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CANBERRA - Australia is being locked deeper into America's global military agenda with the construction of a new spy base in Western Australia to help the United States wage wars in Asia and the Middle East.
The new facility, to be built at Geraldton, north of Perth, will join the existing major US spy bases at North West Cape, also in WA, and Pine Gap near Alice Springs, both of which have played key roles in in previous conflicts.
Further communications bases may also be built in Australia to provide US troops with instant and highly detailed battlefield information.
Canberra has already tightened its security co-operation with the US through a range of measures including participation in the proposed "son of Star Wars" national missile defence system, increased training, and new military hardware designed to enable Australian troops to fight with American forces abroad.
Although already drawing fire for potentially further embroiling the nation in US conflicts and raising its profile as a possible nuclear and terrorist target, the new base is unlikely to draw serious political opposition.
The Coalition Government and the Labor Party are strongly committed to the US alliance, regarding it as the cornerstone of Australia's defence strategy - even with the furore between the major parties over the nation's involvement in the Iraq war.
The agreement to build the new installation, revealed yesterday in the Melbourne newspaper the Age, followed three years of secret negotiations, although Washington had two years previously indicated its wish to add new electronic and communications facilities in Australia.
Existing US spy bases in the country are central to its global security system. Pine Gap, known as the Joint Defence Space Research Facility, is one of the world's biggest and most important US satellite ground stations, harvesting electronic intelligence and providing early warning of missile launches.
The Naval Communications Station Harold E. Holt near Exmouth in the remote northwest of WA - the most powerful transmitter in the Southern Hemisphere - provides very-low-frequency radio signals to US and Australian submarines.
Until 1999 the US also operated the Joint Defence Facility at Nurrungar, near Woomera in Outback South Australia, which during the Cold War was the only station capable of monitoring any first-strike missile launches by the former Soviet Union.
Nurrungar was one of the USSR's highest-priority nuclear targets, a threat confirmed in top-secret US intelligence threat assessments declassified several years ago.
Both Pine Gap and Nurrungar were used to select and find targets for US bombers in the Vietnam War and to warn of Scud missile launchings during the 1991 Gulf War.
Defence Minister Brendan Nelson said the new Geraldton facility would be part of America's new Mobile User Objective System, a network of satellites being developed to provide ground troops in Asia and the Middle East with instant intelligence, graphics and maps.
He said the base would be build on Australian Defence Department land, and the Government would ensure it had full knowledge of all activities carried out there. More ground stations might be built at other locations in Australia, Nelson said.
The Australian Anti-Bases Campaign Coalition warned that the base would threaten Australia and undermine its independence.
"US bases make Australia a target for nuclear and terrorist attacks," national co-ordinator Denis Doherty said. "They increase the US hold on Australian foreign policy, undermine Australia's security and add even more to the already out-of-control Australian military budget, which is running at A$55 million a day."
Australian Defence Force Academy Visiting Fellow Philip Doring also said the base would be a target because of its importance and that it would directly involve Australia in any conflict in the Pacific or Indian oceans.
But the Australian Defence Association said US bases on Australian soil were not new and the new facility would strengthen the alliance between the two countries.
