LETTER FROM SYDNEY/Padraig Collins: Every army has rules of engagement, regardless of whether they are rigidly stuck to or not. For the US forces, at least this time around, engaging with journalists, in the form of media embedded with different squadrons, is also part of the plan.
Not so with the 2,000-strong Australian Defence Force (ADF) commitment to the war on Iraq. The ADF initially agreed to embed Australian reporters and news crews, but quickly withdrew the offer.
Of the 56 pages of coverage which the Sydney Morning Herald devoted to the first week of the conflict in Iraq, fewer than four paragraphs concerned what the Australian SAS, the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) and Navy were doing.
This changed in a minuscule way last Friday when carefully stage-managed interviews appeared in the main Australian daily newspapers with an RAAF pilot, Grant, a soldier called Rob and Tony, a Navy diver.
The Australian government, as with its US and British counter- parts, has warned the nation to prepare for casualties. So far the only Australian casualty has been the ABC cameraman Paul Moran, killed by a suicide bomber in Northern Iraq.
Perhaps the government's rationale for the lack of access to the ADF is to distract the world's attention from the fact that Australia is part of the "coalition of the willing". If so, it is a successful strategy.
Iraqi and other Arab leaders, denouncing what they see as the aggressors, invariably mention the US, Britain and Israel. Rarely do they add Australia to the list.
This is the 10th time in Australia's history that it has taken part in an international conflict, but it is the first time troops were sent to take part in a war with which the majority of their countrymen disagreed.
The leader of the opposition, Labor's Mr Simon Crean, said in parliament: "For the first time in our proud history, an Australian government has committed our servicemen and women to war against the clear will of the Aus- tralian people. This war is wrong. Australia should not be in it.
"Saddam Hussein is a brutal dictator, Iraq must be disarmed, but this is not the way to do it," Mr Crean said.
By the end of last week though, many people had changed their minds and now a bare majority, 50.5 per cent, support Australia's involvement.
The Labor Party, while being careful to support the Australian forces in the Gulf, have been consistent in being opposed to a war without UN backing.
Its former leader Mr Kim Beazley, widely recognised as an expert on military matters and a staunch supporter of Australia's defence alliance with America, spoke eloquently on ADF involvement in Iraq last week.
"May the Lord hold them in his hands until this is over and bring them safely home," he said.
"This is where our hearts lie and our hearts lie too with the Iraqi civilians who will be killed over the next few days . . . but our heads lead us to conclude that this is a profound mistake."
While Australia's commitment of 2,000 soldiers, sailors and airmen amounts to less than 1 per cent of the total allied force in the Gulf, in domestic terms it is a huge commitment.
The figure includes 80 per cent of Australia's special forces, half its amphibious ships and a third of front-line fighter aircraft.
The fact that a slim majority of Australians now support the war has not prevented protests, however.
Sydney's Assistant Commissioner of Police, Mr Dick Adams, warned parents in advance of last Wednesday's high school students march not to let their children take part.
Mr Adams said the police had information that anarchists and other organisations intent on causing trouble, had infiltrated the protest organisers. The students denied this, saying it would be a peaceful protest.
The police were right though.
Thirty-three protesters were arrested after violent clashes outside the Prime Minister's office in Sydney after the march had moved off the agreed route.
Mr Kayser Trad, a spokesman for Sydney's Lebanese Muslim Association, subsequently criticised the media for saying that many of the ringleaders of the protest were of Middle Eastern appearance.
It was a hollow criticism. The media correctly reported the facts. Even if, for reasons of propriety, the media did not mention ethnic backgrounds, the pictures in the papers and on television could not hide the truth.
Mr Adams declared last week's protest an unlawful assembly and will oppose all future march applications from the same organisers.
Earlier in the week, Mr Trad had been more amicable in expressing his views on increasing domestic tensions.
"We hope there won't be trouble [for Muslims\] but it would be silly of us to discount it given the rhetoric on talkback radio," he said.
Another Muslim community leader, Sheik Taj Aldin Alhilali, senior imam at Sydney's Lakemba mosque, proved that he could at least match President Bush for rhetoric.
In a speech full of anti- American sentiment to Friday worshippers, Mr Alhilali said that Mr Bush, Australia's Prime Minister, Mr John Howard, and the British Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair, were "an axis of evil".
He added that Mr Bush was "the most ignorant president to lead the White House".
Australian reporters might not be embedded with the Australian Defence Force in the Gulf, but Australia is deeply embedded in this war, both in Iraq and at home.