Australia may test new generation weapons in Australia: Expert
Australia may test new generation weapons in Australia: Expert
Agencies,
Sydney/Jakarta
New-generation weapons like smart bombs could be tested in
Australia under an agreement being negotiated with the United
States military, news reports said on Friday.
The agreement with the Pentagon is expected to lead to
upgraded joint military training centers in Australia's north
that would be used for air, sea and land exercises.
Queensland's Shoalwater Bay, the Northern Territory's Bradshaw
training area, and the Delamere Air Weapons Range, are the three
locations slated for the upgraded joint facilities.
Brisbane's Courier-Mail quoted defense specialist Ross
Babbage, who has just returned from briefings in Washington, as
saying there would be experimentation with self-guided smart
bombs and live or "dummy" bombing raids into Australia from U.S.
aircraft carriers.
Babbage said that smaller versions of smart bombs, which could
pinpoint hinges on tanks, would also be tested.
"What I can see happening is rather more than what has been
revealed," Babbage told the newspaper. "There will be things that
will be learned together. They will try completely new things."
Babbage, a former government advisor, said the level of
cooperation would send a strong message to the region about U.S.
support for Australia.
"We are making it very clear that when push comes to shove,
Australia and the U.S. governments operate very closely
together," he said.
The Opposition Labor Party, which has been critical of the
government of Prime Minister John Howard for becoming too
compliant to Washington's demands, has approved the establishment
of joint training facilities -- so long as Australia's neighbors
are kept abreast of developments.
Earlier this year, Australian Defense Minister Robert Hill
said that joint training facilities would not amount to a U.S.
base and would not include a stockpile of weapons. Hill, speaking
in Singapore after meeting U.S. Defense Secretary Donald
Rumsfeld, said U.S. troops would not be based in Australia.
Babbage announced details of the agreement in a series of
interviews that raised questions about why he had made the
announcement and not the government.
The defense department issued a statement on Friday saying
Australia and the U.S. maintained a mutually beneficial program
of combined training and exercising that enhances their capacity
to work together effectively in defending shared interests.
But negotiations for a joint combined training center were at
an early stage and no agreement had been signed over the testing
by the United States of new-generation weapons in Australia, it
said.
Babbage conceded that increased U.S.-Australian exercises
would be a sensitive issue in the region, but said Canberra could
be expected to launch another round of briefings for countries
such as Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand to ease neighborhood
concerns.
But after extensive discussions in Southeast Asia, he believed
there was a deep respect for Australia's military capabilities
and some governments hoped that if they found themselves with
security problems, the Australian Defense Force would help them.
In Jakarta, Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesman Marty
Natalegawa said that the government expected Australia to take
concrete steps in terms of defense cooperation in order to ease
suspicions.
He called on Australia, and its neighbor New Zealand, to
discuss the possibility of the two countries signing the Treaty
of Amity and Cooperation (TAC) during the ASEAN (Association of
Southeast Asian Nations) Summit in Vientiane, Laos, later this
month.
Signatories of the TAC are bound to the principle of peaceful
relations, including the non-interference principle and the
renunciation of threats and the use of force.
"Indonesia views this as a very important issue. One step to
reduce suspicion is to sign the TAC, instead of signing bilateral
documents," Marty stated during a press conference on Friday in
Jakarta.
ASEAN, Australia and New Zealand are scheduled to hold a
Commemorative Summit in Vientiane to discuss the possibility of
creating a free trade area and other cooperative agreements.
Canberra and Washington are increasingly close allies. In
1954, and with New Zealand, they signed the ANZUS Treaty, a
defense pact that obliges signatories to come to the aid of
another in the event of attack.
Australian National University academic Paul Dibb, a former
senior Defense Department official, said in a recent paper that
Australia was the "southern anchor" of U.S. engagement in the
region and Japan and South Korea the northern anchors.
"Australia's defense and intelligence relationship with the
U.S. is unique in the Asia-Pacific region," Prof. Dibb said. "Not
even Japan shares this closeness with Washington."