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“However, moral accountability demands more,” he said.
“Now is the time for some senior officers to consider returning their leadership awards, too.
“To do so publicly would go a long way to healing a divisive wound and allow a new generation to move on.”
This masthead revealed last year that Campbell offered to return a Distinguished Service Cross awarded to him for his stewardship as commander of Middle East Operations in 2011 but was knocked back by the Morrison government.
While stressing that Campbell and other military leaders were not directly responsible for wrongdoing in Afghanistan, Wolahan said many veterans would applaud the former Defence chief for publicly surrendering his medal as a principled act of leadership accountability.
Comment was sought from Campbell, who stepped down from his role as Defence Force chief in July, via the Department of Defence.
Liberal MP Keith Wolahan, who served in Afghanistan, has called for more accountability from senior military leaders.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
Campbell told Senate estimates hearings last year he had not received any reports of wrongdoing or alleged war crimes during his time as the commander of Australian forces in the Middle East.
Opposition defence spokesman Andrew Hastie, who served as a troop commander in Afghanistan with the Special Air Service, told parliament last week that “those in the chain of command who saw the post-mission slide decks with the kill counts and pictures of dead individuals had an obligation to ask questions. From Tarin Kowt to Kabul to Kandahar to Dubai to Canberra”.
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“An earlier intervention by our political and strategic leadership may have avoided much of the pain that people have experienced in Afghanistan, and through this lengthy process,” Hastie said.
“Leadership matters, is my point.”
Crossbench senator Jacqui Lambie last week accused Marles of “throwing our diggers under the bus” by revoking medals just days after the royal commission report into veteran suicide.
“Yet, in his response, he still managed to forget one key thing: the accountability of the top brass,” she said.
Marles stressed that he sought to follow the Brereton report’s recommendations to the letter by removing medals from only a small number of task group, squadron and troop-level commanders.
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