Speaker 1: David McBride, it's a huge day for you.
Speaker 2: It is It's D Day.
Speaker 1: How are you feeling.
Speaker 3: I feel like I left it along the field in
Speaker 3: the sense that I am. I don't like to admit it,
Speaker 3: and perhaps there's a solder, but yeah, I'm pretty tired.
Speaker 3: I've been emotional last week. Small things have upset me.
Speaker 3: And that's a good thing in some ways because it
Speaker 3: means that I've really gone as hard as I can
Speaker 3: to achieve what I wanted to achieve. But I can't
Speaker 3: say that, you know, whatever happens today. Put it this way,
Speaker 3: it'll be hard to choke back the tears because it's
Speaker 3: while it's not going to be completely over today, it
Speaker 3: is the end of a pretty long phase. And yeah,
Speaker 3: it's emotion is going to come out either way.
Speaker 4: I'm Daniel James and you're listening to seven AM. Whistleblower
Speaker 4: David McBride has been released from prison on parole after
Speaker 4: serving twenty seven months for leaking classified defense documents to journalists.
Speaker 4: Those documents helped expose allegations of war crimes by Australian
Speaker 4: soldiers in Afghanistan. Years on. Is still the only person
Speaker 4: to be jailed over the Afghan files, the alleged perpetrators
Speaker 4: roaming free as the person who revealed them sat behind barks. Today,
Speaker 4: asber Bride walks free from prison, we're returning to an
Speaker 4: interview Ashley McGhee recorded with him just before he was
Speaker 4: jailed and while he leaked those documents, whether he had
Speaker 4: any regrets, and how Australia keeps its secrets. It's Sunday,
Speaker 4: August sixteenth. This was first published in May twenty twenty four.
Speaker 1: David, I just want you to take me back to
Speaker 1: twenty eleven. First, you're in the Army Legal Corps posted
Speaker 1: to Afghanistan. Back then, what did you think about the.
Speaker 2: War when you're a soldier and I always wanted to
Speaker 2: be a soldier, love being a soldier, and if there
Speaker 2: is a war, your country is fighting and you want
Speaker 2: to be a part of it. I had a bit
Speaker 2: of a dichotomy. I'd been to Afghanistan in two thousand
Speaker 2: when the Talabama running it as making documentaries. I've seen
Speaker 2: a lot of the developing world, and I'd also been
Speaker 2: in the British Army before that, so I came with
Speaker 2: a fair bit of I guess I was realistic. I
Speaker 2: didn't think it was going to be perfect, but I
Speaker 2: had doubts about the larger scale things in that we
Speaker 2: we were saying we were winning when that wasn't at
Speaker 2: all clear, and I suspected it was a case of
Speaker 2: just put out the good news message. And politicians came
Speaker 2: to visit. The Prime Minister ju Leguillard came and the
Speaker 2: leader of the opposition as he was then, Tony Abbott,
Speaker 2: came and we told them how good everything was going,
Speaker 2: and I felt uncomfortable about that position.
Speaker 5: Leader Tony Abbott has visited Australian soldiers serving in Afghanistan
Speaker 5: and it calls for more troops and equipment. Mister Abbott
Speaker 5: encouraged the troops to speak candidly about the situation on
Speaker 5: the ground. I stand in humble or of those who
Speaker 5: don't just risk their reputations but have put their lives.
Speaker 2: On the line every day for our country. So I
Speaker 2: had my doubts about the bigger pictures in the war
Speaker 2: to say how much of this is window dressing for
Speaker 2: domestic political audiences and how much of this is actually
Speaker 2: trying to do a good job and actually improve the situation.
Speaker 1: So you're watching all of this happen. Was there a
Speaker 1: particular thing that happened in your work environmental that crossed
Speaker 1: your desk, that really was a turning point for you.
Speaker 2: There was actually I've forgotten all about it, but when
Speaker 2: I wrote my book in twenty eleven, even there was
Speaker 2: something happened and I one of the jobs is the
Speaker 2: lawyer is to go and visit the prisons, the Afghan
Speaker 2: presence and to make sure that people we have captured
Speaker 2: are not been mistreated. And someone was brought into me
Speaker 2: and as he started explaining his story, it was clear
Speaker 2: that he hadn't been captured by the Australians. But before
Speaker 2: he'd finished, he said, oh, I've been beaten with it,
Speaker 2: you know. He showed me his hands and he said,
Speaker 2: I was hung up by the roof of the present
Speaker 2: with manacles or left there all day and then came
Speaker 2: out with an iron bar and bashed me around the head.
