Closing the gaps in our terror plan
December 10 2002
Picture: NICK MOIR
Members of the anti-terror Incident Response Regiment during manoeuvres. (pic)
As the government looks at improving Australia's readiness for a terrorist
attack, Murray Mottram, in the last of a two-part series, finds key
agencies are split about the approach.
Thirteen months after Osama bin Laden's World Trade Centre coup, President
George Bush appointed Henry Kissinger to head a commission to examine the
United States' failure to prevent the September 11 attacks.
Former Australian federal agent John Hunt-Sharman said he hoped it would
not take a terrorist strike on Australian soil to prompt a thorough,
independent review of the weaknesses in this country's intelligence system.
In a 90-page submission to a Senate committee examining the Federal
Government's latest anti-terrorism laws, Hunt-Sharman, president of the
Australian Federal Police Association, said many of the flaws in the
American intelligence system existed here.
"If Australia had a September 11, on September 12 the Prime Minister would
be required to deal with the existing multitude of Commonwealth officials
and attempt to act on the uncoordinated and overlapping mountain of
relevant and irrelevant material they would provide," said the submission.
"National criminal intelligence and investigation of terrorism and
organised crime is fragmented and duplicated."
The association recommended a new, integrated model of federal
intelligence-gathering and law enforcement under a single commander.
The theme was taken up this month by the government's defence think tank,
the Australian Strategic Policy Institute. It supported the government's
decision not to create a new homeland defence bureaucracy, as Bush has
done, but said a new position of director of national counter-terrorism
should be created.
Prime Minister John Howard told The Age last week that such a position was
under consideration. The concept is believed to be before the National
Counter-Terrorism Committee, the government's main terrorism policy adviser.
The Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade yesterday began
hearings into the nation's preparedness for a terrorist strike.
The committee has been briefed in private by the Australian Security
Intelligence Organisation on intelligence-gathering, but the chairman of
the committee, Senator Alan Ferguson, told The Age yesterday it would be
examining how well agencies worked together. "If there are any gaps there
we will be making recommendations," he said.
Robert Cornall, the secretary of the Attorney-General's Department, told
the committee that the national emergency response, under the test of the
Bali terrorist attack and during the New South Wales bushfires, had
performed well.
Cornall led a review of security arrangements after September 11 that
concluded that a homeland defence department was not necessary here because
of the much smaller scale of government machinery than in the US and the
high degree of cooperation already in place.
However, the government's latest legislation - giving much wider arrest and
detention powers to its domestic spying agency, ASIO - has only inflamed
the turf war between ASIO and the federal police.
The federal police association opposes ASIO's powers being extended from
gathering intelligence into traditional policing functions of arresting and
detaining suspects.
In its Senate submission, the association accused ASIO of failing to share
intelligence with police forces around the country. "This reluctance . . .
to share intelligence not only assists criminality but also has the
prospect of not detecting and preventing intelligence targets that may also
be of national security interest," it said.
Hunt-Sharman pointed out that for the 2000 Olympic Games, a federal
intelligence centre was set up with a team that included ASIO, the AFP,
Defence Force intelligence, and the departments of Foreign Affairs,
Immigration and Customs. "If that's the best way of dealing with a
high-profile event like the Olympics, why wouldn't you do it all the time?"
As an example of duplication and breakdown of communication under the
present arrangements, Hunt-Sharman said ASIO and the AFP both maintained
"watch lists" on the computer systems at Australian airports. However,
there was no direct call made to the Protective Service agents responsible
for airport counter-terrorism response, if a name on one of the lists came up.
A spokeswoman for ASIO director-general Dennis Richardson said yesterday he
would not comment on intelligence-sharing or the proposal for a new
counter-terrorism chief.
In the US, the bill that created the Kissinger Commission requires a
database of known or suspected terrorists. Two of the September 11
hijackers were placed on a State Department watch list weeks before the
attacks but other agencies were not notified.
Australia's intelligence agencies are split between several portfolios. The
Australian Secret Intelligence Service, which operates overseas, reports to
the foreign affairs minister. The Defence Signals Directorate, which runs
electronic eavesdropping from stations such as Pine Gap, reports to the
defence minister. ASIO reports to the attorney-general and the federal
police to the justice minister.
John McFarlane, director of transnational and homeland security at the
Australian Defence Force Academy, said that until two years ago there was
an apparent "schism" between the intelligence and law enforcement
communities, although relations were improving.McFarlane, a former member
of the National Intelligence Committee, believed police had inadequate
involvement in national security matters. "From the last ASIO annual
report, the organisation has a total strength of 618 people, including
support staff," he told a homeland security conference in Canberra. "On the
same criteria there are 57,239 members of Australian police forces. No
country can afford not to make maximum use of this huge law enforcement
intelligence capacity."
Ian Wing, president of the Australian Institute of Professional
Intelligence Officers, said the intelligence agencies needed to be kept
separate to protect their sensitive sources.
However, he supported the idea of a counter-terrorism intelligence chief
with access to all intelligence and power to direct agencies.
Derek Woolner, from the New South Wales University's Australian defence
studies centre, said the lack of coordination between government agencies
was a recurring theme in the post-mortems of disasters such as September 11.
While the government had two committees to coordinate counter-terrorism
policy and operations, neither had the authority "to bang heads together"
to make changes.
"By having these structures in place you get a lot of activity when there
is an obvious threat," said Woolner. "If things go quiet for six months . .
. things are just left to rest until the next thing goes bang."
http://theage.com.au/articles/2002/12/09/1039379782415.html
