Australian Savors Ties to U.S.

Tom Schieffer has been searching for new superlatives since he told Congress before Sept. 11, 2001, that relations between Australia and the United States were as good as they get.

On the day of the attacks, Schieffer, now U.S. ambassador to Australia, watched a shaken Australian Prime Minister John Howard emerge from a safe room in his nation’s Washington embassy, fresh from a visit to the Pentagon.

“He put his arms around me and said, ‘We’re with you,’ ” Schieffer recalled. “And John Howard is not a touchy-feely politician.”

Since then, Australia, having backed the United States in every major conflict since World War I, has become America’s No. 2 ally, Schieffer said. “I call it the United Kingdom of the Pacific.”

Howard led his nation into war in Iraq, committing 2,000 troops, despite polls that showed more than 70% of Australians opposed the Bush administration’s Iraq policy.

In weekend meetings with Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Howard and his aides made it clear that he planned to draw Australia closer to its ally across the Pacific. Australia is negotiating joining the U.S. missile defense program and opening a joint troop training base, Australian and American officials said.

“Gen. Myers’ visit to Australia comes at a time when military relations between the two nations are probably closer than at any time since the Vietnam War,” said Loren Thompson, a military analyst with the Lexington Institute in Arlington, Va. “The Bush administration feels more affinity for the current government in Canberra than for virtually any other government in the world, except that of Britain.”

Although support for the war in Iraq tilted in his favor by the time Australia’s first Special Air Services troops crossed the Iraqi border, Howard, often described as Australia’s most pro-American prime minister, is likely to face a reelection campaign in the fall, when he will have to battle the perception that he has made Australia America’s “deputy sheriff.”

He has gone out on a limb to suggest that Australia would partner with the United States beneath a regional missile defense umbrella, telling reporters at his Sydney residence Friday that it would be “recklessly negligent” not to consider such a “common-sense proposition.”

The Australian public remains wary of an increased U.S. presence in the region, but Myers said a plan to create a joint training base in Australia was in its “embryonic stages.” But, he added, “it has got a vitality now that it probably didn’t have in the past.”

Myers, the U.S. Air Force’s former Pacific region commander, saved Australia for last on a nine-day tour in which he thanked Japan, Mongolia and Australia for sending troops to Iraq. He also visited China.