Australia in the Iraq War
This was before the Government's announcement that Australia would join the United States and British buildup, but was conducted as contingency planning which did not imply a commitment to war.
Brigadier Maurie McNarn on 21 March 2003, was the first Coalition commander to hold an official press conference with the international media in Qatar.
HMAS Anzac provided gunfire support to Royal Marines during fighting on the Al-Faw Peninsula and the Clearance Diving Team took part in clearing the approaches to Umm Qasr.
[12] Army LCM-8 Landing Craft were used as forward deployment and support platforms for the Navy boarding parties and were the first regular Maritime assets to the port of Umm Qasr, moving as far north as Basara on the inland waterways collecting intelligence for allied forces.
The primary role of the Special Forces Task Group was to secure an area of western Iraq from which it was feared that SCUD missiles could be launched.
The SAS successfully entered Iraq by vehicle and United States helicopters and secured their area of responsibility after a week of fighting.
Following this the SAS patrolled the highways in the area in order to block the escape of members of the Iraqi government and to prevent enemy foreign fighters from entering the country.
Following victory, the Australian force in Iraq was limited to specialists attached to the Coalition headquarters in Baghdad and the search for Iraq's suspected weapons of mass destruction, a frigate in the Persian Gulf, a party of air traffic controllers at Baghdad International Airport, two C-130 Hercules transport aircraft, two AP-3C Orion aircraft and small Security Detachment (SECDET) consisting of infantry, Armoured and support elements with the Military Police Close Protection Team protecting the Australian military units and diplomats based in Baghdad.
In 2004 the government argued that assistance it had provided to prepare a Fijian force for Iraq met its obligation to contribute to security arrangements for the January 2005 Iraqi parliamentary election.
This force — approximately 500 strong and equipped with armoured vehicles including ASLAVs and Bushmasters – named the Al Muthanna Task Group, commenced operations in April 2005.
Following the withdrawal of the Japanese force and the transition of Al Muthanna to Iraqi control the Australian battlegroup relocated to Tallil Air Base in neighbouring Dhi Qar province in July 2006.
The name AMTG was subsequently abandoned in favour of the title Overwatch Battle Group (West), reflecting the unit's new role.
Responsibility for overwatch in Dhi Qar was subsequently assumed from the withdrawing Italian contingent in late October 2006, whilst OBG(W) continued to train Iraqi security forces.
After the Labor Party achieved a landslide victory in the 2007 election, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's government withdrew Australian combat forces began from Iraq on 1 June 2008[22] and the Overwatch Battle Group (West) and Australian Army Training Team formally ceased combat operations on 2 June 2008,[23] having helped train 33,000 Iraqi soldiers.
LT Callander later recovered from his physical wounds, but as a result of the blast TPR Millhouse was diagnosed with younger-onset dementia which claimed his life on 28 August 2015.
The absence of the 707s was likely caused by technical rather than policy reasons: the RAAF has only four second-hand 707 tankers; all are at the end of their service lives, very difficult to maintain and soon to be replaced.
Australia did not commit combat aircraft to the 1991 Gulf War, and although a small detachment of Hornets was deployed to Diego Garcia during the Afghanistan campaign to provide airfield defence for the joint United States-United Kingdom military facility present there, this was not a true combat role, however, but simply a precaution against possible suicide attacks by hijacked civil aircraft.
[36] No official statement has been made on the reasons behind the choice of F/A-18 fighters as Australia's primary combat commitment, but it is commonly assumed that the obvious alternative of sending a substantial land force instead was considered to involve an unacceptably high risk of casualties, particularly given the possibility of house-to-house fighting in Iraqi cities.
The choice of the F/A-18 deployment rather than of the F-111 tactical bomber may have been due to the higher cost of operation of the F-111, and its use being limited to more politically contentious ground attack missions rather than more uncontentious tasks like combat air patrols.
