News from Down Under
THE US is likely to use the joint military training facility it is seeking to establish in northern Australia to pre-position equipment and materiel, according to America’s highest-ranking soldier, visiting Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Richard Myers. In its global reassessment of its force deployment the US has developed a places, not bases, doctrine under which it stores large amounts of equipment from tanks to aircraft, and fuel and ammunition around the world to allow the rapid deployment of troops into theatres of war. In an interview with The Australian, General Myers said that there was no proposal to station US troops permanently in Australia.
| I guess that's okay. Anon1 seems to have found a boyfriend... |
However, General Myers said training was "an expensive proposition and if there are things that help you in training that would be better pre-positioned it might be something you’d look at. We do that in other places in the world, places where we train but we're not there routinely. We do want to hold down our costs to our taxpayers but at the same time be a ready force."
| Lord knows, we practiced marrying the troops to their equipment enough times on REFORGERs... |
General Myers welcomed Australia’s decision to participate in the US missile defence program and played down any diplomatic difficulties with other nations. "I was in China right before I came to Australia, we discussed a wide variety of issues from international terrorism to regional security issues like North Korea and China/Taiwan and one issue that did not come up was missile defence". General Myers said missile proliferation was a reality all over the world and nations would have to deal with it as they saw fit. "The US has spent years and lots of money in research and development on how to counter this threat. The most recent example of the success of the program was in Iraqi combat where the Patriot missile system, the PAC 3, successfully engaged every missile that came its way. Contrast that with just over 10 years ago when our largest single loss in Desert Storm was 26 individuals in a Scud missile attack in Saudi Arabia."
| And ten years from now this technology is going to seem primitive... |
General Myers paid tribute to the role of the Australian SAS in Iraq. "I think when the history of the major combat in Iraq is written the thing that will fascinate people is the way a third or more of Iraq, maybe two-fifths of the country, was dominated by relatively a very small force of US and Australian special forces. These were connected, in ways we’ve never connected before, with air power. There was air power over those forces 24 hours a day seven days a week. That western part of Iraq was controlled by very few soldiers. It was a remarkable feat. It’s something that doesn’t get written about very much and it’s something Australians can be very, very proud of." Of the Australia-US military and strategic relationship generally, General Myers said: "It’s as close as any relationship we have with anyone".
| Common language, common heritage, common values... Different hats, though. |
He believed the coalition was winning the war on terrorism and said the capture of Saddam Hussein provided the US with a wealth of detail on the insurgency in Iraq. "We did get a lot of intelligence from Saddam Hussein that showed us the structure of how the former regime elements were organised and who some of the key leadership were. We think that’s had a big impact. There’s still a big piece we don’t understand fully and that’s the role of the foreign fighters, the jihadists and al-Qaeda, who may have infiltrated into Iraq following the sound of the guns." General Myers said that, having seen all the intelligence, when the Iraq war began he was convinced that Hussein had stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction. He insisted there was no attempt by the US or Australian governments to mislead the public over the WMD issue and that eventually a full explanation would emerge of what the Hussein regime did with its WMD capabilities. |