Latest / The Front / Spy base Pine Gap’s role in Iran strike

Transcript

Spy base Pine Gap’s role in Iran strike · The Front

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: From the Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm Claire Harvey.
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: It's Tuesday, June twenty four, twenty twenty five. Iran's promised
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: retaliation against the US has begun with missile strikes on
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: a US military base in Qatar.
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: But Iran gave.
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Advance warning of the strikes and there are no reports
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: of casualties. Were Australia's super secret spy bases involved in
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: America's strike on Iran?
• 0:33
  Speaker 3: Well?
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: Probably so.
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: Why is Australia throwing a diplomatic wet blanket over President
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump's moment of military might?
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: Today?
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: Our foreign affairs and defense experts on what really goes
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: on between the US and Australia and what they expect
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: from US next. This is a joint facility of the
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: highest importance, not only to the safety of both the
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: United States and Australia, but also to the alliance between US.
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: I got out tack amid the ghost gums and red sands.
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: On the fringe of.
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: The Simpson Desert, there's a US space surveillance station that
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: has sparked a million conspiracy theories.
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: Pine Gap.
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: That audio you just heard was the trailer from a
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: Netflix series called Pine Gap Full of Spies and Lies,
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: and the real base, jointly operated by Australia and the US,
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: does well a whole lot of secret stuff. It provides
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: early warning of ballistic missile attacks as well as gathering
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: intelligence from satellite communications. It's been reported in the past
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: to be assisting the US and its allies in guiding
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: missile attacks, but the government won't say if Pine Gap
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: or our other joint US base at Northwest Cape, which
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: is used to communicate with US nuclear submarines, aided in
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: the weekends monster US attack on Iran's nuclear facilities, but
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: you could probably guess yes, US subs did launch Tomahawk
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: missiles at Iran, and the US's globe spanning stealth bomber
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: attack relied on precision guiding systems that rely on obviously satellites.
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: Assemble.
• 2:25
  Speaker 4: We have to know what really happened and why the game.
• 2:30
  Speaker 3: The trouble and the Australians. Then this air of mystery
• 2:37
  Speaker 3: around what these facilities do is necessary.
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: Ben Packham is the Australian's Foreign Affairs and Defense correspondent.
• 2:46
  Speaker 3: You know, it does allow the imagination to run wild,
• 2:50
  Speaker 3: but that's just the way it is we need these facilities.
• 2:53
  Speaker 3: It's you know, we're very lucky that we have the
• 2:55
  Speaker 3: benefit of US intelligence and we should not do anything
• 2:59
  Speaker 3: to undermine that.
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: The Greens and others spent Monday demanding to know exactly
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: what Australia's facilities did to assist.
• 3:09
  Speaker 5: Well, we don't talk about intelligence matters, but we confirm,
• 3:13
  Speaker 5: of course that this was a unilateral action by the
• 3:16
  Speaker 5: United States.
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: So was your government briefed prior to the attack?
• 3:21
  Speaker 5: This was unilateral action taken by the United States. This
• 3:28
  Speaker 5: was unilateral action taken by the United States.
• 3:32
  Speaker 3: He spoken to President Donald Trump since the.
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: Seventh Summit No On Sunday, as news broke of these strikes,
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump was very, very proud of what the US
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: military had achieved. His Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth came out
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: on Sunday evening Australian time echoing that pride. And yet
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: the Australian government really wasn't saying anything except for a
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: statement calling for dscal and dialogue and diplomacy. How do
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: those two things line up? Ben On one hand, we
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: are increasingly involved and increasingly interoperable with the US military,
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: and on the other hand, the Australian government's response to
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: this triumph of American military might, as they see it,
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: was to put a wet blanket over the whole thing.
