Dunne: Is SAS hiding raid secret?
Without an inquiry into alleged civilian deaths in a raid involving elite Kiwi troops there is no stopping speculation, including a possible cover-up by the New Zealand Defence Force for the actions of American soldiers, Unitedfuture leader Peter Dunne said.
Dunne, who is the minister of internal affairs, said that in the ‘‘absence of a clearer disclosure as to what actually happened you’re left with all sorts of interesting possibilities’’.
Authors Nicky Hager and Jon Stephenson, in their recently released book Hit and Run, alleged SAS troops were involved in raids on two villages in Afghanistan in 2010 that left six civilians dead, including a 3-year-old girl.
NZDF Chief of Defence Lieutenant General Tim Keating has strongly denied the allegations and on Wednesday Hager and Stephenson conceded the location of the villages in their book was wrong, but while the NZDF had the right location, they had the wrong villages. NZDF yesterday released a new document directly comparing where Operation Burnham took place with where the authors claimed it took place.
Dunne said the unanswered questions were precisely why a specific inquiry was needed to determine the facts.
‘‘Is it possible, when Keating says: I’ve seen the video, I know what happened and New Zealanders weren’t involved; that he’s also seen some other things on the video that he doesn’t want to acknowledge, because they could be rather delicate in terms of our relations with the Americans, for example.
‘‘Now I’ve got no evidence to suggest that’s the case but my point really was that in the absence of a clear explanation of what actually happened, you’re left open to all these possibilities.’’
Dunne said the Government’s backing away from an inquiry – on Wednesday Prime Minister Bill English said there was still no ‘‘credible evidence’’ that civilians were killed – was starting to look like they’re hoping ‘‘public interest will wane’’.
‘‘I don’t think that’s good enough. I don’t think on the other hand that just because Nicky Hager’s made some allegations they need to be automatically investigated but there is enough in this story . . . to make you think that it warrants some further examination.’’
Former Defence Minister Wayne Mapp, who was in Afghanistan at the time of the raid, in a post on Pundit, has said both Kiwi soldiers and Afghanis can be ‘‘honoured’’ by finding out what happened, but a full inquiry may not be needed.
‘‘In August 2010 when Operation Burnham took place I was in Afghanistan on a visit arranged months before. I understood that the operation was among the most significant operations that New Zealand had undertaken in Afghanistan.
‘‘I had been fully briefed on the plan on the morning before it took place. Based on the briefing, and on the advice of the military professionals, I recommended that it proceed,’’ he wrote.
While Mapp said he has no doubt the SAS acted to the highest ethical standards, he also knew the operation did not achieve its stated aims of arresting or otherwise dealing with the people targeted.
‘‘For me, it is not enough to say there might have been civilian casualties. As a nation we owe it to ourselves to find out, to the extent reasonably possible, if civilian casualties did occur, and if they did, to properly acknowledge that.’’
But Mapp says that doesn’t ‘‘necessarily require an independent inquiry’’.
‘‘In fact we are most likely to get this sort of information through diplomatic approaches to the Afghan government, and trusted NGOS on the ground.’’