Antinuclear

Pine Gap: Australia completely involved in USA military operations

Perhaps the bigger question, however, is whether Pine Gap’s deep and growing engagement with US military operations is something that has foreclosed Australia’s diplomatic and military options in relation to future crises and conflicts.

Pine Gap’s capabilities are now deeply and inextricably entwined with US military operations, down to the tactical level, across half the world.

Desert secrets – Sydney Morning Herald  by Steins Glassware  at July 21st, 2013 It is a piece of America. At least that’s the vibe in the large cafeteria at the top-secret Joint Defence Facility at Pine Gap near Alice Springs….. one effectively needs a top-secret clearance to visit. …

Australia and the US are certainly united at Pine Gap. It is the crux of an electronic espionage alliance that is nearly five decades old. It is also the most secret place in Australia…..

Pine Gap is certainly impressive. The high-security facility is one of the largest satellite ground stations in the world. It controls and receives data from geostationary satellites that eavesdrop on a range of radio, radar and microwave signals. It also supports early-warning satellites that detect ballistic missile launches.

There are no fewer than 33 satellite antennas at Pine Gap, 18 covered by distinctive white domes. The number of domes and dishes has grown over the past decade and there has been a major program under way over the past three years to refurbish and expand what is referred to as the ”antenna farm”.

About 800 people work at this intelligence factory. Thanks to technological change and automation, this number is down from the more than 870 a decade ago, but it is still twice the number employed at Pine Gap two decades before that.

While details of the US presence at Pine Gap remain classified, it is a matter of public record that the highly secretive National Reconnaissance Office (responsible for the design, construction and operation of US spy satellites) is present. Also represented at Pine Gap are the National Security Agency (the US signals intelligence organisation recently made notorious by the leaks of whistleblower Edward Snowden), the Central Intelligence Agency and America’s National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, which provides imagery and geospatial intelligence to the US government. All arms of the US armed services also have personnel working at Pine Gap……

The primary contractor companies engaged at Pine Gap are the US aerospace systems and defence suppliers Northrop Grumman and Raytheon, and the computer systems supplier Hewlett-Packard. About 70 per cent of the workforce are contractor personnel. Northrop Grumman is responsible for operating satellites controlled from Pine Gap.

Data from the Australian Communications and Media Authority (which regulates radio frequency use) and the International Telecommunications Union shows that Pine Gap communicates with at least six geostationary satellites – four designated DEF-R-SAT (apparently an abbreviation for defence research satellite) and two designated USCSID.

The four DEF-R-SATs, positioned along the line of the equator above the Indian Ocean and Indonesia, appear to be signals intelligence satellites. The other two satellites are likely to be missile launch warning systems controlled remotely through the Space Based Infra-red System Relay Ground Station, which is collocated at Pine Gap……

Forty years ago, Soviet missile telemetry was the priority target for the first generation of signals intelligence satellites controlled by Pine Gap. ……

The end of the Cold War did not diminish Pine Gap’s importance. On the contrary, the facility’s military role has grown with every decade.

During the 1991 Gulf War, satellites controlled by Pine Gap intercepted Iraqi communications and radar signals. According to Professor Des Ball of the ANU, these satellites monitored some of the most critical communications channels within Iraq – radio and microwave communication links, including those used by the Iraqi military high command.

Pine Gap’s ability to acquire tactical military information was also expanding. In a rare disclosure, former Coalition opposition leader John Hewson recalled in a 2005 newspaper column that he visited Pine Gap during the first Gulf War: ”By manipulating the satellite, I could listen to the conversations of individual Iraqi tank commanders. I was told that virtually every conversation could be monitored by satellite, and that was 15 years ago. Who knows how good the technology is today?”

In 2011, former Pine Gap employee David Rosenberg was permitted to publish a memoir that in guarded terms described Pine Gap’s role in intercepting Iraqi communications and how by monitoring the emissions of ”End Tray” radars, co-located with mobile Scud ballistic missiles, the facility enabled Scuds to be targeted by US and allied fighter bombers.

Subsequent US military doctrine has placed great importance on space-based intelligence collection, signals intelligence and imagery, as a key force-multiplier for military operations.

This was clearly spelt out in congressional testimony in 1998 by the then director of the National Reconnaissance Office, Keith Hall: ”In the future, US forces will rely upon space systems for global awareness of threats, swift orchestration of military operations, and precision use of smart weapons. Our goal is to detect, track and target anything of significance worldwide and to get the right information to the right people at the right time.” The aim was to enable US military forces to deliver ”precise military firepower anywhere in the world, day or night, in all weather”.

An accumulation of disclosures – some unauthorised and others through further US congressional testimony from the National Reconnaissance Office – reveal this objective has to a very considerable degree now been achieved…..

Pine Gap is indeed a vital element in a US military intelligence collection and targeting complex that can locate the origin of radio signals to within as little as 10 metres, immediately integrate that information with other data including satellite imagery, and relay targeting information to US and allied military units within minutes.

Pine Gap’s role in minute-by-minute tactical intelligence collection is confirmed by numerous references to ”real-time tracking and geolocation” and provision of ”extremely valuable intelligence” to support operations to ”capture or kill high-value targets”…….

Personnel sitting in airconditioned offices in central Australia are directly linked, on a minute-by-minute basis, to US and allied military operations in Afghanistan and, indeed, anywhere else across the eastern hemisphere.

Australian personnel have helped target drone strikes in Pakistan. In the future, we may be providing targeting information on the Korean peninsula or in the Taiwan Strait.

Australian defence intelligence sources also say the massive expansion of mobile phone networks in Asia presented huge opportunities for Pine Gap’s intelligence collection.

”The development of North Korea’s mobile network has provided a window into a political system and society that otherwise would remain closed to us,” another intelligence officer says. ”Even when governments such as China, North Korea and Iran are highly security-conscious, the intelligence take is still enormous.”

Secret documents leaked by Edward Snowden indicated that Pine Gap contributes to a broad US National Security Agency collection program code named ”X-Keyscore”.

One would not get much of a sense of this, however, from any public statement from the Australian government. Like his defence minister predecessors, Smith says Pine Gap operates with the ”full knowledge and concurrence” of the Australian government. There is little reason to doubt this, especially given the full integration of Australian personnel in operations. However, it is of note that his definition of concurrence ”does not mean that Australia approves every activity or tasking undertaken”…..

Perhaps the bigger question, however, is whether Pine Gap’s deep and growing engagement with US military operations is something that has foreclosed Australia’s diplomatic and military options in relation to future crises and conflicts.

Pine Gap’s capabilities are now deeply and inextricably entwined with US military operations, down to the tactical level, across half the world.

Arguably, technological change has now given full expression to the desire of Harold Holt, the Australian prime minister who originally approved the Pine Gap project, to go ”all the way” with the USA. http://steinsandglassware.com/updates/desert-secrets-sydney-morning-herald-2/

July 22, 2013 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, weapons and war