A very long engagement

In the early hours of 17 January 1991, crews of the Australian warships HMAS Brisbane and Sydney were on-station in the Persian Gulf and had ringside seats to adisplay of naval firepower probably not seen since the Second World War. At 2.30 am, a barrage of Tomahawk cruise missiles erupted from the warships of Battle Force Zulu, the US Navy strike force that had assembled in the Gulf after months of tension in the Middle East. As missiles streaked off into the darkness, dozens of F/A-18 Hornets, F-14 Tomcats and A-6 Intruders thundered from the decks of nearby carriers to deliver airstrikes on Iraqi military targets in Kuwait and on the Iraqi capital, Baghdad.

The crews of Brisbane and Sydney were witnessing the start of Operation Desert Storm, the combat phase of the Gulf War, fought between the forces of the Iraqi president Saddam Hussein and those from a coalition of 35 nations led by the United States. On 2 August 1990, Saddam’s troops had illegally occupied their oil-rich neighbouring country Kuwait on the pretext it had been stealing Iraqi petroleum through slant drilling. However, the invasion may have also been a way for Iraq to avoid repaying Kuwait the enormous sum it had borrowed to help finance its war with Iran in the 1980s. The war also served to disrupt the global oil market. Saddam was a ruthless dictator who sanctioned assassinations and executions, and his regime had a long history of human rights violations, including the of use of chemical weapons against the Kurdish people of northern Iraq.  

The international community condemned the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, and on 6 August 1990 the UN Security Council unanimously approved a trade embargo against Saddam’s regime. A naval blockade of Iraq’s access to the Persian Gulf soon followed, as the US assembled a multinational force in the Gulf and in Saudi Arabia, amounting by December 1990 to 40,000 troops from 35 nations. The UN Security Council set 15 January 1991 as the deadline for Iraq to withdraw from Kuwait or face retaliatory action, for which “all necessary means” were authorised to liberate Kuwait. The deadline passed without an Iraqi withdrawal, leading to Operation Desert Storm, which began with 42 days of airstrikes on Iraqi military targets in Kuwait and Baghdad. On 24 February 1991, coalition ground forces in Saudi Arabia crossed the border into Kuwait and compelled Iraqi forces to withdraw after 100 hours of fighting that produced a ceasefire on 28 February.

Australia’s role

Australia was among the 35 nations that joined the US-led coalition during the Gulf War, which marked the beginning of thirty years of Australian Defence Force (ADF) operations in the Middle East region. In the days following the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, Australian Prime Minister Bob Hawke announced to Parliament “Australia’s total and unequivocal condemnation of the invasion by Iraq of Kuwait and its reported annexation” and pledged Australia “will not stand idly by while any member of the international community purports to break the rules of civilised conduct in that way.”

Hawke told the US President that the RAN guided missile frigates HMAS Adelaide and Darwin and the replenishment oiler Success would be sent to contribute to a multinational naval taskforce that would enforce economic sanctions against Iraq, initially in the Gulf of Oman (Operation Damask). RAN warships were being sent not to serve the US alliance, Hawke said, but “to protect the international rule of law which will be vital to our security however our alliances may develop in the future.”

Whereas the Cold War had been the basis for Australian involvement in wars in south-east Asia, its end marked a shift in strategic focus to the Middle East, defined in a general sense to include among others Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria the Persian Gulf and the North Arabian Sea. The late 1980s was a time when US and Soviet Union antagonism was thawing, and the international community held greater hopes for the UN to play a more significant role in solving the problems of the new free world. The US President George H.W. Bush went so far as to refer to this period as a “New World Order”, the first real test of which was the international response to Iraq’s illegal occupation of Kuwait.

Australia’s involvement in the Gulf War was consistent with this sense of optimism: as a good international citizen, it contributed forces to the multinational coalition that helped liberate Kuwait. Afterwards it was involved in providing humanitarian support to the Kurdish people of northern Iraq (Operation Habitat) and contributing personnel to UNSCOM, the UN weapons inspection program that sought to locate, identify and oversee the destruction of Iraq’s chemical and biological weapons capability (Operation Blazer). RAN guided missile frigates continued to be deployed to the region to enforce economic sanctions against Saddam’s Iraq, in accordance with UN security resolutions that remained in place well into the early 2000s.

The sense of optimism in the New World Order was not long-lasting. Towards the end of the 1990s there was a growing scepticism towards the UN and its abilities to prevent war and needless suffering throughout the world; this was also a time when Australia was becoming increasingly more aligned with the US. A second major shift to the strategic environment occurred on 11 September 2001, when al-Qaeda carried out a devastating series of terrorist attacks on the United States that killed 2,977 people (10 of them Australians). Planned and coordinated by al-Qaeda leadership in Afghanistan, the attacks caused widespread outrage throughout the Western world and saw the optimism of the 1990s replaced by a firm resolve by the US and its allies to seek out and destroy the sources of international terrorism.

