The Age,
Australia is pursuing plans to train the new Iraqi army and speed the coalition's handover of power, according to Defence Force chief Peter Cosgrove.
The plans were detailed as Defence Minister Robert Hill revealed that Australians working with the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq were moved out of their hotel and in some cases out of the country in response to intelligence about a threat to their safety.
The threat to the Carthage Hotel was received just a week before the terrorist bombing of the Italian police contingent in Iraq and followed attacks on Polish and Spanish members of the US-led coalition.
“We don't take chances in this regard and if we are advised to do more we would do it without hesitation,” Senator Hill said.
After talks with US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage in Washington, Senator Hill said that the security situation in Iraq remained “delicately poised”, but Australia would not reduce its personnel there.
General Cosgrove said providing Australian military training for Iraq would not require many more troops.
“We are working through with both the Coalition Provisional Authority and the US military, who are closely connected with training of the new Iraq army, and with our own Government, the considerations involved,” General Cosgrove said.
Senator Hill will discuss the plan with US Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld today.
“We are interested in providing some further support in terms of training the new Iraqi army and maybe the navy. But we would do that within the force size structure that we settled on some time ago,” Senator Hill said.
General Cosgrove said the US would be ” looking to bring new Iraqi security forces on line as quickly as possible”, but would leave substantial combat forces inside Iraq despite ongoing guerilla attacks.
Senator Hill said most of the Australian civilians who had been moved as a result of the suggested threats had since returned to their hotel rooms.
After meeting David Kay, the head of the Iraq Survey Group hunting for evidence of weapons of mass destruction, Senator Hill said it was possible all weapons were destroyed before the war.
“You know it wasn't a question of whether they had the weapons, it was a question of whether and how they might use them,” he said.
Senator Hill said he was surprised that no weapons of mass destruction had been found in Iraq. “We equipped our forces in the expectation that they may well have to confront chemical weapons or biological weapons. We made them all have anthrax injections… on the basis of the best intelligence available.”
