AARON PATRICK: A powerful group of public servants is waging war on official history of Afghanistan, Iraq wars

Senior government officials don’t want Australians to know how their nation fought the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, and all the pain, the mistakes and triumphs.

The four-volume official histories of the two wars have been completed at immense effort by historians at the Australian War Memorial, a group of world-class military scholars who believe Australians are entitled to know what defence forces did in their name.

For three years an anonymous group of public servants has engaged in bureaucratic stonewalling to keep the books unpublished.

A roughly 1000-page volume covering the post-9/11 invasion of Afghanistan, including the SAS’s frustrating search for Osama bin Laden in the Tora Bora caves, was submitted to the government in early 2023.

In a process managed by the Defence Department, the manuscript was sent for vetting to the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, each of the armed services and the intelligence agencies, of which there are 10.

Once the departments and agencies ensure no secrets have been inadvertently disclosed, the books have to be submitted to one of the most-powerful but little-known committees in the government.

Known as SCONS, the Secretaries Committee of National Security is comprised of public servants who lead the departments mentioned above, plus the Australian Federal Police. This committee is responsible for signing off on publication of the histories.

SCONS’ approval is meant to be a formality. The public service and the ministry is expressly prohibited from interfering in the historians’ editorial judgments, a rule designed to protect the integrity of important historical documents.

Frustrated ambition

Into this black bureaucratic hole the manuscript disappeared. It was followed a year later by the volume covering the Afghanistan war from 2010 to 2014, which includes an assault on a Taliban machine-gun position by Ben Roberts-Smith during the Battle of Shah Wali Kot that was recognised with the Victoria Cross.

Hoping their work would soon be immortalised in print, the War Memorial historians kept writing, editing and fact checking. The number of interviews they conducted would surpass 3000. Hundreds of thousands of classified documents would be read. The cost reached $17.6 million. It became the most ambitious history project any had participated in.

Towards the end of 2024 Chief Historian Craig Stockings submitted the volume on Iraq, which describes Royal Australian Navy ships bombarding bunkers as British marines landed from the sea.

By the time the last volume was completed, covering the Afghanistan war from 2005 to 2010, the historians involved were working without pay.

It was clear a faction within the national security establishment was determined to block publication of their work. Dr Stockings decided there was no point submitting the last manuscript while the other volumes were being held.

There are no legal, moral or governance reasons for suppressing the information. The intelligence services have made no complaints about secrets being revealed. No information about alleged war crimes is cited not already in the public domain. No individuals are defamed.

A crime

Clearly, though, powerful public servants do not want Australians exposed to gritty truths about a lost war.

That’s a crime in itself. The Afghanistan War has been overshadowed by the allegations special forces soldiers executed prisoners in 23 incidents. They were a tiny portion of the 2500 operations conducted by the SAS, commandos and other special forces.

The much-bigger story deserves to be told. It includes bravery, honour and professional skill by soldiers grappling to defeat a well-resourced and determined insurgency in a deeply hostile environment.

Until Australians are presented with the full facts, how can they judge those who fought on their behalf?

Approximately 40,000 Australians participated in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Some returned with profound physical or psychological injuries.

Among them was Ian Turner. Raised in Launceston, Tasmania, Turner joined the army at 18. Four years later he joined the commandos, where he excelled.

He completed about 160 courses and trained on 20 weapon systems, took an undergraduate degree and enrolled in a master’s. He was present in 2007 when another commando, Private Luke Worsley, was killed fighting the Taliban in Uruzgan Province.

Six years later he was back in Afghanistan when his close friend and fellow Tasmanian, Corporal Cameron Baird, was killed in a fight that would make him the last Australian to be awarded the Victoria Cross.

The sergeant returned from the war broken. “I have killed so many people and I cannot live with myself,” he told a doctor in 2017, four years after Australia ended combat operations.

Turner did not survive his trauma. His death is an example of why explaining the wars is so important. Those books will allow veterans to be seen, appreciated and respected.

Australia owes them that, at least.

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