When I was a young platoon commander in the midst of battle I had to be tough as nails, prepared if necessary to walk past a wounded colleague, a comrade, in order to prosecute the attack. You know, the most I might do is say ‘you fix him’, but I had to be able to walk past that person. I mean, when my three soldiers were wounded my job when I got there was to first and foremost find out if the enemy was still there, what were we doing about it. If we didn’t have that evidence, was the place secure? Thirdly, is somebody attending to the casualties? Next and most important I had to call for the helicopters to come in and take them away. And that’s before I could even say ‘Oh, it’s Bill and Tom and Joe who’ve been hurt. Oh, how badly are they hurt? Well …’ I found out about how badly they were hurt as part of the calling for the helicopter, because part of the thing is you say how serious are these wounds, so you have to be able to grip your own sense of compassion under certain circumstances, but that doesn’t mean you should be absolute because if you are you’re in big trouble.
So I think it’s more appropriate to display, exhibit, compassion as you get more senior in rank because your decisions will be quite far reaching, less instantaneous, so I should think that stifled compassion is more appropriate in the urgent and instantaneous needs of combat. But in any more measured activity you shouldn’t be afraid of saying, ‘Well, I’m going to do this but now I’ll also start to measure how it can be done with a minimal human cost’.
In many ways Peter Cosgrove himself reflected the traits we admire in the Digger: courage, leadership, initiative and compassion.
I think we carry our national characteristics with us, we don’t subordinate any important element of the Australian character in the making and the life of a Digger. For example, we still very much have a sense of social justice which applies not just internally to the Army but in our dealings with other people. So I would be amazed if Australian soldiers seeing people of other nations suffering hardship, which they do if they go to an area of operations, they will see people who are down and out, if this doesn’t strike a tremendous chord in the Digger’s heart.
I can recall in the Oecussi enclave a young corporal from Support Company 3 RAR. These troops were our security force down there and I was down visiting them. I used to visit them on frequent occasions. I was way down in one end of the Oecussi enclave, about as remote as you can get, and in amongst a group of about 10 or 15 3 RAR soldiers when this corporal said: ‘Sir, can we get a doctor down here?’ And I said: ‘Why, are you crook?’ He said: ‘No, we’re alright and we see our doctor or the medico from time to time when we need them, but where I am I’m down right on this little village and there’s just us infantry soldiers here, and we need a doctor for the locals.’ I said: ‘Yeah, well, I suppose I could look into that, but you know we’re still struggling to get the medical system laid out here in all of East Timor.’ I said: ‘What’s the story?’ He answered: ‘Well, about a week ago a bloke brought his wife to me and she was having a baby, and he was tearing his hair out because she was in very strong labour and he didn’t know what to do and we just got on with it.’ I said: ‘What do you mean?’ He said: ‘Well, we delivered the baby.’ I said: ‘Was that a first for you?’ He said: ‘Absolutely.’ He said in the end it was reasonably uncomplicated, everything worked out OK and baby’s alright, the mother’s made a good recovery and that’s fine. I said: ‘Oh good. All’s well that ends well.’ And he said: ‘Yeah, but yesterday a lady presented with a breech birth … I’m not real good on those!’
Interfet’s mission to restore ‘peace and security’ to East Timor has been judged a resounding success by most observers. The commander received accolades both from the UN chief administrator, Sergio Viera de Mello, and from the leaders of the struggling nation, Xanana Gusmao and José Ramos-Horta.
At a farewell ceremony in Dili, when General Cosgrove relinquished command of Interfet, Xanana Gusmao read a passage written by a soldier from Sparrow Force: ‘Money cannot repay the East Timorese for their loyalty in saving the lives of Australian soldiers.’
Mr Gusmao then spoke directly to General Cosgrove: ‘General, you have now paid the debt and the East Timorese people honour you for that. We thank you personally and we thank all Interfet from our hearts. When the children of our nation learn of the sacrifices made by all of our martyrs, they will learn also of the role of Interfet.’
General Cosgrove was visibly touched by the emotional response of the local population: ‘We’re absolutely delighted with the signs of affection and regard that have been given to us by the East Timorese leadership and the people.’
Later he reflected: ‘It was an emotional moment for me and probably quite a few of my military colleagues to see that a military force can come into a country for five months and walk away with the people cheering it.’
Peter Cosgrove and his men added to the reputation of the Australian Digger with their performance in East Timor. Their successors in the Australian battalions there maintained the standard. They captured the hearts of most Australians with their approach to what was, particularly in the early stages of their deployment, a very difficult task. Above all, Peter Cosgrove’s clear speaking and honest, compassionate leadership stood out like a beacon in a grey world of self-serving political leaders who masquerade as presidents and premiers but are rarely more than ‘presenters’.
CHAPTER 17
Keeping the Peace
The Digger’s proud record as a warrior has been matched by his performance as a peacekeeper. Diggers have shown an almost chameleon-like ability down the years of being able to switch from the role of the fierce warrior during wartime to that of a humane citizen afterwards. They have extended this capacity to that of peacemaker, a role that has grown in extent and complexity from the 1970s.
