U.S. – Australia Relations

Defence Support to US President's Visit

Canberra — 21 October 2003

TRANSCRIPT

Brigadier Mike Hannan — Defence Spokesperson
Russell Offices, Canberra — 21 October 2003

Brigadier Hannan

Thank you for coming out today ... now the ADF will be providing a comprehensive package of support to the civilian authorities for the visit of the President of the United States later this week. Now as well as the types of capabilities the public will be familiar with — the Tactical Assault Groups and so on ... on this occasion we’ll also be providing a number of F/A-18 fighter aircraft that will provide protection in the very unlikely event of a threat emerging from the air. This isn’t the first time we’ve done this, the public will be familiar with the arrangements that were put in place for CHOGM last year and these arrangements will be similar.

Journalist

Does this mean that they will actually be stationed on the ground or will they actually be in the air?

Brigadier Hannan

For all the times we believe there could be a threat emerging, if there’s a remote possibility there could be a threat emerging, they’ll be in the air ready to go.

Journalist

Do you consider that Canberra sites are targets?

Brigadier Hannan

Well ... there’s been no threat identified specifically during the President’s visit, but the Government takes its responsibilities for the protection of visiting dignitaries very seriously, and the arrangements that have been put in place are quite comprehensive and consider all possibilities.

Journalist

How many Defence Force members are going to be involved?

Brigadier Hannan

Well, clearly this is a significant commitment in support of the civil authorities, but I should point out that types of security arrangements are whole-of-government arrangements and Defence merely provides support to the other Government agencies, in particular, to the State and Territory Police forces who have primary responsibility in this area.

Journalist

What sort of support will you provide just in the air?

Brigadier Hannan

Well, we’ll be providing aircraft that will be able to deter or defeat an attack from the air.

Journalist

I understand they have permission to do whatever's necessary to defend those aircraft?

Brigadier Hannan

Well, the Government has approved comprehensive rules of engagement for the aircraft and those are similar to the ones put in place for CHOGM last year — and they would be sufficient in our view to deal with any likely threat.

Journalist

What are the rules of engagement?

Brigadier Hannan

Well, clearly we’re not going to be talking about those publicly as that would give our adversaries a clear advantage.

Journalist

Is this one of the more intensive operations you've ever seen?

Brigadier Hannan

Well, interestingly the arrangements, the excellent arrangements of Defence support for the civil authorities are in place now, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. I think that it’s a great, it’s a great support to the Government’s actions in making sure we have good cooperation across Departments and across the State and Federal authorities to make sure this can happen at any time.

Journalist

Is your main role just the President, or will you be looking at the protestors and seeing how it sorts itself out?

Brigadier Hannan

Well, national security is a matter of protecting the key individuals against direct threat of action those other matters are not matters for us.

Journalist

How many personnel will be involved and if you could just outline again what Defence’s support will be?

Brigadier Hannan

The specific number of personnel involved in this operation is not a matter for ... you know that we’ll be talking about publicly, but, in general terms the sorts of capabilities we provide are the Tactical Assault Group that you should be familiar with on the East and West Coast, the Incident Response Regiment that provides Defence against chemical, radiological and biological attacks, and of course we have a wide range of equipment and trained personnel to do other jobs of a highly specialised nature.

Journalist

We're seeing evidence of practice drills, will that continue?

Brigadier Hannan

I gather that now all rehearsals have been complete, and the flying you’ll see in the future will be flying related to security tasking.

Journalist

Are they going to be up there all the time?

Brigadier Hannan

They’ll be up there at all times when there’s even a remote possibility of an air threat emerging.

Journalist

Canberrans have been a bit jittery in the last few weeks with various flyovers ... what sort of (inaudible) ... strange noises that they may not be familiar with?

Brigadier Hannan

Well, I think over the next few days, over the next week or so, they can expect the F/A-18 aircraft around and about in the skies. I think they’re a very distinctive aircraft, fighter aircraft, and people won’t have any trouble recognising those. For the most part they’ll be well away from the built up areas and flying at high altitude as they did yesterday, so they shouldn’t cause a disruption.

Journalist

Is there any intelligence suggesting any terrorist attack is likely?

Brigadier Hannan

No, none whatsoever. There is no identified heightened threat.

Journalist

I understand that several Naval squirrel helicopters will be involved in escorting the motorcade, what role will they play?

Brigadier Hannan

There are various other assets involved, and we won’t be talking about the specific tasks and the specific methods of operation that we’ll be using, But, the protection measures available to support the civil authorities in all case will be comprehensive to ensure that even the remotest threats are catered for.

Journalist

How confident are you that security won’t be breached at all?

Brigadier Hannan

Well as I said, the Government takes its responsibilities to visiting heads of State extremely seriously and we’ve put in place the best possible arrangements.

Journalist

What arrangements have you put in place for President Hu’s visit?

Brigadier Hannan

Well, once again we won’t be talking about the specific arrangements in either case, but when those arrangements are developed they’re developed in cooperation with the authorities from the country of the visiting dignitary and in each case they’re appropriate to the circumstances and the perceived threats.

Journalist

Will you be patrolling the waterways as well?

Brigadier Hannan

Well, once again we won’t talk about the specific measures we’ve put in place for security, they’re very much matters for the State and Territory police forces and Defence will provide support to them. But, as I say, the Government takes these matters very seriously and very comprehensive arrangements are in place.

Journalist

Is there likely to be much inconvenience to the Canberra public?

Brigadier Hannan

As I understand it, there’ll be little to no inconvenience to the Canberra public. Certainly the advice is that the travelling public need not worry about delays and that they should not be affected by these arrangements.

Original document from www.defence.gov.au.

Last update: Friday, 15 August 2008 GMT+1000