CITATION: The Military Police [ADFIS]

The Military Police [ADFIS] appear to be the only Defence body that challenged the wilful blindness allegedly being shown by a ‘battle command’ culture within the national chain of command in Defence, towards the continuing stream of information coming to all nodes on that national command chain disclosing contentious killings of civilians in Afghanistan. Military Police disclosed the alleged obstruction being imposed upon their investigations: 

• Firstly, imposed by commanders, their legal officers and their staff, by denying the Military Police access to sites, to witnesses, to documents, and to weapons used, when soldiers under command and control of these commissioned officers may have been unlawfully killing Afghani civilians and Taliban already under control;
• Secondly, imposed by principals in Defence, by denying a Chief of Defence Force Commission of Inquiry that the Military Police requested, by denying the Inquiry that the Defence Minister directed the Office of Inspector General ADF to conduct into Military Police investigations. These denial decisions may have occurred when these principals may have failed to have taken all necessary and reasonable measures to prevent or repress the commission of possible war crimes and unlawful actions in Afghanistan and in Timor; and,
• Thirdly, by the Office of Inspector General ADF’s Inquiry into War Crime Allegations, by denying again the inquiry previously refused by the Chief of Defence Force, and the inquiry not conducted or reported by the Office of the Inspector General when it was directed by the Defence Minister. These denial decisions may have occurred during a purported inquiry process that may appear to have been unwilling to inquire into any alleged failures by the top echelons of the Defence chain to exercise necessary and reasonable measures to prevent or repress the commission of possible war crimes and unlawful actions in Afghanistan.

For these sole efforts, the Military Police were reviled by commissioned officers of middle and senior rank, in what has been described as a ‘war’ against ADFIS. As is typical, in the Group’s experience of investigations into whistleblower disclosures purportedly carried out by the Office of Inspector General ADF, the disclosures may not have been properly, fairly and thoroughly investigated, and the whistleblowers, the Military Police, may have now been blamed by the Inspector General for the failure of Defence to discover any possible war crimes and / or the cover-up of possible war crimes in Afghanistan.QWAG also commends the courageous actions by individual legal officers, members of Special Forces and Afghani interpreters, and a padre with bullet holes in his hat, who also acted to disclose possibly unlawful actions of those operating ‘inside the wire’ and ‘outside the wire’ in Afghanistan.