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AUSTRALIA is likely to send more troops to Afghanistan to protect engineers about to be deployed to that country, Defence Minister Brendan Nelson says. Dr Nelson said the Special Operations Task Group already in Afghanistan, which includes elite Special Air Service soldiers, will come home as planned at the end of September. But the minister said worsening security in southern Afghanistan may require extra protection for the reconstruction taskforce Australia was about to send to the country. "The threat level and the risks in Afghanistan have been increasing substantially over the last few months," Dr Nelson said on Channel 9....

WASHINGTON, May 17, 2006 – A new agreement between the United States and Australia opens the door to more information sharing and cooperation in research and development related to combating terrorism. Ambassador at Large Henry Crumpton (standing), the State Department's counterterrorism coordinator, looks on as Thomas O'Connell (left), assistant secretary of defense for special operations and low-intensity conflict, and Peter Shergold, Australia's secretary for the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, sign a memorandum of understanding promoting counterterrorism cooperation May 17. Photo by Donna Miles  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. Thomas O'Connell, assistant secretary of defense for special...

WASHINGTON, March 17, 2006 – Australia has been a strong U.S. ally for decades in a relationship based on common values and belief in the virtue of democracy, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said today in Melbourne, Australia. "The Australian people have, indeed, been good friends and good allies," Rice said to Australian troops at Victoria Barracks. "And that is represented by the tremendous friendship and alliance of our military forces, because military forces can't be allies and friends if the peoples are not allies and friends, particularly in great democracies." Australia went with the United States to the fight...

Aussie forces stay on THE decision by the US to pull 29,000 troops out of Iraq will have little effect on Australia's own plans to reduce its military commitments in the war-torn country. US President George W. Bush announced this week that about 7000 US combat troops were being withdrawn from a base force of 138,000, reducing troop strength in the country by about 5per cent. The withdrawal is in addition to 22,000 troops who were sent to Iraq last year, specifically to bolster security for two elections. The US is also cutting its force in Afghanistan by a further...

WASHINGTON, July 18, 2005 – Australia remains committed to "military operations that are part of the democratization process in both Afghanistan and Iraq," the country's prime minister said in the Pentagon today. "No two countries could be closer in terms of our common values and attitudes towards the challenges that the world faces at the present time," Prime Minister John Howard said during a joint press conference with U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Australia has been a steadfast ally in the war on terror. The country has nearly 1,400 troops in Iraq, and Australian troops were with U.S. and British...

THE terrorist attacks in London would further strengthen Australia's resolve to continue in the war against terrorism, Prime Minister John Howard said today. Mr Howard said the series of blasts targeting London's underground and bus networks would not affect Australia's involvement in Iraq. He said the attacks were a reminder of the indiscriminate nature of terrorism. "I want to make it very plain that this kind of attack will not alter the attitude of the Government of Australia towards terrorism and towards the commitments we have with our American, British and other friends to Iraq to Afghanistan," he told ABC...

Bush administration comes calling IN mid-March one of the most remarkable diplomatic scenes involving Australia took place in the White House. Our outgoing ambassador to the US, Michael Thawley, went there with his wife to pay his scheduled farewell call on the President. Thawley was in for a surprise. Instead of a momentary grip and grin, an extraordinary scene unfolded in the Oval Office. After a few minutes the President said he had a couple of others who wished to farewell the Australian. He went out and returned with Vice-President Dick Cheney, Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and his deputy Paul...

LET US TALK OF ALLIES, but not, at least for once this week, of Europeans. After all, the United States is human history's one and only superpower. Our security concerns are genuinely global; our political principles are universal. So why should we obsess primarily about how we are regarded only in Paris or Berlin? Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is an irritating man, to be sure, but all the more so for being intermittently insightful. One of Rumsfeld's rules is that the mission determines the coalition. In the early 21st century, the United States has two important missions if it is...

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) - Australia will send 450 more troops to southern Iraq to help protect Japanese engineers and help bolster the country's fledgling democracy, Prime Minister John Howard announced Tuesday. The new detachment will include a cavalry squadron, infantry company and a team to train local forces, Howard told a news conference in Canberra. Australia, a staunch U.S. ally, sent 2,000 troops to take part in the invasion of Iraq and still has nearly 900 troops in and around the country. Howard said it would take about 10 weeks for the new troops to prepare for their trip to...

AUSTRALIA will send a new taskforce to Iraq to help with the rebuilding process in the war-torn country, Prime Minister John Howard said today. Mr Howard said the taskforce would work alongside Japanese forces rebuilding roads and schools in southern Iraq. The taskforce will also help train Iraqi security forces. Mr Howard said the rebuilding process was even more essential following the elections in Iraq last month. "The government believes that Iraq is very much at a tilting point and it's very important that the opportunity of democracy, not only in Iraq, but also in other parts of the Middle...