• 4:22
  Speaker 3: Yeah, look, this was quite an interesting move and I
• 4:24
  Speaker 3: think it does reflect where things are at between Australia
• 4:28
  Speaker 3: and the US at the moment. You know, this is really,
• 4:31
  Speaker 3: I think a reflection of the very cautious approach that
• 4:35
  Speaker 3: we've seen from the government in its response to what's
• 4:39
  Speaker 3: been going on in the Middle East of late but
• 4:41
  Speaker 3: also to the Trump administration, and I think it's very
• 4:46
  Speaker 3: deeply rooted in domestic politics. Labor really got a big
• 4:51
  Speaker 3: boost at the election from its sort of implicit linking
• 4:55
  Speaker 3: of Donald Trump and the Coalition. You know, it didn't
• 4:59
  Speaker 3: really see inter many words, but the message was clear
• 5:02
  Speaker 3: that we don't want American style healthcare and trying to
• 5:06
  Speaker 3: really pin Peter Dutton as a sort of all the
• 5:10
  Speaker 3: way with Donald Trump kind of guy. Now, Anthony Ebenezi
• 5:16
  Speaker 3: has been sort of boxed in by this approach in
• 5:19
  Speaker 3: many ways. He's yet to have a meeting with Donald Trump,
• 5:25
  Speaker 3: and the longer that goes on, that is really sort
• 5:29
  Speaker 3: of becoming a problem because those leader level ties really matter.
• 5:34
  Speaker 3: Anthony Ebenezi did not rush to Washington as some other
• 5:37
  Speaker 3: leaders did following Donald Trump's inauguration. He really sort of
• 5:41
  Speaker 3: held back, reaped the rewards of that really at the election,
• 5:46
  Speaker 3: and now finds himself in a position where he's really
• 5:50
  Speaker 3: got to meet with Trump, who skipped a meeting with
• 5:53
  Speaker 3: him at the G seven without so much as a
• 5:55
  Speaker 3: phone call. Others including Lourendra Modi and Mexico's president got
• 6:01
  Speaker 3: that phone call to say sorry, I couldn't meet you.
• 6:04
  Speaker 3: You know, let's do it another time. You know, he's
• 6:06
  Speaker 3: really kind of on the outer at the moment, and
• 6:10
  Speaker 3: the sort of response that the government gave initially to
• 6:15
  Speaker 3: the Iran strikes really isn't helping now. The government came
• 6:20
  Speaker 3: out on Monday morning and it appeared through gritted teeth,
• 6:25
  Speaker 3: expressed support for what had happened, but it was a
• 6:28
  Speaker 3: very sort of cranky, terse press conference. We are not
• 6:34
  Speaker 3: in the tent in the US and this is a
• 6:38
  Speaker 3: growing problem. I mean in the past. You know, if
• 6:41
  Speaker 3: you think of Scott Morrison, I mean Scott Morrison would
• 6:43
  Speaker 3: have been out immediately. You would have thought we didn't
• 6:48
  Speaker 3: get a heads up about what was going to happen
• 6:51
  Speaker 3: on Sunday morning. But Keirs Dahmer did, for example, Britain's
• 6:55
  Speaker 3: Prime minister. Did you know, It's really hard to think
• 6:58
  Speaker 3: of an Australian Prime minister in the past that would
• 7:01
  Speaker 3: not have received that sort of a full warning of
• 7:05
  Speaker 3: that kind of military action, you know, going back to
• 7:08
  Speaker 3: like as far back as Whitlam, you know, with the
• 7:11
  Speaker 3: dark days of the Alliance under the Whitlam and Nixon governments,
• 7:14
  Speaker 3: where there was quite a degree of mistrust on the
• 7:17
  Speaker 3: US's behalf in Australia.
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: So why so grumpy Ben? You couldn't argue that Australia
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: was on the side of the Ayatolas in Iran?
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: Why so hesitant and so groucy.
• 7:31
  Speaker 3: It's emblematic of the caution. The government is a very
• 7:35
  Speaker 3: left wing government. It's taken a pretty hardline stance on
• 7:40
  Speaker 3: the war in Gaza, but really what happened in Iran
• 7:44
  Speaker 3: it's a lot different. No one wants Iran to get
• 7:49
  Speaker 3: nuclear weapons, certainly not in Australia, and the Uranian diaspra
• 7:55
  Speaker 3: vehemently opposed to the regime. So you know, it's not
• 7:59
  Speaker 3: like there's this base for the Mulas in Australia, like
• 8:03
  Speaker 3: there is for the Palestinians in Gaza, for example.
