Australia takes charge of Oruzgan allies

The Federal Government has bowed to United States pressure and will take full control of military operations in Afghanistan’s Oruzgan province as international forces prepare to withdraw from the country over the next two years.

For the first time since Australian troops were deployed to the southern province eight years ago, Australian commanders will also direct US, Afghan, Singaporean and Slovak soldiers.

Defence Minister Stephen Smith denied that this would increase the danger faced by the more than 1500 Australian troops now operating in Afghanistan, or require additional forces to be deployed.

The Americans will continue to provide some headquarters staff, medical support and helicopters for operations in the province but an Australian officer will replace the US colonel now in command.

Defence force chief General David Hurley said the change would make it easier to pass responsibility to Afghan forces and prepare the withdrawal of Australian troops and equipment over the next 12 to 18 months.

”What this decision does is put us in the driving seat to control the interaction with those processes over the next year or so. This is a major operational phase,” he said.

”For our forces outside the wire in Oruzgan it will make no difference at all.”

But Defence Force Association executive director Neil James said there would be ”an element of increased risk” for Australian troops as the US role in Oruzgan decreased – and the size of the Australian force in the province may need to be increased as the Australian withdrawal got under way.

He said Australia should not have resisted taking over the leadership role in Oruzgan in 2010 when Dutch forces withdrew.

The Federal Government rejected pressure from Washington to take command despite the willingness of senior Australian officers to assume the role.

”The American military have been laughing at us for years. They say, ‘don’t you have any brigadiers or colonels in the Australian Defence Force’?” Mr James said.

Defence analyst Professor Hugh White said he believed the Government had only relented and agreed to accept the command role now that there was a clear timetable for the withdrawal of Australian forces.

”There was a lot of US pressure on us to take it over in 2010 and significant disappointment that we hadn’t been willing to,” he said.

Mr Smith said the National Security Committee of Cabinet had approved the new role in Oruzgan this week and it would smooth the scheduled withdrawal of Australian forces Afghanistan by 2014.

”Australia taking on the leadership now … puts us in a better position to manage the transition process,” Mr Smith said.

He said the security situation in the province had improved substantially during the past two years.

General Hurley said during the past month a small team had been conducting an audit of equipment to determine what will come home and what will stay in Oruzgan.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai announced on May 13 that the province would begin transition to Afghan-led security responsibility in the middle of this year.

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