No officers were harmed in the making of this report

It’s like this, in the gospel according to Brereton

All that said, it was at the patrol commander level that the criminal behaviour was conceived, committed, continued, and concealed, and overwhelmingly at that level that responsibility resides…
The Inquiry has found no evidence that there was knowledge of, or reckless indifference to, the commission of war crimes, on the part of commanders at troop/platoon, squadron/company or Task Group Headquarters level, let alone at higher levels such as Commander Joint Task Force 633, Joint Operations Command, or Australian Defence Headquarters. Nor…was [there] any failure at any of those levels to take reasonable and practical steps that would have prevented or detected the commission of war crimes.
…responsibility and accountability does not extend to higher headquarters…
The responsibility lies in the Australian Defence Force, not with the government of the day.
…that culture was not created or enabled in SOTG, let alone by any individual Special Operations Task Group Commanding Officer. … It was in their parent units…that the cultures…were bred, and it is with the commanders of the domestic units who enabled that, rather than with the SOTG commanders, that greater responsibility rests.

And just to reinforce the point…

…the criminal behaviour of a few was commenced, committed, continued and concealed at the patrol commander level, that is, at corporal or sergeant level. But for a small number of patrol commanders, and their protégées, it would not have been thought of…

Who were these “patrol commanders”? The command structure of the Special Air Service  Regiment (SASR), as revealed in Brereton, is patrol, troop, squadron, and, in Afghanistan, SOTG headquarters. Andrew Hastie, an officer, went to Afghanistan in 2013 as a troop commander. Patrols, which did the hard yakka, were commanded by NCOs – sergeants and corporals.

What about the officers commanding at troop level?

SASR troop commanders…position was a difficult one.  Invariably, they were on their first…deployment.  [T]he non-commissioned officers had achieved ascendancy, just as they had from their role as gatekeepers to Special Air Service Regiment selection, and their extended role when new officers were ‘under training’ and thus regularly subordinate to them…
For sound tactical reasons, troop commanders were…located remotely from the target compound…

Invariably. If so, no troop commander was ever on his second deployment. No troop commander had the opportunity to gain and apply experience. What about the lower orders? [S]ix or more deployments for an individual was not uncommon. Hard yakka. And surely this situation where officers are subordinate to NCOs is unacceptable? Andrew Hastie has been there.

Corporal Ben Roberts-Smith, fresh back from the Battle of Tizak, towered over us, the 25 officer candidates on the 2010 Special Air Service Regiment selection course…

“You f..king officers. You always take the easy option. Lower. Hold!” …

Humbling myself before Ben Roberts-Smith was not easy. … SASR selection is an exacting experience.

The glossary defines a throwdown as a weapon, communication device, or electronic evidence to deliberately place at the scene of an incident to support a narrative that the incident was justified and was within ROE (Rules of Engagement) and the LOAC (Law of Armed Combat). The use of a throwdown implies intent to deceive. Apart from the above-mentioned culture, the trouble all arises from throwdowns. What started as a practice to “avoid attracting questions” when an Afghan killed in good faith was found not to have been carrying a weapon, the same subterfuge, according to the report, became a cover for killings violating the LOAC.

By late 2012 to 2013 there was…possibly up to squadron level, suspicion if not knowledge that throwdowns were carried [for] avoiding questions…when it turned out that the person killed was not armed… [I]t was understood as a defensive mechanism to avoid questions being asked… [U]se of throwdowns to conceal deliberate unlawful killings was not known to commanders. … Commanders indirectly contributed…by sanitising or embellishing reporting to avoid attracting questions…

Note that use of throwdowns to conceal deliberate killings was not known to commanders who sanitised or embellished reporting to avoid attracting questions.

Andrew Hastie passed SASR officer selection in 2010, and went as a troop commander to Afghanistan in 2013. In an broadcast interview with the ABC’s Andrew Probyn, Hastie said…

When I went over there, I made it very clear what my expectations were, my junior leaders knew that. And despite that, we had some incidents that were made public in the Australian media. … There had been rumours for some time…

But, as former Lieutenant Hastie assured us, “I’m confident I am not under investigation myself.” What were those rumours? They concerned the sort of incidents that “made it into the media.” That contradicts Brereton’s assertion, above, about what may have been suspected. If Lieutenant Hastie was so concerned about “rumours,” what rumours had other, more senior, officers heard? By his political instinct of going straight to the media, and the ABC at that, Hastie has landed his fellow officers in the mire, and he hasn’t done Brereton any good either.

The Whetham Report, Annex A to Part 3 of the report, is condemnatory enough in its own right, but is essential reading for assessing Brereton’s claims. I recommend it.

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