Anzac's Dirty Dozen (29 page)

This chapter will look more specifically at some of Australia's most recent operations in order to extend Thomson's analysis and discount this myth once and for all. It will examine the performance of the ADF on three of the force's most recent and important operations: the stabilisation mission to East Timor, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. It is important to note a distinction between the performance of the individual ‘digger' and that of the organisation. There is little doubt that today's ADF personnel are highly trained, and the organisation has long rejected the idea of the natural warrior that underpinned much of the cult of the ‘digger'. For example, after his return from East Timor
in as address to the Sydney Institute, Cosgrove rightly extolled the virtues of the men and women who had served with him.
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But while individual acts are important, the success of a military operation is measured as a whole. The claim to ‘punch above its weight' must apply to the ADF as an entity not to the ordinary digger.

The Australian intervention in East Timor in 1999 was the nation's largest military deployment since the end of the Vietnam War. It was also the first time that Australia acted as the lead nation in assembling and commanding an international coalition. After the outbreak of widespread violence across East Timor following its vote for independence from Indonesia, Australia accepted a United Nations request that it lead a peace-stabilisation mission to restore order in the territory. This mission became known as International Force East Timor, or INTERFET.
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On 19 September the mission's commander, Major General Peter Cosgrove, visited Dili to hold discussions with his Indonesian counterpart. The next day, Australian ground forces began to arrive at Dili while an international fleet of warships approached the coast.

Over the next weeks, Australian, New Zealand and British servicepeople, along with the personnel of other contributing nations, spread out across East Timor bringing security to the territory. As this took place, Indonesian military forces withdrew while renegade militias were evacuated, disarmed or forced across the border into West Timor. On 23 February 2000, INTERFET came to an end and the operation changed to the United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor (UNTAET). The Australian-led mission had succeeded in its goals of restoring security to East Timor and laying the foundation for the emergence of a new nation.

INTERFET is usually described as a great success, a point
that is hard to dispute since Timor-Leste (East Timor) took its place among sovereign states in 2002. It was also a relatively costfree operation, as casualties sustained by the coalition's members were very low. Australia had just two fatalities, both non-battle related. Most importantly, Cosgrove avoided an open breach with the Indonesian military, although it must be admitted that relations between the two countries did worsen considerably, culminating in Jakarta's cancelation of its security agreement with Canberra.

Numerous commentators ascribed Australia's success in East Timor to Cosgrove's skill as a coalition commander as well as to the professionalism of the men and women who served under him.
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The 2000 Defence ‘White Paper' recognised INTERFET as the ‘most demanding military operation by the ADF in a generation', and credited its success to the personnel who served and to their ‘training, equipment and preparation'.
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There is much truth in these assertions. Had an Australian soldier panicked during a confrontation with Indonesian forces – and confrontations did occur – and had an exchange of fire resulted, there could have been a dangerous escalation of violence.

While such praise of the ‘diggers' is justifiable, it discounts another factor that was also critical to INTERFET's success. The vital contributions by the United States military and the quiet diplomatic pressure that Washington applied to Jakarta are often overlooked or minimised in Australian assessments of the East Timor intervention. This is unfortunate, as it was American military and diplomatic power, or rather the threat of it, that secured Indonesian agreement to INTERFET's deployment, Jakarta's acceptance of the loss of the province, and the Indonesian military's compliance with INTERFET during the handover. Thus the United States shaped the environment in a way that made INTERFET's success possible.

The diplomatic pressure that the United States applied on Indonesia was intense. US President Bill Clinton made it clear to Indonesian President B.J. Habibie that continued economic assistance from the international community was contingent upon the violence stopping in East Timor and the United Nations being allowed to resume its work in the territory. When, at the behest of the US government the International Monetary Fund suspended talks with Jakarta, the spectre of national economic collapse loomed, especially as Indonesia was dependent on external assistance as it struggled to recover from the Asian financial meltdown of 1997. The United States exerted additional pressure through its military-to-military links. The Commander-in-Chief of the US Pacific Command, Admiral Dennis Blair, met with the Commander of the Indonesian National Armed Forces (TNI), General Wiranto, and told him that the United States had decided to sever its military relations with Indonesia. The Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Henry Shelton, also spoke to Wiranto on several occasions. The thrust of these conversations was that the United States would cut Indonesia off from all US military and financial assistance unless the TNI supported the transition of East Timor to independence. It was after one of these calls that Wiranto recommended to Habibie that Indonesia allow an international peacekeeping force into the province.
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In its actions, the US government left no doubt that if Indonesia did not adopt ‘a constructive approach toward ending the humanitarian disaster in East Timor', the aid money needed to prop up the country would end and the military assistance that the TNI received would cease.
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The result of this pressure was that when Australian troops arrived in Dili, they found a delicate situation, but not a warlike one. Indonesia, including its military, had already made the decision that it was in its best interests to withdraw from East Timor
and by doing so avoid any escalation with INTERFET. Thus the Australian-led coalition faced a disgruntled Indonesian military, but not an overtly hostile force. Failure was still possible, but success had already been made much more likely thanks to the influence of the United States.