Former commanding officer of our Special Forces (SAS) Major-General Duncan Lewis credits the Australian success in peacekeeping to our leadership system which allows the Digger room to make decisions within the overall command framework:
Within the organisation there is a terrific respect for competence. And people will sink or swim depending on their competence. And that is applied almost irrespective of rank: no matter what rank, whether you’re a general or a private, you must be competent. So there’s this respect for competence throughout the force which I think is part of our make-up.
We have a doctrine within the Australian Defence Force of ‘directive control’. Essentially it says that you give a person the job but you don’t tell them how to do it. And that’s a gross summary of the more intricate business of directive control but it’s nevertheless what it means. You give somebody a job, you give them some guidelines beyond which they may not go, but within those guidelines they’re free to move so long as they achieve the ultimate objective that you’ve set at the end. And, of course, what this does is engender initiative and it means the guy on the ground who can actually make the best call, as to whether he should do this or that, but he knows at the end of the day that his call must end up with this result so if he knows where he’s going then a particular road will lead there. But unless you set the objective at the end that all roads lead there or any road leads there. The idea is to give subordinate commanders the necessary leeway to achieve the aim as they see it best done.
Although we had some involvement in the Occupation Forces in Japan after World War II, our first real peacekeeping role came under the aegis of the United Nations when we provided a handful of military observers to the UN Security Commission for Indonesia from 1947 to 1951, to monitor the observance of the ceasefire between Sukarno’s revolutionaries and the Netherlands. Indeed, Australian soldiers can lay claim to being the world’s first official peacekeepers as our unarmed military observers were the first to be deployed in the field in the Indonesian stand-off.
Since 1964 our soldiers have been joined by members of our police forces on peacekeeping missions, starting in Cyprus, where they served as a barrier and a cultural bridge builder between th
e Greek and Turkish communities on the island. Police have subsequently served in that capacity in Cambodia, Haiti, Mozambique, Bougainville and East Timor.
From 1953 through to 1978 we contributed small numbers of troops and support personnel to peacekeeping contingents in the Middle East, the Congo, Yemen, West New Guinea, India and Pakistan, Syria, Sinai and Lebanon. In 1979 we stepped up the level of our commitments and played significant roles in UN peacekeeping duties in Rhodesia-Zimbabwe, Sinai, Iran, Namibia, Afghanistan, the Gulf of Oman, Iraq and Kuwait, Western Sahara, Cambodia, the former Yugoslav states, Somalia and Rwanda.
Peacekeeping is a now global growth industry. At the time of writing, the United Nations has around 120,000 peacekeepers deployed throughout the world in 16 peacekeeping operations costing around US$7.26 billion. The UN estimates its peacekeeping work from 1948 to date has cost around US$70 billion. Australia has punched above its weight in the field and currently ranks 12th in the national contributors to the UN’s peacekeeping budget, providing 1.93 per cent of its total.
Some military experts believe that using Diggers in a peacekeeping role diminishes their effectiveness as soldiers in times of war. Major-General Duncan Lewis disagrees:
I think peacekeeping, peacemaking, peace enforcement – all of the range of peace-related operations – are nothing more than an extension of military operations. I mean, it’s just one end of a spectrum and I see it as a continuous spectrum.
Soldiers are optimised for fighting wars. That’s their base objective and that’s where this criticism comes from. But while you may be optimised for war fighting, and I think that’s entirely correct, it’s always easier to train down. What is far more difficult is going the other way: that if you were to optimise peacekeeping, you would find that it would take months, if not years, potentially years to get your force up to being able to do more robust military operations. It’s like a footy team: train hard, play easy.
When the Iraqi forces, under their dictator, Saddam Hussein, invaded neighbouring Kuwait on 2 August 1990, the United Nations acted quickly. Saddam had banked on a swift strike giving him control of Kuwait before the world could react effectively. But the day after the invasion the United States and Britain announced they would send naval support to the Kuwaitis, and the Soviet Union joined with them in calling for a ban on arms sales to the Iraqis.
Four days after Saddam’s invasion, the UN Security Council passed a resolution calling on the Iraqis to withdraw from Kuwait and threatening force and sanctions if it didn’t comply. The Australian Hawke Labor government supported the UN resolution and quickly committed three RAN ships to the Coalition forces. The Army provided an anti-aircraft detachment to provide protection on board HMAS Success. The RAAF provided transport support. Within weeks the Coalition forces, with the United States as the dominant partner, had blockaded Iraq’s access to the sea and, by the end of 1990, the US had drawn together a 40,000-strong multinational force involving troops from 30 countries.
When Saddam Hussein called the United Nations’ bluff and failed to comply with its ultimatum to pull his forces out of Kuwait by 15 January 1991, the UN Coalition forces, under US General Norman Schwarzkopf, launched ‘Operation Desert Storm’, starting with massed air strikes on Iraq on 17 January and continuing unabated for 43 days until the war ended. The Coalition soon had control of the Iraqi skies and followed up with a land offensive, which began at 4 am on 24 February.
