Military top brass to be spared from further Afghanistan war crimes action

Chief of the Defence Force Admiral Mark Hammond said Defence would take no additional action against senior commanders over failures linked to alleged Afghanistan war crimes. He told a Senate estimates hearing that his predecessors had already acted on the inquiry’s findings and recommendations. Hammond said all relevant departmental actions were complete.

The inquiry found significant failures in leadership and command within the SAS. Warning signs reached higher headquarters, but commanders did not intervene effectively. Some commanders also saw unusually high battlefield death figures, with few wounded insurgents and few Australian casualties, yet no effective action followed.

Hammond said referrals had been made to government where necessary and that he had no additional testimony. The decision has renewed questions about whether senior officers escaped accountability. It also highlights the difference between holding individual soldiers responsible for alleged killings and addressing institutional failures that allowed misconduct to continue.

The Inspector-General of the Australian Defence Force, or IGADF, is the Defence oversight body whose inquiry examined failures connected with alleged war crimes in Afghanistan. The report focused on leadership, command, discipline and organisational culture within the Special Air Service Regiment. It asked how serious problems could persist without effective intervention.

The inquiry found an absence of effective leadership at various levels. It examined commanders’ responses to warning signs, rumours, battlefield statistics and deteriorating standards. It also considered whether the regiment’s closed culture, arrogance and exceptionalism weakened ordinary military rules and discouraged challenges to misconduct.

The inquiry was completed in 2022, but only an executive summary was partly released this week. It did not establish that senior commanders knew war crimes were being committed. However, it found a succession of leadership failures that allowed serious cultural problems to go unchecked, and Defence says its recommended actions are complete.

The 2020 Brereton inquiry found credible evidence that Australian special forces unlawfully killed 39 Afghan civilians and prisoners. The finding is important because it established the scale of alleged unlawful killings that prompted broader questions about responsibility within Australia’s military.

The inquiry largely confined responsibility to soldiers and junior commanders. This meant the alleged killings were examined mainly through the actions of those closest to the incidents. The later IGADF inquiry instead examined the leadership environment that may have allowed serious misconduct and cultural problems to persist.

The later report did not establish that senior commanders knew war crimes were being committed. It did, however, identify repeated leadership failures and inadequate responses to warning signs. The contrast between 39 alleged victims and limited senior accountability is why the article describes a troubling gap in responsibility.

The inquiry identified a breakdown of leadership inside the Special Air Service Regiment. It found an absence of effective leadership at various levels, with warning signs reaching higher headquarters without prompting adequate intervention. Commanders failed to challenge deteriorating standards and tolerated serious misconduct.

The regiment also developed a closed culture built on exceptionalism. Some soldiers saw themselves as untouchable and treated ordinary military rules as optional. Junior officers were sometimes effectively subservient to experienced non-commissioned officers. Attempts to challenge entrenched behaviour were undermined, while some soldiers pursued engagements for medals and recognition.

The report also pointed to successive deployments and decisions by government and military leaders that encouraged the SAS to see itself as superior rather than specialist. A drinking venue at Camp Russell, despite explicit alcohol bans, illustrated the breakdown of discipline. Together, these failures allowed misconduct and harmful attitudes to continue.

The figures were warning signs because they showed an unusual pattern of battlefield outcomes. Commanders saw high numbers of enemy combatants killed, almost no wounded insurgents and few Australian casualties. That combination should have raised questions about how engagements were being reported and whether the rules of armed conflict were being followed.

The report said some commanders noticed the data and accompanying rumours, while others did not. It described this as possibly showing an abandonment of curiosity. The key failure was not simply the existence of alarming statistics. It was that no effective action followed despite the seriousness of the rumours.

Investigating could have tested whether the figures reflected genuine combat, inaccurate reporting or unlawful conduct. The article does not say exactly what an investigation would have found. It does show that commanders had information capable of prompting scrutiny but failed to respond adequately, allowing suspected misconduct to remain unchecked.

A culture of secrecy, exceptionalism and weak oversight can make misconduct harder to detect and challenge. Civilians and prisoners may face unlawful violence, while soldiers may be pressured to accept harmful behaviour as normal. When leaders fail to act, institutional rules lose credibility.

The article gives concrete examples. Some soldiers regarded themselves as untouchable, and witnesses compared the closed culture to a “bikie gang”. Junior officers were sometimes undermined by experienced non-commissioned officers. The Brereton inquiry later found credible evidence of 39 unlawful killings, while the IGADF found commanders failed to respond effectively to warning signs.

The consequences extend beyond the battlefield. Discipline inside the SAS broke down, and senior accountability became a public concern. Defence twice refused to release the report, and the article says its publication raised fresh questions about responsibility. Andrew Hastie said transparency was necessary to understand and learn from this military history.

Command responsibility separates direct responsibility for committing a crime from responsibility for leadership failures around it. A soldier who unlawfully kills may bear direct responsibility for that act. A commander may not have ordered or known about the killing, but may still be morally or institutionally responsible if warning signs were ignored and prevention systems failed.

Andrew Hastie expressed the distinction clearly. He said an Army officer is accountable for those underneath them, “maybe not directly for actions, but certainly” through moral accountability and moral responsibility. The inquiry found that commanders ignored warning signs and tolerated misconduct, but did not establish that senior commanders knew war crimes were being committed.

That distinction explains the article’s accountability gap. The Brereton inquiry largely confined responsibility to soldiers and junior commanders, while the later inquiry examined senior leadership failures. Defence says previous chiefs already acted on the recommendations, so no additional senior-command action is planned.