‘Don’t give back your medals heedlessly’, says Angus Campbell

Angus Campbell has revealed he personally urged senior officers not to ‘emotionally’ hand in their medals following the Brereton war crimes inquiry.

Prosthetic leg beer drinking. Picture: The Guardian

Chief of the Defence Force General Angus Campbell has revealed he personally urged senior officers not to “emotionally” hand in their medals following the Brereton war crimes inquiry, despite trying to strip meritorious unit citations from soldiers as a collective punishment.

General Campbell told Senate estimates on Wednesday that he had not prevented officers from handing in medals awarded during the Afghanistan war but had urged them to wait for a “sensible reform plan to be developed”.

He and Chief of Army Rick Burr denied having conflicts of interest, because of their special forces service and friendships with special forces commanders, that would prevent them from impartially determining the accountability of senior officers for the war crimes of subordinates.

Under questioning from Greens senator Jordan Steele-John, General Campbell also said he had not been aware during the war of the unauthorised bar at Australia’s Tarin Kowt base, but said those who drank there should have faced the sack.

The bar, the Fat Lady’s Arms, was frequented by soldiers and officers, including some who drank from a souvenired prosthetic leg.

“The consequence should have been for any in the circumstances of unauthorised drinking, that either administrative or disciplinary action be dealt with at the time, either by the unit or by the formation command,” the CDF told Senate estimates.

The former command sergeant major of special operations command, Warrant Officer Class One John Letch, stood down from the role last year after a photo emerged of him drinking from the prosthetic leg. The existence of the base was known and tolerated by special forces commanders, some of whom are said to have drunk there.

More than four months after the Brereton report’s release, General Campbell and Lieutenant General Burr both said they were unaware of the identity of any senior officers who had visit­ed the establishment.

The Senate’s foreign affairs and defence committee heard 17 ADF personnel had faced “administrative action” on the basis of justice Paul Brereton’s findings, with eight sacked.

General Burr said some officers were among those facing dismissal from the army under the process.

The Australian revealed this month decorated officer Brigadier Ian Langford tried to hand back his Distinguished Service Cross following the report’s release. Brigadier Langford, who had up to 16 war crimes occur under his command in Afghanistan, was told by a superior there was no formal process to deal with the request.

General Campbell, overruled by Scott Morrison in his bid to strip unit citations from 2000 special forces soldiers, said he had not stopped anyone from returning medals to the ­governor-general “(but) I have certainly en­couraged people to wait, allow a sensible reform plan to be developed, and give opportunity for me and others to be more systematic in the approach we take.”

It also emerged that consultant psychologist Samantha Cromp­voets was not granted ethical approval for an “operational wellness” study of special forces personnel that revealed alle­gations of war crimes, including unproven claims that Afghan children’s throats were slit.

“If that was conducted today, arrangements would be put in place to ensure appropriate ethics arrivals were put in place,” General Burr said.