Current and former NZDF top brass are being publicly grilled this week by the hit and run inquiry over their public responses to allegations of civilian casualties. Previously, they've claimed there were no casualties, a position which led them to lie to Ministers and to the public. Now, they're saying that position was all due to a series of unfortunate mistakes:
A critical report detailing possible civilian casualties in a SAS-led raid was overlooked and left in a Defence Force safe in a claimed accident.
The Defence Force's explanation for repeated denials of possible civilian deaths, a story of repeated errors and mistakes by senior military officials, has come during the first day of a week-long Operation Burnham inquiry hearing.
Among those "mistakes": that ISAF report into civilian casualties they swear they never had? It turns out they had it all along. And the SAS officer who sent the initial report on its contents "misinterpreted" it as clearing the unit and operation he led. Convenient, neh?
But even if you believe all that, NZDF then doubled, tripled, and quadrupled down on those mistakes, apparently without ever checking the facts. At the very best, it makes them look like utter incompetents who shouldn't be trusted to run a children's birthday party, let alone an organisation which kills people. Less charitably, it just looks like yet another lie in an organised strategy of deceit. Whether they get away with it, well, I guess that's up to us.
