Afghan raid report on casualties changes tack
Defence referred to civilian injuries being ‘minimal’, then changed that to ‘avoided’
Tinvestigations he Defence Force told its new minister it believed “collateral damage would be minimal” when it tackled a controversial Afghan raid in 2010.
It was a striking statement after six years of denying or playing down the possibility of civilian casualties.
Now NZDF appeared to be telling Defence Minister Ron Mark that it was always possible civilians would die before the first shot was even fired.
New documents released through the Official Information Act show the NZDF went on to publicly release different information on the NZSAS raid.
It then had to tell Mark a mistake had been made and it meant to say, the papers show, that it believed “collateral damage would be avoided”.
The truth of the Operation Burnham raid is soon to be explored in a public inquiry into the NZSAS operation which NZDF says led to the deaths of nine insurgents.
This latest factual fumble by NZDF comes after a cluster of stumbles, including that saying no photos of the mission existed even though it had released three images, that no more photos existed when they did — and that the denial of possible civilian casualties was a misunderstanding it could have corrected earlier.
NZDF is under intense scrutiny over claims in the book Hit & Run, by Nicky Hager and Jon Stephenson, that the raid killed six civilians and injured 15 other people.
Mark said he was made aware of differences in the information provided in a “draft version of an information pack” and the version which was released publicly.
“The Defence Force have advised my office these changes occurred as officials reviewed and refined the final document,” Mark said.
“They have told me their intention was to remove inaccuracies contained in the draft version.”
Mark said he was not told of the changes before the information was made public but had been told it would not happen again.
It came after the Office of the Ombudsman reviewed information held by NZDF on Operation Burnham and found it could be more forthcoming to those seeking details under the Official Information Act (OIA).
Mark’s office was provided with a copy of what was to be released and was to be told — along with the Prime Minister’s office — when the new details would be public.
The documents show Mark’s office was alerted at 11.42am on March 7 that the new information had been published on NZDF’s website.
An hour and seven minutes later, Mark was briefed by his staff over discrepancies in the information. The documents show an adviser had Defence Force spokesman compared the document and asked NZDF to “please explain . . . as we had no indication that there had been changes to the information pack”.
The shift in language around collateral damage — from “minimal” to “avoided” — appeared the most significant change, although other changes emphasised the lack of awareness among the NZSAS of aircraft fire hitting buildings that may have contained civilians.
An NZDF spokesman said Mark’s office got a “working document that had not been checked or peer reviewed for accuracy at that stage”.
“Subsequent to more work being done and the answers being checked, a number of corrections were made.”
One of those corrections was the language around collateral damage. The initial statement was inaccurate.
“The statement released that ‘collateral damage would be avoided’, is correct,” the NZDF spokesman said.
The National Party’s defence spokesman, Mark Mitchell, said the process sounded “sloppy” when NZDF needed to ensure it was giving accurate and timely information.