It has cost Australia 39 lives and billions in national
treasure for more than a decade in Afghanistan and it now looks like costing
the better part of $50 million to get out.
In years past, campaigns ended with the departing force
leaving behind vast quantities of surplus kit, much of which was beyond the
capabilities of the local military to operate and maintain. Anything portable
was speedily looted by grateful locals, down to electrical wiring and light and
plumbing fittings.
Will this be the fate of the Tarin Kowt (TK) base when
Australian troops depart at the end of the year? Defence Minister Stephen Smith has cited on a number of occasions the old
adage that people may not remember how you arrived, but they certainly remember
how you leave.
Well remembered is the final US exit from Saigon –
helicopters departing the roof of the US embassy, besieged by local desperate
to escape the advancing communists forces.
Reputational damage is always a risk in any transition,
drawdown or withdrawal process, Smith noted.
“Australia has enhanced its international reputation as a
result of its commitment in Afghanistan and it is important that this be
maintained to the end of 2014,” he said in an address to the Australian
Strategic Policy Institute in April.
For Australia, the worst outcome would be the speedy
collapse of the Afghan National Army’s (ANA) 4th Brigade, effectively handing
Oruzgan Province back to the Taliban and negating the entire reconstruction and
training effort over the last eight years. Australian soldiers who have trained
the ANA for the last five years are confident this won’t happen.
Not in the same category but not a good look nonetheless
would be for Australia to depart TK, leaving behind a wasteland of surplus
equipment and contamination where the base used to be. Hence the proposed
spending of $47 million for base remediation to ensure it’s in a fit state to
be handed over to the Afghan National Security Forces.
TK base is a vast sprawling encampment just on the edge of
the Oruzgan capital of the same name.
In September 2005, Australian special forces occupied what
they named Camp Russell, which remains an enclave within what’s now
Multinational Base Tarin Kowt (MNB-TK).
In July 2006, the Australian Reconstruction Task Force
arrived, the first of a succession of task groups, progressively renamed as the
mission has evolved.
A 1,800 metre concrete runway, now used by both military and
civil traffic, replaced the original dirt airstrip. As more troops arrived TK
grew and grew. It’s now the equivalent of a reasonable-sized town, complete
with its own power station, sewerage treatment and water supply systems and
shopping precinct.
Unlike other bases, TK never had the big numbers of US
troops to justify its own Subway and Pizza Hut outlets. But there is a
well-patronised Green Beans 24-hour coffee shop and numerous outlets selling
electronics, carpets, jewellery, clothing, counterfeit DVDs, bodybuilding
supplements and much more, mostly run by local Afghans.
Their economic viability depends on the ongoing presence of
well-heeled foreign troops and so the good times are fast approaching an end.
When the Dutch withdrew, Australia purchased their infrastructure
at unspecified but substantial cost as part of a suite of measures to improve
force protection. That comprised 1,300 Drehtainer accommodation modules,
essentially armoured shipping containers which bolt together like Lego to form
multi-room work and accommodation units.
There’s a dining facility with kitchen capacity for
thousands of meals a day, the Aussie recreation block named “Poppies” in honour
of Trooper David “Poppy” Pearce, killed in an IED blast in 2007, as well as
gyms, ablutions, toilets and laundry facilities. There’s also 600 assorted
shipping containers in which all the kit arrived in Afghanistan.
By any measure, this is a stack of gear and the plan is to
take much of it home. Some half the Drehtainers will be handed over to the ANA
for use in TK and also at the new officer training academy in Kabul.
Defence hasn’t absolutely ruled out handing over some
vehicles and other military equipment but is working on the principle that it
doesn’t want to leave anything which could end up in the hands of insurgents or
be beyond the capacity of the ANA to operate and maintain.
Getting what’s left back to Australia poses a major
challenge. Much of it came in overland from Pakistan – expensive, requiring
facilitation payments all along the route, and perilous as insurgents found the
truck convoys to be large inviting targets. Pakistan closed down this route in
2011 in retaliation for the incident in which US aircraft mistakenly
obliterated a Pakistani border post, killing 24 of their soldiers.
It’s been reopened after the US made a suitably abject
apology. This is the only practical means of withdrawing bulky items such as
the Drehtainers, which can then be shipped from the port of Karachi.
For high value kit, there’s really only one way and that’s
by air. Already the RAAF has flown out the task force’s 16 ASLAVs and much else
and other stuff will follow. This is staggeringly expensive but there’s little
alternative.
TK will need some environmental remediation and the big
problem would seem to be the garbage dump. The base itself produces a
spectacular amount of waste which is burned, routinely shrouding the entire
facility in pestilential pong. This isn’t suburbia where recycling and
composting is encouraged and actually feasible.
The dining facilities contribute tonnes of waste every day,
with all meals served on disposable plates and eaten with throwaway utensils.
There really doesn’t seem to be any alternative – there’s just not that much
water to wash stuff up and the slightest lapse in hygiene would result in
sweeping epidemics.
With this much stuff to bring home, Australia faces one more
challenge with which it is quite familiar. That’s ensuring that returning
equipment harbours no foreign bugs, wildlife, seeds or weeds.
Not since Vietnam has defence had to bring home this much
gear and each item needs to be inspected and rigorously cleaned, all under the
close supervision of the Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service.