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: Coming up, Anthony Albanezi wants a meeting with Donald Trump.
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: Is that a good idea?
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: Anthony Albanezi says he wants a meeting with Donald Trump,
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: but there's a risk that could spiral out of control,
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: as we've seen with previous Oval Office meetings.
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: He's been I.
• 8:42
  Speaker 3: Mean, the longer it goes that, the more risky it becomes.
• 8:45
  Speaker 3: And you know, all of this is happening against the
• 8:47
  Speaker 3: backdrop of the defense funding debate. The US has issued
• 8:52
  Speaker 3: a clear call for Australia to lift its defense bending
• 8:54
  Speaker 3: to three point five percent. I mean, I think they'd
• 8:57
  Speaker 3: probably be happy with three percent, but at the moment
• 8:59
  Speaker 3: we are two percent, and the government's been quite cranky
• 9:04
  Speaker 3: again about these calls to lift that. At the same time,
• 9:09
  Speaker 3: we are asking the US to give us their crown
• 9:12
  Speaker 3: jewels in the US Virginia class submarines and the nuclear
• 9:18
  Speaker 3: propulsion technology that's going to need to go into the future,
• 9:21
  Speaker 3: Orchest class submarines. So that's sort of very hard to
• 9:25
  Speaker 3: sustain if we are not coming to the party and
• 9:31
  Speaker 3: at least trying to show them that we are willing
• 9:34
  Speaker 3: to do what they want.
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: The France Christian Amiot asked the Australians famously blunt foreign
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: editor Greek Sheridan for his take, Trump is quite right.
• 9:48
  Speaker 4: To ask us to do better. We need to do
• 9:52
  Speaker 4: better in our own interests. As every single expert commentator,
• 9:56
  Speaker 4: everybody the Albanezi government has commissioned to give them advice
• 9:59
  Speaker 4: on defense, they've all said the same thing. Our defense
• 10:02
  Speaker 4: budget is grossly inadequate, and Albanesi is going to somehow
• 10:07
  Speaker 4: or other try to slide through an appointment with Trump
• 10:10
  Speaker 4: winge about tariffs, beg him to keep going with orcus
• 10:15
  Speaker 4: and also promise not to do anything more in our
• 10:18
  Speaker 4: own behalf on defense. I think the gods have smiled
• 10:21
  Speaker 4: on Albanesi and not arranging an appointment with Trump. It's
• 10:24
  Speaker 4: embarrassing because it shows that Trump has no regard for him,
• 10:28
  Speaker 4: but it's probably beneficial because I don't see how Alberze
• 10:31
  Speaker 4: could get through that appointment without dealing with some of
• 10:34
  Speaker 4: these contradictions. And now the Middle East would make that
• 10:37
  Speaker 4: even worse because if he was at a joint press conference,
• 10:39
  Speaker 4: the journalists would say, mister Trump, do you think Australian
• 10:42
  Speaker 4: defense spending is adequate? And then they'd say, mister Alberenesi,
• 10:45
  Speaker 4: do you think America did the right thing by bombing Iran?
• 10:49
  Speaker 4: Those two questions alone could cause Alberesi more grief than
• 10:53
  Speaker 4: he's had in the last four years from the opposition.
• 10:55
  Speaker 4: So as I say, I think he's lucky to be
• 10:58
  Speaker 4: a small target, but I don't think it's the stable
• 11:00
  Speaker 4: for Australia's strategic position to be that the Prime Minister
• 11:03
  Speaker 4: adopts the fetal position and hopes the American President doesn't
• 11:06
  Speaker 4: notice he's alive.
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: Greek Sheridan is The Australian's Foreign editor and Ben Packham
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: is our Foreign affairs and Defense correspondent. We've got reporters
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: around the world and experts analyzing every move in this
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: swirling global story. For all the latest, join our subscribers
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: at the Australian dot com dot au