AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE,
SYDNEY: Prime Minister John Howard said the United States was welcome to establish military bases in Australia.
He was commenting on a report that two joint military training and “forward expeditionary bases” would be built in the north of the country.
“The notion of bases or operational facilities or training facilities by Americans is something I would warmly welcome,” Howard told reporters, without specifically confirming the report in the Australian Financial Review.
“We made an announcement some time ago to the effect that we were going to expand the capacity for training and operations exercises in northern Australia for Americans,” he said.
“Whether you describe that as bases or not, I don't know.”
Howard is a close ally of US President George W. Bush and has deployed troops with US led coalition forces in both Afghanistan and Iraq.
A new base at Bradshaw in the Northern Territory would be equipped with a landing strip for giant C-17 military transport aircraft and accomodation for some 750 troops, roughly the number in a US marine expeditionary battalion, the Financial Review said, quoting defence sources.
This would give the US a major forward base to station and rotate troops and equipment for deployment to regional trouble spots.
A base further south at Yampi Sound on the northwestern coast of Western Australia would host joint US-Australia training in amphibious seaborne landing techniques, the paper said.
A spokesman for Defence Minister Brendan Nelson played down the report, telling AFP: “There is some expansion of existing bases but they are not US bases as such.”
The Financial Review said the government had provided few details of the size and scope of the bases, presumably to avoid concerns in Indonesia and China, which are sensitive about US bases in the region.
