POLITICS-AUSTRALIA: Troop Deployment Ignores Anti-War Sentiment

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Sonny Inbaraj

PERTH, Australia, Jan 23 2003 (IPS) - With Thursday’s deployment of Australian troops for a war against Iraq, Prime Minister John Howard is thumbing his nose at rising sentiment by the majority of Australians who oppose the country’s involvement in any military action that does not have U. N. backing.

Australia became the first country apart from the United States and Britain to begin deploying troops to the Gulf, with the departure from Sydney Harbour of the transport vessel HMAS Kanimbla. It was carrying 350 sailors and extensive military resources such as army landing craft, an air defence detachment and a specialist explosives team.

This is the first deployment of troops, and Canberra has committed 2,000 personnel that will join 200,000 U.S. and British troops already in the Gulf or en route.

On Friday, a company of about 150 elite troops from Perth-based Special Air Service Regiment will also leave for the Gulf to be followed by F/A-18 aircraft, Chinook helicopters, a Hercules plane and expertise in chemical and biological warfare.

Protesters assembling outside Sydney’s naval base heckled Howard as he arrived to farewell HMAS Kanimbla.

“Go yourself!” shouted the protesters as Howard passed through the gates of the naval facility amid heavy police presence.

Medical Association for the Prevention of War coordinator Gillian Deakin said the majority of Australians did not support the deployment of troops. “The Howard government should know that the people are not behind him,” she said.

“This action is wrong and we are sending a very wrong message to our Muslim neighbours,” she pointed out.

Deakin also said it was increasingly alarming that Howard was acting in such “heavy handed and dictatorial fashion”.

A ‘Sydney Morning Herald’ poll last week found just six percent of Australians supported involvement in a strike on Iraq without U.N. endorsement.

Ray Richmond, the pastor of the Uniting Church’s Wayside Chapel in Sydney and an ex-serviceman, is expecting the anti-war movement to escalate following the troop deployment.

“What’s really going to prevent the war against Iraq is the rising up of the ordinary people who say to their own governments and their cabinet ministers that it’s not on,” he said.

“If the numbers for demonstrations get very much larger and they begin to get angry because there is no other response from the government and they (the demonstrators) continue to be denigrated by being called un-Australianàsome of the demonstrations have the danger of becoming violent,” added the pastor.

The Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union will hang a 20 metre-long purple banner off Sydney’s World Square at noon on Friday to kick off a “purple peace ribbon” campaign.

In August, Howard said his government would commit troops to a U.S.-led first strike on Iraq only if it was “completely satisfied that it was in the national interest to do so”.

“I would want, as far as humanly possible, to achieve bipartisanship (with the Labor opposition) in relation to any decision this government ever takes to commit military forces,” Howard told the House of Representatives Question Time.

But Parliament was not recalled subsequently to debate the issue on committing troops to Iraq even though a war has not been declared.

Defence Minister Robert Hill defended the deployment decision, saying the government had given 24 hours’ notice for the deployment.

“The announcement yesterday of the departure of HMAS Kanimbla today was in keeping with that commitment,” he told Channel Seven’s Sunrise Programme.

Senator Hill said Australia was joining other countries in applying pressure to the Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.

”A very large force assembling in the region and that sends a clear and unambiguous signal to Saddam Hussein that this is his last chance, he can end this crisis peacefully by doing what the international community demands, and that is disarm,” he told Channel Seven.

Added Senator Hill: “Troops are being sent as a pre-deployment, that ensures that they are properly prepared, that they are acclimatised, that they are working with coalition colleagues over there, but secondly to add pressure on Saddam Hussein.”

But ‘Australian Financial Review’ defence writer Geoffrey Barker said the potential deployments of up to 14 F/A-18 Hornet fighters, an unspecified number of CH-47 troop-lift helicopters and specialist army units in addition to Special Air Service forces are the clearest indications that Canberra was prepared to fight in Iraq.

“These air and ground assets give the Australian Defence Forces much wider military options than they had in Afghanistan, and reflect the government’s willingness to make more than a minimal or token diplomatic contribution to any U.S.-led war against Iraq,” he added.

In the U.S.-led war against the Taliban in Afghanistan, Australia contributed 150 SAS troops to assist U.S. marines in combat, search and rescue teams.

Labor opposition leader Simon Crean said it was wrong for the government to be deploying any troops to Iraq ahead of authorisation of that action by the United Nations.

“Let’s get real about this. The troops are not being deployed at the request of the United Nations. The nature of the deployment is to support specifically U.S. build-up in the area,” said Crean.

He said Howard was out of touch and ignoring the wishes of Australians by sending troops to the Middle East. Added the opposition leader: “Howard should listen to the Australian people, not (U.S. President) George Bush.”

But Greens leader Senator Bob Brown was more outspoken.

“Today we’ve seen the sneak announcement by the Howard government of Australian Defence personnel being sent to the Iraq theatre of war tomorrow. It’s a sneak announcement by a government with no authority, not from the Parliament, not from the people of Australia,” Brown said.