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Australia's Involvement in NMD Criticized
The Australian opposition said Wednesday that the country's involvement in the controversial U.S. National Missile Defense Plan (NMD) is in the wrong direction.
According to the Australian Associated Press, Opposition foreign affairs spokesman Laurie Brereton told the Australian Radio National that "We don't believe that Australia should be involved in this. We believe it is going in exactly the wrong direction."
He said that Foreign Minister Alexander Downer's argument was nonsense.
Earlier, Downer had said that it was difficult for an ally to block support or assistance with the United States.
Brereton pointed out that the Hawke government of the 1980s had refused to help the U.S. in testing its Star Wars system. "With this son of Star Wars system, we should adopt the same position," he said.
He indicated the Labor party would rethink about the Australia's attitude towards the issue if won the next general election scheduled at the end of the next year, stressing that "We should review it on coming to office."
He accused Downer of being naive and inept. He said concerns raised by China about Australia's position on the defense system were predictable and in line with that country's concerns over nuclear proliferation.
"It's clear that when Alexander Downer said on national television on the weekend that the issues for Beijing wasn't Australia, he was being completely naive and certainly totally inept," he was quoted by AAP as saying.
The daily of The Age released Monday that the cooperation between Australia and the United States on testing NMD has in fact begun and the U.S.-Australian joint Pine Gap electronic spy base in the central Australian continent has been enlarged last year and integrated the electronic spy mission with missile early warning capability.
Two new satellite radomes and some associated buildings were completed secretly to receive data from U.S. early warning satellites. The paper said that by 2004, the base will be a critical part of U.S. plans for war in space.
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