Soldiers To Be Deployed Longer

The Age

Thursday June 5, 2008

Brendan Nicholson, Defence Correspondent

THE length of tours of duty for Australian troops sent on operations in Afghanistan and elsewhere will be increased from six months to eight months.

The Australian Defence Force announced last night that the first longer deployment would begin in October when the first Mentoring Reconstruction Task Force would be sent to Afghanistan.

The longer deployment would give the soldiers more time to develop and maintain cohesive relationships with the local populations and allied troops and to better understand the environment they were operating in.

To balance that move, the time soldiers would spend in Australia between deployments would also be extended, the ADF said last night. "This will provide our army the time to train in the broad range of capabilities that a modern army requires to be successful in the contemporary security environment," the ADF said in a statement.

The plan would also increase the length of individual respite between operations, and reduce the potential number of rotations for an individual in two years.

That is likely to help the army retain its personnel.

Also Cabinet Secretary John Faulkner yesterday gave an undertaking that the next generation of submarines to be built for the Royal Australian Navy would not be nuclear-powered.

The issue emerged when naval officers and defence officials told a Senate estimates committee hearing that the navy began planning in 2006 for replacements for the six Collins Class submarines.

Opposition defence spokesman Nick Minchin asked if the boats might be nuclear-powered and the officers said that was unlikely.

He asked if the Government would give a categorical assurance that they would not be nuclear and Senator Faulkner said he could give that assurance.

At the hearing, Air Chief Marshal Houston repeated his view that coalition troops would be needed in Afghanistan for 10 years.

He said that while Australian troops controlled the area of Oruzgan province around their base at Tarin Kowt in Afghanistan, the Taliban controlled large tracts of the province.

He said many more Afghan troops and police were needed to hold the country together.

© 2008 The Age

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