PRIME Minister John Howard has leapt to defence of the US and President George W. Bush at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland. Mr Howard has also questioned the track record of the United Nations, pointing to the organisation's inability to respond quickly and decisively to humanitarian crises. The war and continuing strife in Iraq has dominated discussions at Davos this year. The picturesque ski village high in the Swiss Alps fills with world leaders, business heads, rock stars and movie stars every year, serving as a swank forum for lofty debate about the world's big economic, humanitarian and political...

AUSTRALIA would keep troops in Iraq until the job was done, Foreign Minister Alexander Downer assured the new Iraqi ambassador yesterday. During a brief welcoming meeting at Parliament House, Mr Downer told Ghanim Taha Ahmad Al-Shibli that Australia would maintain aid programs and continue to build up trade programs. "I want to make it clear, and I have made it clear to the ambassador, that we are very firmly committed to a new and democratic Iraq, that we are not going to cut and run," Mr Downer said. Mr Al-Shibli spent 18 years in exile in the US during Saddam...

A former schoolteacher has been appointed to command the 920 Australian troops in and around Iraq. Air Commodore Greg Evans will replace Brigadier Peter Hutchinson, who has commanded the Australian contingent since May this year. Commodore Evans, who gave teaching away to join the RAAF as a pilot 22 years ago, will be based in Baghdad as commander of the Australian forces in the Middle East area of operations. Defence Minister Robert Hill said Air Commodore Evans would lead the Australian Defence Force (ADF) personnel on active service in the Middle East to support stabilisation and reconstruction efforts in Iraq....

US Vice-President Dick Cheney is set to become even more powerful in the second Bush administration than he was in the first. And that is likely to be good news for Australia. If the speculation is right, and some of the senior Bush cabinet members move on – in particular Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin Powell – Australia could lose some of its best friends in the administration. Powell has become a good friend of Foreign Minister Alexander Downer, but his deputy, Richard Armitage, is the most pro-Australian influence at a senior level in the Bush...

On the highest rating, most listened-to breakfast program on Melbourne radio, the hosts asked their audience a question yesterday. That question? "Do you want to see George W. Bush re-elected as President of the United States of America?". After one of the largest audience reactions to any poll question, a full 60% of listeners said "Yes". Despite what you're told by the liberal left media, it's good to know the truth: the people, wherever they may be, are with President Bush.

<p>OF ALL OUR allies in the world, which is the only one to have joined the United States in the foxhole in every war in the last 100 years? Not Britain, not Canada, certainly not France. The answer is Australia.</p>

TERRORISTS struck at Australia's embassy in Jakarta yesterday, exploding a massive car bomb that killed nine people and wounded 160. No Australians died in the blast, but it is believed two embassy workers were taken to hospital. Those killed were mainly Indonesians, some of them embassy security staff, cut down in the road by the explosion just 4m from the front gates of the compound. Sickening pictures showed a little girl being carried from the scene, her body torn to shreds. Foreign Minister Alexander Downer described the bombing as an attack on Australia. "It is clearly a terrorist attack," Mr...

Dubya delivers, putting PM first among equals WHEN John Howard called the election a week ago one thought went through the minds of those who study US-Australia relations: would the Bush administration do something to help Howard? Yesterday, the answer was an emphatic yes. In the most extraordinary, perhaps the only, reference to Australia in a presidential nominating convention acceptance speech, Bush declared to a television audience of tens of millions: "I deeply appreciate the courage and wise counsel of leaders like Prime Minister Howard ..." That's right, Howard was first in the list, ahead of the Polish, Italian and...

Sydney, Australia – Among the formal and organizational wreaths at the war memorial dedicated to the Royal Australian Regiment in the center of Sydney last Sunday were two laid by an RAR corporal in memory of two friends killed in action. They died 51 years ago in Korea fighting alongside Americans, Brits and others in the U.N. force. Aussies were among the first soldiers to join the United States in Afghanistan. They are stationed today in Iraq. Few of us honor the injunction "Lest We Forget" as faithfully as the RAR corporal. But Americans should at least be aware that...

The Federal Government yesterday committed fresh troops to Iraq, taking Australia's involvement in the strife-torn country well into 2005. The 53-strong Australian Army contingent training Iraqis for their own military and police force will be extended for another six months. A new training squad of 50 to 60 soldiers from Townsville will leave for Iraq in the next few weeks. The second army training team will overlap the existing squad for six weeks.. Defence Minister Robert Hill said that for the first time a medical team of 20 personnel would be sent to Iraq to support a major coalition military...