Armageddon and OKRA by Lewis Frederickson

Author:Lewis Frederickson
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781922387554
Publisher: Big Sky Publishing

RAAF Command and Control

Just how an Australian Air Task Group would fit into this organisation was significant. As Australia’s contribution was relatively small, its assets would require careful management to realise their potential. Given the nature of the environment, there were always going to be challenges associated with establishing the command and control mechanism for the Air Task Group. More than a decade earlier, Prime Minister John Howard had pledged immediate support to the United States in the aftermath of the 11 September 2001 attacks. The reaffirmation of the commitment to a ‘war on terrorism’ by successive governments served to not only underwrite the Australian-US alliance, but also resulted in the ADF already having a sizeable presence in the region when the Air Task Group arrived. ATG630’s command and control arrangements were thus predicated on the nature of Australian operations in the Middle East Region as they had been throughout the preceding decade. Notwithstanding this, there would be ongoing differences of opinion over the command arrangements that were never quite resolved during the course of the operation.

An Australian theatre headquarters commanded by a two-star Joint Force Commander had deployed very shortly after the Australian Government’s decision in 2003 to commit forces to operations in Iraq. Joint Task Force 633 (JTF633) served as the Headquarters for Australian forces in the Middle East Region and was initially established in one of Saddam Hussein’s former palaces in Camp Victory adjacent to Baghdad International Airport—it came to be called ‘Australia House’. The Headquarters had wide responsibilities. Headquarters JTF633 exercised National Command over a force of assigned elements from each of the Services. This arrangement was in place to ensure that Australian assets were always to be used in accordance with the Australian Government’s direction and objectives. By 2007, Australian forces were serving across all domains in support of operations in the Persian Gulf, Indian Ocean, Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar and Afghanistan. The geographical distances and regional disparity were significant. It was about a thousand miles from the middle of the Persian Gulf to Kabul in Afghanistan, and a similar distance from the southern Gulf to the northern reaches of Iraq. Just as Iraq presented its own internal environmental challenges, the huge expanse of the wider theatre of operations posed many problems for planners and logisticians.

As Australian operations in Iraq drew down in late 2008, Headquarters JTF633 was relocated from Camp Victory to Al Minhad Air Base, near Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. Al Minhad had formerly been used by ADF elements during the invasion of Iraq in Gulf War II and then remained as a base for RAAF AP-3C surveillance aircraft. The consolidation to this one location also resulted in RAAF C130 air mobility operations relocating from Al Udeid in Qatar, and the logistics hub and Reception, Staging, Onwards-clearance and Insertion (RSO&I) facilities moving south from Ali Al Salim air base in Kuwait. RSO&I provides the final preparation for personnel before they move forward to their deployed locations, while at the same time providing acclimatisation to the new environment.

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