supported by the Red Cross. Hicks was to be the first of nine detainees to face trial by special military commissions. He has pleaded not guilty to charges of conspiracy to commit war crimes, attempted murder by an unprivileged belligerent and aiding the enemy.
Posted by:Steve

#6  Made me look is right - thought it was a new episode of AMERICAN DAD 'toon; or ALAN ALDA's Repub wet dream vv WEST WING.
Posted by: JosephMendiola   2005-11-18 22:14  

#5  Mrs. D, long time no see. ;)
Posted by: Red Dog   2005-11-18 15:26  

#4  While demonstrators outside the tightly guarded Adelaide City Hall chanted for an end to involvement in Iraq

What were they demonstrating? Their irrelevance? Their inability to stay on topic?
Posted by: Robert Crawford   2005-11-18 15:07  

#3  Keep that bwitch out of here. She's done enough damage.
Posted by: Mrs.Davis   2005-11-18 15:02  

#2  calling on Gentle.
Posted by: 2b   2005-11-18 14:50  

#1  Pounding desert is so boring, seems like some human shields might turn up for more interesting target practice.
Posted by: Jake-the-Peg   2005-11-18 14:28  

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