War crimes report: Top brass kept in the dark by ‘boilerplate’ reports

Australian Defence Force commanders were kept in the dark over unlawful conduct in Afghanistan.

General David Hurley, centre, visits Patrol Base Mirwais in Afghanistan while chief of the defence force.

Australian Defence Force commanders were kept in the dark over unlawful conduct in Afghanistan, with staff officers portraying incident reports “in a way which would minimise the likelihood of attracting appropriate command scrutiny”.

The Afghanistan Inquiry Report, released on Thursday, said incident reporting was “manipulated” to avoid oversight by higher command and became so routine that operational updates had a “boilerplate flavour”.

Paul Brereton, an Army Reserve infantry major general and NSW Supreme Court judge, said operational reporting was “routinely embellished and sometimes outright fabricated”.

“This extended to alternative reporting lines, such as intelligence reporting, which was carefully controlled. It also generated resistance to lawfully authorised investigations and inquiries,” he said.

Previous inquiries into civilian casualties in Afghanistan failed to expose the scale of alleged war crimes, largely due to false information provided to investigations. The Inspector-General’s report said misreporting may have been a manifestation of a wider propensity “to be inclined to report what superior commanders are believed to want to hear”.

“Integrity in reporting is fundamental for sound command decisions and operational oversight. The wider manifestation needs to be addressed in leadership training and ethical training, from the start of a military career and continuing throughout it.”

Governor General David Hurley, chief of the defence force when the alleged offences were committed, on Thursday acknowledged a large number of war crimes were “hidden as combat casualties in operational reports”.

Chief of Defence Force Angus Campbell said the roles of commanders, many who remain in the ADF, in relation to the reporting would be reviewed. “I’m leaving all options on the table and I want to work through the issue, case-by-case,” General Campbell said.

Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston, CDF from 2005 to 2011, has yet to publicly respond.

Justice Brereton said it was hard to see how any officer “could in good conscience retain a distinguished service award” for a command during which there was a substantiated war crime.

“The Inquiry has recommended that distinguished service awards to commanders at troop, squadron and task group level in respect of Special Operations Task Group Rotations … be reviewed. It has also made recommendations concerning some particular individual awards,” he said. “The Inquiry has made numerous recommendations to address strategic, operational, structural, training and cultural factors that appear to have contributed, although generally indirectly, to the incidents and issues referred to in this Report.”

Chief of the Army Rick Burr, who led the SAS from 2003 to 2004, will lead cultural reform and support ADF members who gave evidence to the inquiry.

Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston visits Australian troops as CDF in Oruzgan province in 2009.

Scott Morrison assured veterans and serving personnel that the government was committed to tackling the “sets of rules and other conditioning factors”.

The Prime Minister said where alleged acts took place, it was important “lessons are learned to ensure that they can’t be repeated”.

“For all those veterans out there, I want to assure you, and serving men and women as well, that this process doesn’t just look at any particular events or acts. But it also looks at the environment and the sets of rules and other conditioning factors that were relevant here,” he told Sky News.