Finance minister looking ‘across the board’ for ways to fund $500m-a-year involvement as the defence minister warns of ‘quite a long campaign’ ahead

This article is more than 5 years old

This article is more than 5 years old

Finance minister Mathias Cormann refused to rule out raising taxes to help pay for the $500m-a-year Iraq mission, as defence minister David Johnston acknowledged weakness in the Iraqi army and the growing Islamic State (Isis) forces could lead to “quite a long campaign”.

Still struggling to get the last of its budget savings measures through the Senate, the government has estimated the Iraq involvement will cost half a billion a year while it’s post-budget national security package will cost $630m over four years to boost security and police agencies.



“I’m not going to rule anything in or out,” Cormann told Sky News.



“Our commitment is to get government spending back under control, to get back onto our trajectory as a result of our decisions to reduce spending.



“We are looking right across the board for ways and means to deal with additional expenditure and any impact on savings of the slower passage of measures.”



As the latest polling shows majority support for Australian involvement in Iraq, Johnston said he agreed with counter-insurgency specialist David Kilcullen that Iraq would get “more difficult before it gets easy”.

Kilcullen was an advisor to General David Petraeus when he was commander of US forces in Iraq. He wrote on Saturday that western intelligence showed Isis had 5,000 fighters in January, but that number had grown to 8,000 in June, 15,000 a month ago and was now 30,000.

He also warned that US-led airstrikes had forced Isis into “guerilla mode” and, as a result, it would not be defeated without the addition of ground troops.

“Instead of operating in the open, in daylight, with tanks and artillery, using mobile columns to seize cities, it has dropped into guerilla mode,” Kilcullen wrote.

“This suggests air power alone can’t defeat Islamic State; instead, an approach called ‘combined arms’ is needed.”

The Australian government has repeatedly ruled out deploying combat troops, though cabinet has approved special forces to help train the Iraqi army. Johnston said the special forces troops would be there only in an “advise and assist” role, stationed at battalion headquarters, not on front lines.

Johnston said although Isis was extremely adaptive, he was quietly confident that the international forces could degrade, delegitimise and undermine its capacity. But he stopped short of reiterating Barack Obama’s formulation of the intention to “degrade and destroy” Isis.

“They’re extremely adaptive,” said Johnston. “Kilcullen ... has acknowledged it is going to get more difficult before it gets easy. We acknowledge that.

“This is not going to be an overnight event. We do have a lot of experience, we have extremely good people on the ground and in the air who know exactly what needs to be done.

“I think there is a campaign, quite a long campaign, in front of us but, as I say, I’m quietly confident we will be able to degrade, delegitimise certainly and really undermine the capacity of this organisation to do what it’s done to this point in time.”

Johnston said while there were “pockets of very, very efficient, highly professional and highly capable Iraqi security forces”, the Iraqi army was disjointed. There have been reports that whole divisions of Iraqi soldiers have retreated in the face of Isis.

“They’re a little bit disjointed. They have been allowed to run down,” Johnston said.

“In discussions with the prime minister in Iraq, I’ve told him this is a fight the Iraqis must fight.”

The defence minister described Australian defence forces as “one of the most restrictive” when it came to avoiding civilian casualties.

“This aspect of our operations is at the forefront of our mind,” he said.

“Our risk assessments, the way we do our targeting, the way we conduct our operations, particularly in a counter-insurgency, is focused almost exclusively as a first point on ‘Let’s not get this wrong, let’s not have any civilian casualties, let’s stay focused on the task’.

“The task is to deal with Isil or Da’ish [its Arabic acronym]. We can’t successfully do that in a counter-insurgency if we are causing collateral damage.”

As Australian Muslims celebrate the festival Eid al-Adha over the weekend, the prime minister released a statement outlining Australia’s goals in Iraq and his government’s national security measures, the first of which passed the parliament last week. The second tranche, known as the foreign fighters’ bill, is expected to be debated later this month.

Tony Abbott reiterated that his government’s national security measures were directed towards terrorism, not a religion.

“In these uncertain times, I have three messages for the Australian people”, he said.

“First, your government will do everything possible to keep you safe. Second, our security measures at home and abroad are directed against terrorism, not religion. And third, as Australians we should always live normally because terrorists’ goal is to scare us out of being ourselves.”