The military support the United States provided to INTERFET sent an equally powerful message to Indonesia's political and military leaders. Significantly, the United States offset a number of ADF capability gaps. As Australians arrived in Dili, they were protected by the US Navy's
Mobile Bay
, a guided-missile cruiser that could defeat any warship or aircraft in the Indonesian arsenal with ease. It remained in place until the TNI had completed its withdrawal. The United States also provided a series of amphibious and logistic vessels. These included the USN
Belleau Wood
and the USN
Peleliu
, while the US Marines that each ship carried offered a further latent threat, although these troops did not go ashore. As the ADF also lacked a deployable theatrelevel communications capability, the United States supplied one. Requiring twelve C-5 cargo and one C-17 transport aircraft, the US Army dispatched elements of its 11th Signals Brigade from Arizona to Darwin. The American signallers then transferred to East Timor where they remained until replaced by contractors in mid-December 1999. The United States also provided the operation with intelligence support by placing a team in Darwin with access to the American satellite system. Also to arrive were a small team of CIMIC (civil-military operations) personnel who established an operations centre in Dili and several US Air Force C-130 transport aircraft that joined the Darwin–Dili airbridge, supplementing the limited RAAF capacity. Other nations provided additional aircraft.

A particularly critical capability provided by the United States were the helicopters from the
Belleau Wood
and
Peleliu
. Ground
transport was difficult outside of Dili due to the poor quality of the territory's roads, and INTERFET made heavy use of US Marine CH-46 Sea Knight and CH-53E Super Stallion helicopters. In one case a relief organisation wanted to move six tons of supplies from Dili to Suai on the island's devastated south coast. As the organisation had only one truck it estimated that the movement across the island's rugged spine on dirt tracks would take about two months, assuming the wet season did not wash away the roads. Two Super Stallions made the move in an afternoon.
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The American contribution to INTERFET's success cannot be ignored if a true assessment of the operation is to be reached. As Alan Ryan has noted, while the American presence ‘was not obvious in terms of troops on the ground, it was critical to the success of the mission'. Ryan has no doubt that it was American political leverage, as well as the presence of its warships and Marines offshore, that enabled INTERFET to ‘box above its weight'.
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The Australian Senate recognised this reality by admitting that it was leverage from the United States that persuaded Indonesia to support the intervention, which in turn allowed INTERFET to meet its mandate.
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One American observer has been a little more generous about the Australian contribution, however. John R. Ballard ascribed the mission's success to a combination of Australian leadership and the unique support capabilities provided by the United States. It was American logistical might, he believes, that made it possible for Australia to serve as an effective lead nation.
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All this is not to deny that the ADF did a good job in East Timor. But any assessment of its effectiveness must take into account the American contribution if it is to have any validity and, more importantly, utility to the ADF. In the operation's aftermath a considered analysis of the Australian Army's performance revealed a force that was, despite its level of training and
professionalism, fundamentally hollow, lacking in capability, and suffering from major deficiencies in logistics and sustainment capability.
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There is no doubt that Australia's ability to conduct the operation at all only resulted from the external assistance it received.
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It must also be remembered that the East Timor intervention did not provide a full test for the ADF, as it was not a ‘war fighting' mission after all. The only real threat that the ADF faced came from the militia bands made up of ill-armed and poorly trained thugs. These had to be treated with care, but they did not pose a credible threat to a professional military organisation. Yet although not a ‘real' war, pacifying East Timor still stretched the ADF to an uncomfortable degree and if fighting had broken out, it is questionable whether the organisation had the depth of manpower, equipment and stores to meet and sustain the challenge. Surely this is not what is meant by ‘punching above its weight'.
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Moving on from East Timor, Australia's participation in the US-led Coalition against Iraq can be divided into two periods: the invasion phase of 2003 (Operation Falconer) and the subsequent search for weapons of mass destruction and rebuilding of Iraq (Operation Catalyst). Both campaigns also brought forth great praise for the performance of the ADF. But, once again, the fact that tasks were done well is insufficient to sustain the myth, for the sum of the Australian effort was less than it at first appears.

The government allocated to Operation Falconer approximately 2500 personnel, divided among sea, land and air task groups. For reasons of space this analysis will focus on the ADF's ground commitment, the smallest of the three ADF environment contingents and one which consisted largely of Special Forces troops. The mission of the Special Forces Task Group was to secure a large section of central al-Anbar province in western Iraq
in order to prevent Iraqi forces from firing missiles armed with weapons of mass destruction against Israel. This was a critical mission because if Israel retaliated against Iraq it might lead to the collapse of Arab support for the US-led Coalition. While no Arab state participated in the invasion of Iraq, some did allow the Coalition to operate from their territory, and if they withdrew this permission it would severely compromise the Coalition's ability to prosecute the campaign, if not prevent it entirely.

Upon the war's commencement, the Australians quickly took control of their area of operations, while American and British Special Forces fulfilled similar tasks in their adjacent zones. These Special Forces achieved their mission with great efficiency and Iraq made no attempt to attack Israel. The Australians had numerous armed ‘contacts' with Iraqi forces but emerged from all of them victorious and unscathed. Afterwards the Australian commander commented that his men were ‘very experienced, very aggressive and very good at what they did', and what they did do to the enemy was ‘crush their spirit and will' and force them to ‘run or surrender'.
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While Australian Special Forces in Iraq deserve the praise they have received, it is still important to factor the nature of their opponent into any assessment of the reasons for their success. After all, war is not a one-sided affair: the strengths and weaknesses of the enemy also matter. Once the capability of the Iraqi military is take into consideration, the degree of the Australian accomplishment becomes less notable, albeit more accurate. The most important factor in the speed with which the Special Forces gained control of their area of operations was not their very high level of skill but the contrasting incompetence of their enemy. Throughout this brief conflict, Coalition forces completely outmatched their opponents, who time and time again displayed poor planning and fighting skills at all levels.
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The gap
between the competency of the Australians and the ineptitude of the enemy was more extreme in the Australian area of operations than elsewhere in Iraq, because circumstances matched elite Special Forces troops against the rear echelon combat service and combat support elements of a demoralised army. The Australians were better trained, armed and equipped and enjoyed total air dominance. When the enemy did not flee, the Australians could and did call on Coalition air support, which ended the matter with brutal efficiency.