It was a privilege to be appointed as an Assistant Inspector-General of the ADF in order to be able to contribute to the vital work carried out by Justice Brereton and his team, investigating allegations of war crimes in Afghanistan https://afghanistaninquiry.defence.gov.au 

As a military ethicist, I was tasked with drawing on accounts from an extensive range of interview transcripts from the full inquiry, in order to try and explain events that were believed to have taken place in the period 2007-2014.

These were not "heat of battle" errors of judgement, but rather cold-blooded and premeditated killings. My report (Annex A of the full report) draws a picture of a gradual erosion of standards over time resulting in a culture within which, ultimately, war crimes were tolerated.

This was contributed to by: the character and tempo of the deployments (and continued redeployments); inadequate training and support; inappropriate metrics of success warping behaviour within the SF Task Group;

a lack of clarity about purpose and gradual loss of confidence in both mission and command; a fractured, compartmentalised and dysfunctional leadership, and; a general lack of effective oversight aided and abetted by the very people who should have been providing it.

This combination of factors led to a normalisation over time of behaviours that should never have been considered normal and ultimately, an organisational blindness to the perpetration of war crimes by some soldiers.

As General Campbell @CDF_Aust made clear in his press briefing this morning, there is a need for accountability, and this accountability should not be limited to those who may be directly implicated in the commission of warcrimes.

While many lessons have already been learnt and applied by the ADF, my report notes the key role to be played by education and training in acknowledging and understanding the ethical risk factors that lead to the failures,

and the importance of normalising the right kinds of routine ethical discussion and behaviour throughout the organisation. I am delighted to see that my recommendations in this area have been accepted in full as part of a much broader range of actions.

I am very aware that due to the nature of the evidence I accessed, the voice of both the victims and their families is missing from my analysis. While different, there was also a cost paid by those who sought to raise these issues in a climate that was not open to it at the time.

Finally, I am also very aware that the actions of the few do not represent the many. I agree with Dr @SCrompvoets when she notes the countless references to exceptional soldiers and officers, who upheld Army values and whose character was unquestionably of high standing.