ANDY WHITE: Did Ben Roberts-Smith interview prompt ADF to partially release secret SAS review?

The IGADF’s follow-up inquiry into culture and command in Afghanistan acknowledges that special forces were overused, given inadequate respite and deployed under compromised command arrangements. Yet its closest scrutiny remains fixed on the regiment.

How does a report about command failure leave so much unanswered about those in command?

The inquiry, directed by Angus Campbell, was meant to examine more than SASR. Its directions expressly included identifying indicators that could have alerted commanders at the highest levels of the Australian Defence Force to possible serious misconduct.

The scope reached the top. The public accounting falls short.

The report argues that deteriorating discipline, excessive secrecy, compromised reporting and an inversion of authority within SASR weakened command and enabled misconduct. These are serious findings. They deserve serious examination. The report’s uneven treatment of responsibility demands the same scrutiny.

Moving the focus from SAS soldiers to SAS officers does not demonstrate accountability through the full chain of command. Extending criticism into Special Operations Command still leaves a far less complete account of what senior ADF leaders knew, what they should have known and the decisions they made.

The report’s own findings make those questions unavoidable. Overuse, inadequate respite, compromised command arrangements and missed opportunities to employ other Army capabilities demand scrutiny of those who allocated forces, approved commitments and decided how long they continued.

A regimental commanding officer could request support, recommend alternatives and deliver an assigned task. He could not, by himself, redesign Australia’s contribution to the war.

Who set the demands? Who assessed the cumulative cost? Who had the authority to change course?

That requires examination of the national command structure: the commanders of JTF 633-A and JTF 633, the Chief of Joint Operations and the Chief of the Defence Force. It also requires examination of the Chief of Army’s responsibilities for raising, training and sustaining the force.

These appointments held different powers, and the arrangements changed over time. Each must be examined according to the authority it exercised. They cannot all disappear into the convenient expression “higher headquarters”.

Coalition arrangements made command more complicated. That makes it more important to establish who controlled what, who received which information and who could intervene. Complexity cannot become an escape route from accountability.

Defence’s independent Afghanistan Inquiry Implementation Oversight Panel recognised this problem. In its final report, it rejected the proposition that accountability could not extend to the most senior officers. It called for examination of shortcomings at the highest levels and whether those shortcomings should have been apparent.

It also identified insufficient adaptation to the length of the conflict, including the overuse of special forces and inadequate respite arrangements. The panel was not given enough information to judge whether Defence’s internal process objectively examined governance at the top.

That criticism came from the independent body appointed to oversee Defence’s response.

Defence says commanders were considered irrespective of rank. The public still needs an account of which senior responsibilities were examined, against what evidence, and how the conclusions were reached.

I served within this system. Repeated deployments sat alongside domestic counter-terrorism and special recovery readiness, internal and external training, and extensive responsibilities at home.

We returned from Afghanistan in December 2010 and moved straight onto domestic readiness duties. Specialist training followed as we prepared to return to Afghanistan little more than six months later.

Being home did not mean being rested.

With one squadron deployed and another maintaining domestic readiness, the remaining squadron still had to prepare for its next deployment while meeting other commitments. A deployment calendar records when soldiers leave the country. It does not capture everything demanded of them between tours.

Getting another rotation out the gate did not prove the organisation was healthy. It proved that its people could deliver another rotation.

Soldiers and commanders can keep producing results while the organisation behind them deteriorates. Their determination can conceal the shortfall. Senior leadership must assess what that output is costing the force.

Start with the respite waivers. In my book, I describe waivers permitting personnel to redeploy within the prescribed respite period, requiring approval from SOCAUST.

Those approvals should leave a decision trail. What advice supported them? How often were exceptions granted? Who assessed the cumulative effect? What information went to Army and operational headquarters about the force’s ability to continue?

Mental health requires the same examination. The warnings began years earlier.

The official review of SAS veterans’ health concerns, completed in 2003 and released in 2004, recorded accounts of long working hours, sleep deprivation, family separation and substantial physical demands. Veterans reported psychological and family difficulties, including adjustment problems and alcohol misuse.

