Fed: Fears US base will be terrorist target "silly": Tuckey

AAP General News (Australia)
02-15-2007
Fed: Fears US base will be terrorist target "silly": Tuckey

By Nicolas Perpitch

PERTH, Feb 15 AAP - Fears a new United States military communications base in Western
Australia will become a terrorist target are "silly", says federal MP Wilson Tuckey.

The US has been given permission to build the base 30km east of Geraldton, in midwest
WA, after three years of secret negotiations with the federal government.

The American base would be co-located with the Australian Defence Signals Directorate
(DSD), Australia's communications ground station at Kojarena.

Greens senator Rachel Siewert has warned the US base would become a terrorist target.

"Australians are now even more deeply enmeshed in United States military endeavours,
whether we agree with them or not," the senator said.

"It is a classic (Prime Minister) John Howard capitulation to US military interests."

Wilson Tuckey, the Liberal member for O'Connor, which takes in Geraldton, said that
when the DSD base was first opened there were claims it would become a nuclear target.

He said those claims were as unfounded as the current fears.

"I think they're silly arguments," Mr Tuckey said.

"It's not something you'd target particularly, by the nature of its activities. It's
there to access communications and it has been proven over the years that nobody has been
very interested in stopping its operation."

The Geraldton Council said it did not know anything about the base expansion.

"We have not been informed of anything, so we cannot make a statement at this time,"

a spokeswoman for the council said.

WA already houses the US North-West Cape communications base. The Pine Gap joint facility
is near Alice Springs in the Northern Territory.

AAP np/lk/it/cdh

KEYWORD: BASE TUCKEY

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