John Howard consulted UN Secretary General Kofi Annan and lobbied U. S. President Bill Clinton to support an Australian led peace keeper force to end the violence. Australia, who contributed 5,500 personnel and the force commander, Major General Peter Cosgrove, to the UN-backed International Force East Timor and began deploying on 20 September 1999 and successfully restored order. The operation had been politically and militarily tense. Australia re-deployed frontline combat aircraft northward and detected an Indonesian submarine within the vicinity of Dili Harbour as INTERFET forces approached. While the intervention was ultimately successful, Australian-Indonesian relations would take several years to recover.