PM stands by Defence Force claims

Prime Minister Bill English will meet with the defence minister and Defence Force chief tomorrow, but won’t be making a decision on an inquiry into whether civilians were killed in a 2010 Afghanistan raid involving elite Kiwi troops.

Since authors Nicky Hager and Jon Stephenson released the book Hit and Run on Tuesday, both the former defence minister at the time, Wayne Mapp, and an SAS soldier privy to details about the raid have accepted that civilians were killed in the botched operation.

But the prime minister is sticking to the New Zealand Defence Force’s statement from Tuesday the only one released all week that an investigation concluded there were no civilian casualties. That probe was carried out by the International Security Assistance Force coalition and the Afghan Government.

English told media yesterday he wasn’t rushing into an inquiry and while Defence Minister Gerry Brownlee and Defence Force chief Tim Keating were to arrive back in New Zealand last night - they won’t meet until tomorrow to discuss the matter.

Brownlee and Keating have been in Iraq this week visiting Kiwi troops at Camp Taji.

‘‘I haven’t had any written advice yet from the Defence Force,’’ English said.

‘‘These are not simple issues around jurisdiction or scope of an inquiry or anything like that, so I’m not going to be rushing to a decision on Sunday.’’

None of the comments made by Mapp - who confirmed he’d described the operation as a ‘‘fiasco’’ and ‘‘disastrous’’ - or the SAS soldier who spoke to NZME had changed the position of the Defence Force.

‘‘The best advice we have so far is the statement by the Defence Force,’’ English said.

‘‘Mapp’s statements, I understand, are based on the documentary that was run several years after, not on any new or different information that’s been available.’’

Mapp confirmed on Thursday that he realised civilians had been killed after a programme screened on Maori Television in 2014 claiming six people, including a 3-year-old girl had been casualties of the raid.

‘‘I also knew the people we were actually targeting had not been arrested or killed,’’ he said.

But English said ‘‘there’s no suggestion the SAS operated in any way outside the rules of engagement’’.

‘‘The suggestion of war crimes and so on is conflating all sorts of wishful thinking.

‘‘I think we’ve got to be pretty careful about people making generalised statements that are not substantiated but just draw bits together, because the book uses inflammatory language, so we’re not going to be distracted or rushed into an inquiry based on that information.’’