It was the first of the live-to-air, computer-style wars, and it played via CNN in living rooms around the world. Members of the RAN contingent reported they could see missiles being launched from nearby US battleships and then watch them explode in Baghdad live on CNN. Hussein’s bravado, in which he promised ‘The Mother of All Battles’, proved hollow and, just 100 hours after the UN offensive began, US President George Bush Senior was on television, saying: ‘Kuwait is liberated. Iraq’s army is defeated. Our military objectives are met … this is a victory for all mankind and the rule of law.’
Estimates of Iraqi losses ran as high as 100,000 killed (but more realistically perhaps 50,000) for the loss of 166 Coalition troops (some reports have it as high as 231) killed in action and in ‘friendly fire’ incidents.
The RAN ships HMAS Darwin, Adelaide, Success, Brisbane, Sydney and Westralia all saw tours of duty in the conflict, and the RAN’s involvement won high praise. The US Navy commander, Vice Admiral Stanley Arthur, called it magnificent: ‘The US Navy will be proud to sail in harm’s way with the RAN, anytime, anywhere.’
While our SAS was on call to deal with anticipated terrorist responses during the Gulf War, it was not needed. The only involvement of our Diggers was a 75-strong medical and engineering team sent to assist in the protection of the Kurds in Iraq, who staged a revolt to break Saddam’s stranglehold over them. The UN stayed clear and Hussein’s forces brutally repressed the uprising, killing thousands and causing an estimated two million Kurds to rush to the borders trying to escape. Our team assisted for a little over a month before handing its duties over to UN-sanctioned civilians.
Until our commitment to East Timor in 1999 (examined in the previous chapter), our most significant peacekeeping tasks were in Somalia and Cambodia in the early 1990s.
In Cambodia, Lieutenant General John Sanderson commanded the UN Force that oversaw the disarming of 250,000 Cambodians. The Australian Army also contributed 500 personnel in the form of the Force’s Communications Unit. Both the commander and the Australian support unit received widespread praise for their performances.
Our role in Somalia was dangerous and required considerable diplomacy. 1 RAR, together with some supporting units, provided protection to those trying to deliver humanitarian aid to that strife-ridden country.
But the real test of our ‘peacekeeping’ skills would come as the Iraq situation flared again following the world terrorist attacks in the United States on 11 September 2001, and in Bali on 12 October 2002.
By far our most controversial ‘peacekeeping role’ was our involvement – via a 150-strong SAS contingent, some supporting ships and mine-clearing teams – in the US-led Coalition that toppled Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq in 2003. As Duncan Lewis points out, there was little ‘peacekeeping’ at the sharp end in either Afghanistan or Iraq for our Diggers:
I guess Iraq and Afghanistan are quite different from East Timor in that East Timor was a peace enforcement operation, while Afghanistan and Iraq were fully-fledged military operations. There was no peace enforcement or anything of that nature.
Following the First Gulf War, Saddam continued his repressive rule. But the reaction to world terrorism, prompted by the 11 September attacks on New York and Washington in 2001, saw pressure mount in the USA for some proactive approach to pre-empt further attacks, and ultimately brought the Iraqi dictator back into focus. Many Australians shared these concerns after the shocking attack in Bali in October 2002.
The Australian government, under John Howard, supported the stance adopted by US President George W. Bush and Britain’s Labour government under Tony Blair: that Saddam Hussein’s regime continued to pose a grave international threat because of the repressive nature of his rule; because of his links to terrorist groups; and because they claimed he possessed, and was likely to use, ‘weapons of mass destruction’. These were vaguely defined as chemical warfare agents and missiles, exceeding the UN specifications. Internal differences within the UN Security Council, principally led by France and Germany, meant there was no prospect of a resolution to stamp the UN imprimatur on what Bush called ‘the Coalition of the Willing’ to use force on Saddam to comply with their demands to surrender all weapons of mass destruction. Amid considerable dissent in Australia, because the actions were not under the United Nations, the Howard government threw its full support behind the United States and Britain when they finally decided to go it alone in taking action against Saddam.
After another TV war, in which the Iraqi forces again were crushed under the massive weight of the Coalition’s
overwhelming force, the Australians played an unpublicised but by all accounts significant role behind the lines. The SAS Diggers carried out their dangerous activities without incurring any casualties, a source of great pride to their former commander, Major General Duncan Lewis:
That was a fully-fledged war with thousands and thousands of ground troops, thousands of aircraft sorties by fast jets, sorties being flown each day, the use of significant armoured forces and so on. Special Forces in Iraq had a more niche role.
The Australian SAS troops had earlier established their credentials in the Afghanistan conflict, where they were deployed to help establish the Coalition’s first forward operating base near Kandahar in November 2001. They subsequently played a leading role in the capture of Kandahar Airport the following month. Their performance there led to the Americans entrusting them with one of the most critical roles in the Iraqi conflict:
… in our case, in the suppression of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. There was a significant threat, and there will be debate as to how real or otherwise it was, but nevertheless, there was a significant threat of Iraqi Scud launchers from the west of the country and the horrific consequence of that, of course, is that they would be launched against the state of Israel and that would change the dimension and the balance of the operation.
The Spirit of the Digger Page 35