BY BIANCA BILLIK
In the central Australian desert, just 19 kilometre south-west of Alice Springs, is the Pine Gap Joint Military Defence Facility. In simple terms, Pine Gap is a US military spy base. Pine Gap will play an important role in any US-led attack on Iraq.
Pine Gap has played a major role in US military satellite activities since the 1960s. Its past operations have included the targeting of bombs during the 1990-91 US war on Iraq and, most recently, the targeting of US bombs against Afghanistan and Iraq. It is also an integral part of the proposed US National Missile Defence (NMD) scheme.
Pine Gap is one of the largest and most technologically advanced satellite ground stations in the world. There are 26 satellite antennas at the base; 14 of which are covered by white radomes. Pine Gap employs 876 people (428 Americans and, 448 Australians). The key US agencies involved are the National Reconnaissance Office (which designs, constructs and operates US intelligence collection satellites), the National Security Agency and the Central Intelligence Agency. The military facility at Pine Gap is the largest CIA facility outside the US.
Pine Gap collects intelligence via geostationary satellites that eavesdrop on a variety of radio, radar and microwave signals, which provide the US with vast amounts of intelligence data from the Middle East, Russia, China, south-east Asia and the Pacific.
Since the US President George Bush junior administration accelerated its NMD plans, new radomes have been built and will come online in 2004. They will house antennas for communication with the SBIRS (Satellite Based Infrared System) satellites of the NMD system. Command centres such as Pine Gap are used for information collection and tracking and they need to be stationed in countries other than the US. Military bases similar to Pine Gap are located at Menwith Hill and Fylingdales in Britain, and at Thule in Greenland.
The land beneath Pine Gap is not US territory. The Australian government has signed an agreement that this land may be used for the purpose of "joint" military operations. The US government is present at the Pine Gap facility as a guest of Australian people. Therefore, the Australian public has the right to request and demand that the US government relinquish its lease on the Pine Gap facility.
Australians exercised this right at a national "Expose Pine Gap" protest outside the spy base on October 5-7. The protest was part of the international "Stop Star Wars! Keep Space for Peace Week!", in which actions took place in 65 locations around the world.
Similar protests have taken place at Pine Gap in 1987 and 1982. Besides the ultimate goal of dismantling Pine Gap, the protesters' aim was to increase the Australian public's awareness of Pine Gap's existence and global role. As the real possibility of a pre-emptive US attack on Iraq grew in the preceding weeks, the Pine Gap protest gained an even greater sense of urgency.
Pine Gap is a "joint" US-Australian facility insofar as the costs are concerned. Since it began operating in the 1960s, Pine Gap has cost Australian taxpayers billions of dollars. Currently, we are paying A$30 million a year to keep the base running. In terms of national benefits and risks, however, the word "joint" is misleading.
Firstly, in the hypothetical situation that the NMD is a scientifically viable scheme, it is a defensive system being developed to intercept intercontinental ballistic missiles targeting the US, not Australia. Ironically, by being a key communication station in the NMD network of the US, Pine Gap is a prime nuclear target.
Pine Gap provides the US with the huge "intelligence bonanza" from China, Russia and the Middle East. Australia, however, does not know what is going on within this huge intelligence factory. Australian members of parliament are denied access to the base.
By willingly hosting the operations of the US military at Pine Gap, Australia cooperates with, and is implicated in, the US acts of aggression.
Take, for example, the Bush gang's determination to launch an attack on Iraq, which will cost an estimated 250,000 Iraqi lives. The intelligence being collected at Pine Gap will make a much more substantial contribution to the US "war on terror" than any token effort by the Australian Defence Force. Hence, Pine Gap makes Australia a key accomplice in any US attack and in the subsequent deaths, destruction and misery.
Is it too much to ask that we, the Australian public, be at the very least informed as to what actions of war and terror are being carried out in our name? Pine Gap is on Australian soil and is paid for by Australian citizens. Shouldn't the Australian people be given the right to decide whether we want to assist the US in its proposed acts of death, destruction and terror?
The Australian government has failed to recognise one fundamental point: it does not possess the right to offer the land under Pine Gap to other governments to use for any purpose. Pine Gap stands on the traditional land of the Arrernte people of central Australia. The government's refusal to recognise Aboriginal land rights is made all the more morally repugnant by the war-fighting purpose of Pine Gap. It should be dismantled and the land returned to its rightful owners.
Some people may argue that, despite all of the above, Australia should still host Pine Gap because the US is Australia's friend and ally. However, many US allies have strongly opposed the NMD proposal. Bush greatly accelerated the NMD plans in the aftermath of the World Trade Center terrorist attacks. Only three countries supported this move by Washington and its subsequent withdrawal from the international Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. Australia was one of them (along with Poland and India). As a result, Australia has been dubbed "America's mini-me".
NMD is not merely a defensive system. Recently, the US Space Command produced the Vision 2020 documents that clearly stated that NMD is part of an offensive war-fighting system. In its Nuclear Posture Review, also released this year, the US stated it is prepared to use the very same types of weapons it is accusing Iraqi President Saddam Hussein of developing.
If just one of Washington's bunker-buster "mini-nukes" exploded in a presidential bunker in Baghdad, 20,000 men, women and children would be incinerated. There would be no medical care for the many more left alive, but with terrible injuries.
According to the Vision 2020 documents, "space is critical to both military and economic instruments of power — the main sources of national strength... Having an ability to deny an enemy's use of space will grow more important in the future". The NMD is a convenient tool in Bush's plans for the US domination of space.
Any new US-led attacks on Iraq, assisted by Pine Gap, will again devastate the people of Iraq. More than 90% of the casualties of war in the modern world are innocent civilians. In 1991, after the massive US-led bombing campaign against Iraq had ceased, the civilian death toll stood at 110,000 people. Out of the total 110,000 deaths, 70,000 were children under the age of 15. According to UNICEF, the combined effects of the 1990-91 Gulf War and the subsequent decade of UN economic sanctions has led to 500,000 deaths of children due to preventable diseases such as diarrhoea and malnutrition.
In conclusion: Mind the Gap!!
[Bianca Billik attended the October 5-7 protest at Pine Gap as part of the Medical Association for Prevention of War delegation. For more information about the campaign to close Pine Gap, visit <http://www.mapw.org.au> or <http://www.anti-bases.org>.]
From Green Left Weekly, December 4, 2002.
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