CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — The Australia government said Tuesday that it supports “in principle” American pre-emptive strikes against terrorists and rogue states.
In a speech to senior military figures at the Australian Defense College in Canberra, Defense Minister Sen. Robert Hill said U.S. President George W. Bush’s emerging military doctrine made sense in the strategic environment since last year’s terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, D.C.
Bush is in the process of developing a national security doctrine, to be presented to Congress later this year, that will formalize a new “first strike” military policy against terrorists or hostile states that possess chemical, biological or nuclear weapons.
Such a pre-emptive stance is a departure from the decades-old Cold War policies of containment and deterrence that were built around the theory that an enemy would not attack the United States because such an attack would mean a certain and devastating retaliatory strike.
“The need to act swiftly and firmly before threats become attacks is perhaps the clearest lesson of Sept. 11, and is one that is clearly driving U.S. policy and strategy,” Hill said. “It is a position which we share, in principle.”
Hill said the government had not decided whether it would send troops to join any future attack on Iraq aimed at toppling President Saddam Hussein.
Prime Minister John Howard discussed Bush’s new military doctrine when the two leaders met last week in Washington.
