Ben Roberts-Smith and the chain of command

Samantha Hawley: Hi, I’m Sam Hawley, coming to you from Gadigal Land. This is ABC News Daily. Last week, a judge in a civil defamation case found there was substantial truth to claims one of Australia’s most decorated soldiers, Ben Roberts-Smith, was a war criminal and murderer. The ruling in the Federal Court has now reopened debate over the behaviour of Australian Special Forces deployed during the war in Afghanistan. Today, investigative reporter Chris Masters, who along with Nick McKenzie, exposed Ben Roberts-Smith, on the continuing fallout from the case and the failings of the military’s chain of command. Chris, just reflect for me, first of all, on this case, on the judge’s ruling, now that some time has passed.

Chris Masters: Well, of course, a massive relief. There was five years of hard work in not only getting the stories up, as you know, it feels like reporting facts is only 10% of the job. Defending them is the other 90%.

Nick McKenzie: I’d just like to say today is a day of justice. It’s a day of justice for those brave men of the SAS who stood up and told the truth about who Ben Roberts-Smith is.

Chris Masters: It went back even further for me because I’d been working on this stuff since about, you know, I first embedded with Special Forces in 2011, and I first started hearing whispers that there had been misconduct in the in the subsequent decade. And then in 2017, I had my first encounter with with Ben Roberts-Smith.

Samantha Hawley: And Ben Roberts-Smith, he hasn’t responded at all. Where is he? Do we know?

Chris Masters: Look, I don’t know much more than what’s been reported in the media. He was in Bali as well, you know, and photographed sunning beside a pool on the day that the rest of us were facing the music. That did come as a surprise. He’d been in court every day for the 110 day trial. And, you know, and he was willing to confront the cameras as he walked into court every day. The fact that a Victoria Cross recipient didn’t appear to have the confidence to turn up felt me telling. And, you know, I also, frankly wondered about his courage.

Samantha Hawley: All right. So, Chris, the Federal Court judge has found you and your colleagues, including journalist Nick McKenzie, were able to show that the allegations that four Afghans were killed by Roberts-Smith or at his command were substantially true. Now, we also have, don’t we, the full judgement in that case. What else have we learned from that?

Chris Masters: Look, it’s a 700 plus page judgement, but it’s well worth reading. It reads like a thriller to me and I think overall what we’ve learned is that he believed our witnesses and he didn’t believe Roberts-Smith I think the judge actually had a terrific overview of the detail of the evidence. It wasn’t just witness testimony that counted. It was so much of the forensic detail. I think it’s a it’s a credit to Australia that, you know, we wanted to know the truth and it’s a credit to journalism that this was actually about preserving the integrity of Australian soldiering.

Samantha Hawley: Yeah. Okay. So, Chris, now why don’t we have a look more broadly at the Australian Special Forces while they were in Afghanistan? There’s been an inquiry into this, the Brereton inquiry. What’s that found so far?

Chris Masters: Well, it found a lot more than than we managed to find. It only happened because operators within SAS-R were prepared to to speak up and Brereton found something like 25 or so potential offences that that he he on passed to the Australian Federal Police and subsequently to the office of the Special investigator. Ben Roberts-Smith was not the only soldier who was alleged to have been involved with war crimes. We’ll hear a lot more about this.

Samantha Hawley: Yeah. Okay. And Brereton also detailed the murder of 39 Afghan civilians. This goes to culture in your view, doesn’t it? What you say is a desensitisation among these SAS troops?

Chris Masters: Yes. The bystander effect is how it was described to me. It just felt like it was something that was that was casual. I mean, a lot of the soldiers were absolutely distressed about what was going on, but they felt that they couldn’t do anything about it, that it was the the alphas, you know, the thrusters, the the direct action people that had the cultural sway. I think there’s a lot of hubris. I think we gave rise to this warrior culture and it was celebrated rather stupidly. They began to adopt superhero status and they started to believe it themselves. They were allowed to consume inordinate amounts of alcohol in theatre in an extremely dangerous environment where you really need your wits about you. That has to be considered a disastrous mistake, that that command allowed that to occur. And also because they operate in secrecy, they have so much authority. The eyes weren’t quite on them. There’s obviously a very big issue now about how it could be that the offences were all committed by junior soldiers and yet no officer seemed to have any idea of what was going on.

Samantha Hawley: Okay. So Chris, we know after the Brereton inquiry, police set up a special division to investigate war crimes and one person has been charged. But do we know anything about what senior officers knew?

Chris Masters: Well, from an evidentiary standpoint, which of course is what really matters, if there’s going to be a prosecution, then we know very little. I mean, there’s been virtually no evidence to indicate that any officer was aware of extrajudicial killings, of the use of throwdowns, you know, planting weapons on insurgents to legitimise a kill, even though at a lower level, as I’ve reported, there was clearly widespread knowledge of this. And I don’t actually buy the fact that or buy the argument that that nobody knew anything. I accept, as Brereton pointed out, that irrespective of whether they knew or they didn’t, they must respect that they have responsibility. What I generally think is that what went missing was that index of suspicion. You know, they should have been curious, but they suspended curiosity.

Samantha Hawley: I guess. Then the question is, Chris, where does the blame end? Who is to blame?

Chris Masters: Well, you know, in in the First World War, when Australians committed war crimes, the historian Charles Bean said we’re all to blame. If we’re going to send them to war and put them in an impossible situation where they lose their sense of humanity and they make split second decisions that are wrong and cruel and callous, then we’ve also got to think about the people who put them there. I think that I’m pretty much on Brereton’s side. If I sort of focus in a little bit harder on not so much blame, but responsibility, I’m more inclined to think the people who allowed that warrior culture to to take off are the ones that bear most of the culpability. And that didn’t happen so much in Afghanistan. It happened back in Australia, essentially in Perth where SAS are located. And what was happening over there is they just got carried away. They really thought that they were on the world stage. They were fighting with American Special forces, British special forces. They thought they were the ant’s pants and and their officers were encouraging them much the same. Some of the officers who stood up and said, wait a minute, wait a minute, leadership is what counts. Now, those people were disparaged at the time, were disparaged and were basically run out of town. And and I think it’s it’s reprehensible that that occurred.

Samantha Hawley: And if the chain of command if the chain of command had worked, Chris, could these atrocities been prevented?

Chris Masters: Well, there’s always going to be horrible things happen in war. But, yes, I mean, it’s now clear that the dogs of war are off the chain. Command wasn’t there, accountability wasn’t there. So the checks and balances that that normally apply were surrendered.

Samantha Hawley: Chris Masters is an investigative reporter for The Age and the Sydney Morning Herald. This episode was produced by Flint, Duxfield, Veronica, Apap, Anna John and Sam Dunn, who also did the mix. Our supervising producer is Stephen Smiley. Over the weekend, Catch This Week with David Lipson, he’ll be looking at the mass evacuations from the dam bombing in southern Ukraine as the counter-offensive begins. I’m Sam Hawley. ABC News Daily will be back again on Monday.

Thanks for listening.