The panel acknowledged gaps in systematic evidence. Those gaps demanded follow-up. Serious concerns about the costs of SAS service were already before an official review.

What did the institution do to establish the scale of those problems? How did the findings influence staffing, recovery and subsequent commitments?

The history cannot begin with the moment someone finally stopped coping.

Parliament’s published chronology also records accounts from former SAS psychologists identifying psychological fatigue by 2007–08 and mounting strain during the 2010–11 fighting seasons. They said detailed post-deployment reports went up the chain of command.

The chronology draws on published reporting. The underlying records should be obtained and followed through headquarters to establish whether the warnings changed recovery periods, staffing, treatment or decisions to redeploy.

The new summary acknowledges failures in psychological screening and questions assessments of continuing fitness to deploy. But a screening policy provides little protection unless leadership checks that screening occurs, care is available and findings affect employment.

If risks were reported up the chain, responsibility cannot stop with the unit that raised them. It must extend to those responsible for assessing the warnings, providing support and deciding whether the commitments could safely continue.

From my experience, operational output continued to take priority over adequate recovery and support. In my view, the ADF failed in its duty of care to its soldiers. That failure deserves the same scrutiny as the conduct of the men it continued to deploy.

I wanted to deploy. I loved the work and put my hand up for opportunities, even when exhausted.

That is precisely why the safeguards mattered. A soldier’s willingness to keep going is not an independent assessment of his fitness to continue.

The report’s treatment of volunteering deserves scrutiny on the same grounds. Paragraph 64 acknowledges that its suggested explanation for SOCOMD continuing to offer forces is speculative, before raising possible motives involving influence, recognition and financial benefits.

Speculation about motives cannot replace an examination of decisions. Whatever willingness existed within SOCOMD, the authorities accepting those offers still had to assess whether the commitment was sustainable.

An offer of forces did not transfer responsibility away from those authorised to accept it.

Operational oversight demands equally direct questions. In my book, I describe senior commanders receiving explanations of our targeting procedures and exercising authority over whether missions proceeded. Their exercise of that authority requires examination.

What information accompanied approval? What safeguards were required? If reporting was unreliable, who tested it? If command arrangements restricted visibility, who reviewed them?

Senior leaders could not reasonably know every battlefield event. They could reasonably be expected to ensure credible means existed to detect problems, investigate concerns and correct failures.

The follow-up inquiry’s evidence-gathering also deserves scrutiny. Its summary says it did not interview witnesses from the original Afghanistan Inquiry and faced restrictions on obtaining further evidence.

Whose perspectives informed this examination of command? Were enlisted personnel interviewed? I have not heard from any who were questioned for this follow-up inquiry. The public account should identify whose evidence was heard.

Officers’ accounts are necessary. They cannot substitute for hearing from soldiers who experienced the consequences of command decisions. Both must be tested against contemporary records.

Time makes that harder. Memories fade, personnel disperse and decisions become easier to explain with hindsight. Medical warnings, requests for assistance, deployment records and respite approvals therefore become more important.

The full report remains unpublished. The public summary identifies institutional failures without demonstrating an equally thorough accounting of the senior decisions that created, accepted or failed to correct those conditions.

That is why I regard the public account as another exercise in scapegoating. It examines those carrying the commitment more closely than those responsible for sustaining it.

Campbell directed this inquiry, and its findings were reported back to him. Transparency about its examination of senior responsibility is essential.

The timing of publication also warrants explanation. The summary appeared after Ben Roberts-Smith’s recent public interview. Who authorised publication? When was that decision made? Why release it at this point?

Individual wrongdoing must be investigated on its evidence. The leadership that determined commitments, allocated resources, accepted risks and supervised safeguards deserves the same rigour.

Senior leaders cannot retain authority over the commitment while accountability stops among the people required to deliver it.

Release the full report, with necessary redactions. Explain the publication decision. Show whose evidence was heard and how every level of command was examined.

Prove me wrong.

Andy White is a former SAS commando and author of memoir Outside the Wire.