SAS soldiers insist top brass can’t hide on war crimes

Defence has tried to silence former SAS soldiers who say commanders must share accountability on war crimes.

Chief of the Australian Defence Force Angus Campbell will release the findings of the four-year Brereton inquiry on Thursday. Picture: AAP

Defence has tried to silence former SAS soldiers who say military commanders and political leaders must share accountability for the regiment’s failures exposed by the Brereton war crimes inquiry.

Army News rejected a 1200-word opinion article this week by 13 serving and former Special Air Services Regiment operators, who demanded Defence leaders be held “to the same standards to which we hold ourselves”.

The ­article — obtained by The Australian — condemns successive governments for the “continually shifting goalposts” of the Afghanistan war, and repeated special forces deployments without a defined “end state”.

The authors, who wrote the ­article anonymously as serving operators cannot legally be named, say they are professional soldiers and want war criminals thrown from the regiment and prosecuted.

“Accusations and allegations of war crimes, as well as failures of leadership, cut to the very core of the SASR,” they wrote. “Such ­actions go against the very purpose of who we are as an organisation, and against the very nature of who we are as individuals.

“We outright reject and despise criminality in all its forms, ­especially in the context of soldiering. There is absolutely no place in the ADF, least of all in the SASR, for any individual who believes they are untouchable or above the law.”

They say they support “truth in reporting” and will accept the findings of the four-year Brereton inquiry, to be released by the Chief of Defence Force Angus Campbell on Thursday.

But they say Defence leaders should also shoulder responsibility for the crisis now facing the ­nation’s most elite fighting unit.

“Just as we embrace truth in ­reporting, we demand our leadership to do the same,” the authors write. “We hold our leadership to the same unforgiving standards to which we hold our teams, and ourselves, individually.”

They say the reputation of the entire SAS should not be impugned by the behaviour of those responsible. “We are not war criminals, nor have we ever set our ­morality aside. We are professional volunteer soldiers who frequently upheld the values of the Australian Army during a 10-year expeditionary campaign in the Middle East, despite the ­absence of any clear definition of victory.

“We are not out of control. In fact, we have spent the majority our professional soldiering careers in the SASR drilling and exercising, specifically to avoid casualties among non-combatants.”

Defence’s refusal to publish the article comes as it ramps up its own public relations campaign ahead of the report’s public release, green lighting interviews by consultant sociologist Samantha Crompvoets, who identified evidence of atrocities by special forces soldiers in a secret 2016 report.

Dr Crompvoets strongly ­endorsed General Campbell’s ­actions in helping uncover the scandal, telling Nine Entertainment he urged her to keep digging and “write it all down”.

But many serving and former soldiers fear the public version of the Brereton report could whitewash the role of senior Defence leaders, who failed to eliminate a toxic culture of entitlement that flourished for years in the SASR.

Surging kill counts in Afghanistan were accepted by commanders as a sign of success, while warnings over the ­impact of repeated deployments on soldiers’ mental health were ­ignored. General Campbell will release a summary of the report, which is expected to detail at least 12 alleged war crimes by special forces soldiers, without identifying any of 10 or more serving and former operators allegedly involved.

Prosecutions flowing from the inquiry will take years to run through the courts. Defence is also prepared to strip medals from those implicated, and is likely to clear out troublemakers from the regiment.