SEC. RUMSFELD: Hello, folks. The minister of Defense of Australia is standing to my right. He is -- Dr. Nelson is here on his first visit as minister of Defense. He is -- we had a good visit in Singapore very recently, at the Shangri-La Conference.
As you folks here know, our countries have fought side by side for, I guess, ever since World War I, and cooperated very closely in so many activities, as we are today. The performance of the Australian military is uniformly excellent. They are a country that we train with, we exercise with, and we work -- and very effectively -- with today in any number of activities.
We certainly appreciate the leadership role that Australia has taken with respect to East Timor and elsewhere to provide security and stability in that important part of the world.
I'll let the minister talk about the specific subjects we discussed in our earlier meeting, except to say that we did discuss the maturity and the depth and the strength of our partnership. We are making progress towards developing systems to better defend our respective countries. We are improving the ability of our militaries to train and fight more seamlessly together. We've -- in NATO -- and other countries in NATO are interested in developing a somewhat closer relationship with Australia, not as a member of NATO but a country that has similar values and that cooperates with NATO, for example, in Afghanistan and elsewhere.
I should also say that we're -- today we're meeting almost 10 years to the day since the terrorists destroyed a U.S. Air Force barracks in Saudi Arabia, killing 19 of our servicemen and wounding hundreds more. The Khobar Towers bombing was one episode in a -- the long war that has been declared against the United States and our allies and indeed against freedom.
Few nations have been as resolute or shown as much clarity in their determination to protect freedom from the specter of terrorism than Australia.
Mr. Minister, you have the podium.
MIN. NELSON: Oh, thank you very much, Mr. Secretary, and I thank you and the United States government for the welcome that I've had here in Washington.
As you say, it's nearly 90 years that we've fought side by side with one another. In fact, every major conflict since World War I has seen the United States and Australia serving alongside one another. We do so because we share your values. We believe that the freedom of human beings is best served by liberal democracy and free enterprise and also for the prevention of human servitude.
We take the view in Australia, whilst we are relatively remote from the United States -- we're a large continent of 20 million people -- we take the view that the war against terrorism is not something that we wait to turn up on our doorsteps. We lost Australians in Bali from people who had signed up to the same ideological insanity as those in Afghanistan and Iraq. We believe that if we do not take on people who have hijacked the Islamic faith in the name of evil, that if we simply say that it has nothing to do with us because we live in a more remote part of the world, then we will most certainly leave the next generation of Australians and people throughout the world hostage to a force that they many never control.
The extremists have a fanatical opposition to the United States and countries which share its values, including Australia, and they also have a particular approach to other issues -- the treatment of women in other regions which is incompatible with a free way of life which is so endeared to the American people.
We are certainly increasing substantially our expenditure on defense. We are determined to see that our defense forces are interoperable with the United States, and we remain with you shoulder to shoulder to support the heavy lifting in Iraq and Afghanistan and other theaters, including in our own region for the foreseeable future.
