Lack of an exit strategy not in our best interest.

(From Canberra Times)

S MOKE and mirrors are standard tools of politics. But in the politics of national security they seem to predominate.

Few Australians would have been able to see anything solid in the controversy of last week that followed Mark Latham's commitment to withdraw from Iraq if the ALP won government. Over two adjacent weeks the Government tried to maintain the position that its actions in Iraq had not increased the threat of terrorism for Australians but what the Opposition merely promised had. Labor moved in less than a week from withdrawing all forces to leaving half of them in the region.

Substance got little attention. For a start, there aren't 850 personnel in Iraq to be withdrawn by Christmas. Depending on the sources, there are between 250 and 280 military personnel performing various roles. The rest are located in the Gulf states or afloat on the Persian Gulf, where they have been since before the war began. Most of the Defence Force personnel stationed in the Gulf region, around 300 spread between an RAN frigate and support for patrols by one or two RAAF Orion aircraft, are not there in connection with Australia's efforts in Iraq. They are formally part of Australia's contribution to the war on terrorism and were in position before the build-up to the attack on Iraq commenced. That may be the reason that that they were excluded from Labor's withdrawal proposals by the end of last week. Whether they should have been is debatable. The RAN has had frigates in the Gulf since the 1991 war, supporting the UN blockade to enforce Iraq's adherence to the conditions for ending that conflict. These circumstances no longer apply. Both ships and aircraft are now performing law enforcement, rather than national policy, roles. While this is helpful, and sometimes connected with terrorist activities, it is basic coastal surveillance that eventually would be better performed were Australia to assist its Gulf allies to develop maritime policing capabilities. The money saved would be better redirected to training the six Army Reserve companies which have been allocated counter-terrorist roles but for which no finance has been allocated in either the current, or the next three, defence budgets.

Whether terrorists would interpret this as a lack of resolve to press the fight is arguable. Putting aside the specious concept that terrorism has a single consciousness, law- enforcement actions focused on specific groups appear to have been the most effective counter to terrorism.

Extending the work of the Australian Federal Police with Australia's South-east Asian partners would do more to contain the terrorist threat to Australians than continuing a surveillance presence in the Gulf.

In Iraq, ADF personnel are not performing irreplaceable roles necessarily vital to the future of the country, the containment of global terrorism or the security of Australia.