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Australian SAS chief acknowledges war crimes, blames 'poor moral leadership'

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Special forces chief acknowledges war crimes, blames 'poor moral leadership'We’re sorry, this feature is currently unavailable. We’re working to restore it. Please try again later.DismisscloseAdvertisementBy Log in, or to save articles for later.Normal text sizeLarger text sizeVery large text sizeAdvertisementThe senior army officer in charge of Australia’s special forces has admitted some elite soldiers committed war crimes in Afghanistan and blamed the atrocities on “poor moral leadership” in an extraordinary confidential briefing to dozens of troops at SAS headquarters.In a private briefing delivered in late March, Major-General Adam Findlay also made the stunning admission that war crimes may have been covered up and that Australia’s special forces will take a decade to recover from the long running investigation overseen by senior NSW judge Paul Brereton.Multiple sources with knowledge of the meeting revealed General Findlay, the Australian Special Operations Commander, briefed dozens of Special Air Service Regiment (SAS) soldiers at Perth’s Campbell Barracks, telling them, “Brereton knows more about this command than anybody.” General Findlay said Justice Brereton had interviewed hundreds of SAS personnel under oath and he had a “very strong evidential basis of what is fact”.“There are guys who criminally did something. But can you tell me, why was that?” General Findlay asked the soldiers present at the briefing. He then said Justice Brereton had identified “trigger pullers” and “names that come up beyond the trigger pullers” who enabled war crimes. General Findlay went on to blame the war crimes on what he described as “one common cause”.“It is poor leadership,” he said. “In fact, it is poor moral leadership.”General Findlay’s forthright comments are the first direct admission from military top brass that the Brereton Inquiry is set to make adverse findings. They will increase pressure on Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Defence Minister Linda Reynolds to support the release of parts of his report to Federal Parliament and the Australian public. General Findlay has served in Afghanistan, Timor-Leste and Iraq and holds a PHD in military history from the University of NSW.General Findlay said the one positive aspect of the Brereton Inquiry was that it showed some SAS soldiers were brave enough to blow the whistle on war crimes. He described their “moral courage” while warning those who had lied to Justice Brereton out of “misguided loyalty” had been identified as “perjurers” and would be removed from the SAS “as a minimum”."There is strength here. There is a moral code. The reason we got the [Brereton inquiry] is because people came forward [to expose war crimes],” he said.Advertisement"[Winston] Churchill had a great saying: ‘When you are walking through hell it is best that you keep walking.’ That’s what we are going to do. This is going to be a tough 10 years. And we have to rehabilitate the reputation and the capabilities and everything of this command … we can’t wallow in it.”The Age, the Herald and 60 Minutes published and broadcast reports over the weekend about former SAS medic from the family of an Afghan man killed in suspicious circumstances. Mr Miller, a decorated former warrant officer who served in Afghanistan, personally apologised to the Afghan children of a farmer allegedly killed by a senior SAS soldier on March 14, 2012.For more than two years the Herald and The Age have published multiple detailed reports about alleged war crimes committed by a small number of special forces in Afghanistan, with many of the incidents exposed also being investigated by Mr Brereton or the federal police. Federal MP and former SAS Captain Andrew Hastie has strongly supported the inquiries into the Afghanistan conduct, urging full transparency with the Australian public.In March, the ABC’s Four Corners program showing an Australian special forces soldier killing an unarmed Afghan man in May 2012. A Defence investigation found the soldier acted in self-defence but the killing has been condemned by retired Admiral Chris Barrie, who served as chief of the Defence Force from 1998 to 2002, and Human Rights Watch.General Findlay said in his March briefing that a small number of commissioned officers had allowed a culture where abhorrent conduct was permitted. He said a handful of experienced soldiers including patrol commanders and deputy patrol commanders, who typically led five-man SAS teams on missions, had also enabled this culture to exist."If you have led a command climate that has permitted people to think [it was OK to do] egregiously wrong acts, you need to be rooted out. One, as an individual and, two, as a group," he said. “You’ll have to sleep once you leave the services. If your honour has been compromised, it will affect you for the rest of your life.”The Morrison government will face a difficult choice over how much to tell the public about SAS misconduct after Justice Brereton delivers his long-awaited report to Chief of the Defence Force General Angus Campbell in the coming weeks. General Campbell will then hand the report to Senator Reynolds, who has previously expressed concern about some of the allegations. Justice Brereton, a Major-General in the Army Reserve, has since 2016 assisted the Inspector General of the Australian Defence Force by investigating claims that elite troops killed unarmed or injured Afghan men, including handcuffed prisoners.General Findlay said in his briefing it was unfair that the misconduct of a few soldiers who served in Afghanistan had damaged the reputation of the majority of the SAS who had done nothing wrong. "I imagine this is tainting the regiment you love," he said.He explained the genesis of the inquiry had been SAS soldiers writing letters to the top brass about misconduct, forcing General Campbell to call for inquiries to "examine our soul because it wasn’t right".General Findlay said Justice Brereton was compiling "a raft of findings" and the reason his inquiry had taken four years was because "a number" of new whistleblowers had recently emerged to speak up. But General Findlay warned those still covering up war crimes were in the "red zone" and once the Brereton report was completed, he added, there would be "no retracting”."[Justice Brereton] is going to list those people, because if you have lied under oath and there is evidence to prove it, which he’s got, you are a perjurer."The special forces commander also called out a very small number of those who had served in the elite SAS who acted as "self righteous entitled prick[s]" who believed the rules of the regular army didn't apply to them. He said arrogance in this small group had fuelled a poor internal culture and "caused all the problems" now facing the SAS.General Findlay said the "brutal truth" was that the war crimes scandal had caused "an issue of trust" between special forces, which comprise the SAS and the Commandos, and with the Australian people and the wider military. He said people within the SAS who "had nothing to do with this" now had to "serve to make this place better and pay for the sins" of others.“We have to continue the cultural and governance change. For a lot of reasons but because it is right.”Log in, or to save articles for later. is an Age investigative journalist who has twice been named the Graham Perkin Australian Journalist of the Year. A winner of 10 Walkley Awards, he investigates politics, business, foreign affairs, human rights and criminal justice. is a Gold Walkley award-winning journalist and author. He was the first Australian journalist to be embedded with special forces in Afghanistan.Advertisement

Special forces chief acknowledges war crimes, blames 'poor moral leadership'We’re sorry, this feature is currently unavailable. We’re working to restore it. Please try again later.DismisscloseAdvertisementBy Log in, or to save articles for later.Normal text sizeLarger text sizeVery large text sizeAdvertisementThe senior army officer in charge of Australia’s special forces has admitted some elite soldiers committed war crimes in Afghanistan and blamed the atrocities on “poor moral leadership” in an extraordinary confidential briefing to dozens of troops at SAS headquarters.In a private...

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Chris Masters

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Australian SAS chief acknowledges war crimes, blames 'poor moral leadership'

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