Defence is refusing to release a report on the links between unlawful killings by Australian soldiers in Afghanistan and their senior commanders. Rex Patrick reports.
In June 2021, six months after the War Crimes (“Brereton”) report was released, Inspector General ADF James Gaynor commissioned a second ‘command accountability’ report at the request of the Chief of the Defence Force, to “assess and analyse the culture of the Special Forces units providing personnel to the [Special Operations Task Group], to assist with identifying any potential indicators and linkages between a culture and alleged unlawful behaviour”.
Yet the report has been withheld from at least two citizens (and therefore the public) who both requested it under Freedom of Information laws.
How can a report into the culture of our Special Forces and the linkages between that culture and deviant or unlawful behaviour be a military secret?
Confronting for leadership? Yes! Embarrassing? Yes!
A military secret? No!
The content of the report goes to the efficacy and conduct of the ADF’s senior leadership, and a public version must be made available. Failure to do so will amount to ‘cover-up’ in the minds of regular members of the ADF and the public.
Afghanistan war crimes: investigating the generals is the only way to end cover-up calls
Senior commanders blameless?
On 19 November 2020, the then Chief of Defence Force, General Angus Campbell, released an Inspector-General of the Australian Defence Force (IGADF) report into war crimes allegedly committed by Australian soldiers in Afghanistan.
A small cohort of Australian Special Forces corporals and sergeants were alleged to have committed 39 murders of prisoners and civilian personnel. None of the murders occurred in the heat of battle. The alleged victims were non-combatants or no longer combatants.
In his opening remarks, General Campbell stated, “Today, the Australian Defence Force is rightly held to account for allegations of grave misconduct by some members of our Special Forces community on operations in Afghanistan.”
But that wasn’t true.
Two soldiers, Oliver Schultz and Ben Roberts-Smith, have been charged with the war crime of murder and are before the courts.
Numerous other soldiers are being investigated by a specially established Office of Special Investigator, assisted by the Australian Federal Police. Some troop, squadron and task group commanders (mid-ranking officers) were stripped of their distinguished service medals.
Okay Ben Roberts-Smith but what of Australians fighting for the IDF?
However, the senior officers that served at the higher levels in places like the Joint Operations Command or Australian Defence Headquarters were found by now-resigned NACC Commissioner Paul Brereton, himself a Major-General, who prepared the war crimes report, to be blameless for what happened under their command. Brereton (infamously) wrote in his report:
… responsibility and accountability does not extend to higher headquarters …
The whole of the ADF wasn’t “rightly held to account” as General Campbell stated. Only the non-commissioned perpetrators and their immediate commanders were and are being held to account.
Command accountability under scrutiny
The Army’s senior command sets the conditions in which soldiers flourish or wither, including the culture which promotes, permits or prohibits certain behaviour. Responsibility for subordinates starts at the top and works its way down through the chain-of-command. The chain-of-command does not break in the middle.
Brereton got it wrong.
A secret report revealed
In commissioning the report, Inspector General Gaynor ordered “you are to”:
“Find out whether there is sufficient specific information that could demonstrate a causal linkage between a culture within SOTG, or the Special Forces units providing personnel to the SOTG, and the prevalence of alleged unlawful behaviour unknown to or suspected by command.
“Find out whether there were any things that could have been indicators to alert tactical, operational or strategic commanders to the possibility that SOTG members were potentially committing serious misconduct.
“Prepare a report addressing whether and how any cultural issues and indicators may have alerted commanders up to the highest levels of the Australian Defence Force of the possibility that SOTG members might be engaging in serious misconduct.”
Top Secret
Knowledge of the report was non-existent until it was recently discussed at Senate Estimates.
Two FOI requests were subsequently made for the brief, with both requests being knocked back in their entirety.
Whilst one might reasonably accept that some portions of the report might reveal aspects of how our Special Forces operate and should appropriately be withheld from the public, it is implausible that the whole report is classified.
Senator Jacqui Lambie told MWM, “The way they are ‘hiding’ this report makes everyone think yet another Defence cover-up. Diggers have been telling me for years that there is one set of rules for them and another for the leadership. The senior officers work to avoid accountability when there’s problems,
but when it’s time for the medals to be awarded they’re at the front of the line.
When Greens Senator David Shoebridge moved an order for production in the Senate for the report last month, he was unable to get the Coalition to vote for the order. The Coalition’s Manager of Opposition Business in the Senate, Senator Jonathon Duniam, told the Senate, “The Coalition is advised that the evidence within the report is highly classified and goes into operational matters within the ADF.”
Defence had clearly got to the Coalition, who are quite prepared to ensure there is little accountability for Defence’s leadership.
The entire cross bench voted for the order to be made, but with the Coalition sitting beside the Government in the chamber, Shoebridge didn’t get the numbers he needed.
Lambie told MWM, “The way the Coalition and Labor got together to prevent this report being tabled in the Senate is a prime example of my concerns about how effective the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Defence will actually be in overseeing Defence.”
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Lack of trust
There are many dimensions to the trust Australians must have in the leadership of their Defence Force.
Australians must be confident that ADF leadership will ensure operations are conducted professionally and trust that they will deal with failures of strategic command (and not just the failures of patrol commanders and below) and deal with such failures without self-regard or bias.
But there can be nothing that erodes confidence and trust amongst people looking for accountability more than a completely secret process. Total secrecy breeds suspicion and results in an erosion of trust.
Neither our defence minister nor the ADF leadership seem to understand that.
Lambie weighed in: “It’s clear that there have been, and still are, cultural issues in Defence, so you would think the leadership would jump at an opportunity to show they are dealing with those issues and rebuilding trust with the community. Releasing this report, or at minimum a public version, is that sort of opportunity.”
MWM has already made an FOI request for the report with a view to enlivening review rights that will help unmask what’s in the report.
But if the minister had any clue, he’d acquiesce to calls for a version of the report to be released publicly.
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Rex Patrick is a former Senator for South Australia and, earlier, a submariner in the armed forces. Best known as an anti-corruption and transparency crusader, Rex is also known as the "Transparency Warrior."