The Australian Prime Minister John Howard was in Washington DC at the time and felt keenly the impact of 9/11 on the US. He was among the first leaders of the international community to offer assistance, invoking Article IV of the ANZUS treaty to justify the use of Australian forces in what became a global war on terror. This commitment led the ADF to Afghanistan in late 2001 to engage al-Qaeda militants and the Taliban regime that harboured them (Operation Slipper), and then to Iraq in March 2003 over Iraq’s alleged possession of “weapons of mass destruction” and suspected links to global terror networks (Operation Falconer). A pivotal moment in the war on terror, the invasion of Iraq and the toppling of Saddam’s regime by the “coalition of the willing”, was not sanctioned by the UN Security Council, and its legalisms provoked fierce debate throughout the international community. In one weekend in February 2003, an estimated 500,000 people in Australia participated in rallies across the country and marched in protest against Australia’s impending involvement in the invasion of Iraq.

New at the Memorial

At times complex and controversial, Australia’s involvement in these conflicts in Middle East is the subject of new permanent exhibitions being developed at the Memorial. They span the Gulf War (1990–91), the war in Afghanistan (2001–21), the Iraq War (2003–11), ADF operations against ISISin northern Iraq and over Syria (2014 to today), and the RAN’s  long-standing commitment to maritime security in the region (1990–2020). The exhibitions seek to present Australia’s contribution to conflicts in the Middle East region within the global context, but also to explore the personal stories of veterans and communities from the region whose lives have been shaped by decades of conflict. These exhibitions form part of a broader project to expand the Memorial’s galleries; the exhibitions are being developed alongside a curatorial team working on displays dedicated to Australia’s contribution to disaster relief and peacekeeping operations, including a dedicated gallery space for East Timor.

An estimated 100,000 members of the ADF served in the Middle East region in the past three decades, but few Australians beyond the Defence community know much of their experiences. A small number of books written by veterans give a sense of what it was like to serve on operations, but the official records used by historians and curators to research Australia’s wartime past will not be publicly accessible for some time yet.It is hoped that new permanent exhibitions dedicated to these conflicts will be a place where visitors can consider the broader impacts of war, and veterans and their families can share their experiences with the general public. Presenting diverse and engaging stories through the use of individual accounts is one way to achieve this. What better way to showcase a myriad of viewpoints than by exploring historical events through the perspective of people who were there?

Curatorial teams are presently developing these exhibitions, sketching out major themes and storylines while carrying out an intensive assessment of items in the Memorial’s collection. They are set to showcase a broad range of objects, many of which have never been displayed because of limitations in the existing gallery space. These objects include aircraft and vehicles associated with poignant and engaging personal stories. Also on display will be artworks, photographs, film, uniforms, kit and equipment worn by Australians on operations, and smaller objects that reflect a more intimate perspective on the human experience of war. Some of these objects have been collected by Memorial curators who deployed with the ADF to places such as Iraq and Afghanistan. Here they carried on Charles Bean’s tradition of collecting in the field and documenting Australian military history as it unfolded. Other objects reflect the poignant impact of service on families, and the post-service experiences of veterans – both positive and negative.

A substantial part of the Middle East displays will be dedicated to Australia’s involvement in the war in Afghanistan; spanning two decades, it is notable for being the longest conflict in Australian military history. This exhibition will reflect the distinct mission phases of Australia’s war in Afghanistan, and explore how it evolved in response to a changing strategic focus and a myriad of threats and dangers. They include the operations by Australian Special Forces targeting al-Qaeda militants in 2001–02,  the long war of counter-insurgency against the Taliban in Uruzgan in 2005-14 (both of those as part of Operation Slipper), and efforts to advise and assist the Afghan National Security Forces for the long-term security of Afghanistan (Operation Highroad, 2015–21). Since Australia’s contribution to the long war of counter-insurgency was a combined civil and military effort, the exhibition will highlight the contribution of government agencies such as the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, AusAid, the Australian Civilian Corps, and the Australian Federal Police among others. Beyond Afghanistan, the exhibitions will be a place where a poignant and provocative question can be posed to visitors: despite thirty years of near continual ADF involvement in conflicts in the Middle East region, have we left it a safer place?

When Australian Prime Minister Bob Hawke announced the end of the Gulf War to Parliament on 28 February 1991, he foreshadowed an ongoing Australian involvement in conflicts in the Middle East region: “We rejoice that the war has been won quickly and with so few casualties to our own forces … but the end of the war was not the end of the crisis. Much remains to be done to bring stability in the Gulf and to bring a wider, durable peace to the Middle East.” Little did Hawke realise what the scope of Australian efforts would be in the attempt to achieve this goal over the next thirty years. With Australian forces now all but withdrawn from Afghanistan and the broader Middle East region, it remains to be seen what level of peace and security Australia succeeded in achieving will prove to be long-lasting.