Speaker 2: And he had scars. He had still fresh scars on
Speaker 2: his hand and fresh scars on his hands. Now, as
Speaker 2: I legal for some under the Geneva Convention, you can't
Speaker 2: ignore that. So even if he wasn't my prisoner in
Speaker 2: the sense that he hadn't been captured by the Australians,
Speaker 2: this was a reasonable allegation of abuse, and when I
Speaker 2: got back to base, everyone went into a bit of
Speaker 2: a panic, which surprised me. It seemed to be implied
Speaker 2: to me that I needed to just turn the other
Speaker 2: way about this. So it was only a small thing,
Speaker 2: but considering what we now know about what went on,
Speaker 2: but it was indicative of to say, don't look under
Speaker 2: any rocks, don't find out about anything, because we don't
Speaker 2: want bad news stories now. Then in twenty thirteen, they
Speaker 2: put out a sort of change in the rules of
Speaker 2: engagement and it said something like basically, it was a
Speaker 2: very one page thing and it said don't murder at
Speaker 2: the bottom. And I said, what's this about, because according
Speaker 2: to all our reports, there hasn't been There hasn't been
Speaker 2: a single trial, And why are you putting out this
Speaker 2: if everything's okay, why are you reminding people with this
Speaker 2: new thing saying don't murder? Has something happened? And I
Speaker 2: was told no, no, no, no, And I just thought that
Speaker 2: was strange, what something's going on? And then in twenty thirteen,
Speaker 2: suddenly having not had a single criminal investigation during a
Speaker 2: very turbulent period where we now know that no want
Speaker 2: a walk on we were investigating everything. It looked like
Speaker 2: we were pretending to care, but we weren't really caring
Speaker 2: because we weren't investigating some things which looked kind of suspicious.
Speaker 2: And so I just started asking questions, and then we
Speaker 2: in September, when I was over there, there was a
Speaker 2: guy who'd done what many soldiers had done met before.
Speaker 2: He was just defending himself, and there wasn't It wasn't
Speaker 2: so much that I had it some sort of crystal ball,
Speaker 2: or I was in love with him or anything. There
Speaker 2: was no evidence to suggest this was a murder. I said,
Speaker 2: this is strange, and I didn't know what was up.
Speaker 2: But I suspected that the investigations in twenty thirteen were
Speaker 2: window dressing for the media in order to say look
Speaker 2: over here, don't look over there. There was whispers that
Speaker 2: there would been in twenty twelve, there had been a
Speaker 2: kill count competition to see he could get a ass
Speaker 2: killed count and a certain soldier in one and they
Speaker 2: also put the kill counts on the door each.
Speaker 1: Day when they reiterated the rules of engagement. In twenty thirteen,
Speaker 1: in the context of all these rumors, whispers, seeing that
Speaker 1: kind of kill count on the door, there. Why I
Speaker 1: raise an issue with them reiterating that it sounds like
Speaker 1: maybe that was what was needed at time.
Speaker 2: Well, why didn't they investigate the allegation. If they think
Speaker 2: someone's done something, you should investigate it.
Speaker 1: Did you ever raise that up the chain and say, hey,
Speaker 1: here's what's going on.
Speaker 2: No, I didn't know, and I was a lawyer with
Speaker 2: a very good career, and I wanted to keep it.
Speaker 2: It was a perfect job for me. I loved that
Speaker 2: it was half half lawyer, half soldier, and I didn't
Speaker 2: particularly want to rock the bout it. I suspected something
Speaker 2: big was up.
Speaker 1: Did you feel like some soldiers were being scapegoaded when
Speaker 1: other soldiers were actually the ones that were doing the
Speaker 1: really bad stuff.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I absolutely felt that. I felt like they didn't
Speaker 2: want certain famous soldiers to come under any investigation because
Speaker 2: they thought that that might These were people that were
Speaker 2: popular and that would cause as a lot of funerals,
Speaker 2: so they wanted some non entities to be able to
Speaker 2: sort of punish. I began to believe that that was
Speaker 2: exactly what was happening. My goal was always to say
Speaker 2: the leadership to be investigated, and I still think they
Speaker 2: should be investigating I think they probably knew about Ben
Speaker 2: Robert Smith, and I think they were doing window dressing
Speaker 2: in two thy and thirty. Bad soldiers are a problem
Speaker 2: and we have to get with, but bad leaders are
Speaker 2: a much bigger problem. I knew even when I was
Speaker 2: there that I was going to make a complaint that's
Speaker 2: something with them. And it took me a while because
Speaker 2: I knew it would have to be good, and it
Speaker 2: would have to be well resourced and have a lot
Speaker 2: of documents attached to it to explain what I was doing,
Speaker 2: and to be relatively carefully worded. As I said, I
Speaker 2: wanted a result, and so after hours, I would stay
Speaker 2: late and I would look through the files looking for
Speaker 2: things to show that.
Speaker 1: Was it putting your career at risk?
Speaker 2: It was putting my care It is, but the job
Speaker 2: of the Defense Force is to protect Australia from threats.
Speaker 2: If we have leaders who are completely political and dishonest,
Speaker 2: we are not doing our jel.
Speaker 1: And so in preparing that report for leadership, that's very
Speaker 1: different to going public with that same information. Talk to
Speaker 1: me about when you decided it was something you wanted
Speaker 1: the public to know about.
Speaker 2: Well, it took a while. I needed a partner, a
Speaker 2: good investigative journalist to look into the political site, to
Speaker 2: get a source in the minister's office, to find out
Speaker 2: where the email trials, what they said, if there was
Speaker 2: anybody who gave anything away in anyone within the suits
Speaker 2: I guess the Parliament and of things who knew what
Speaker 2: was going on, called shed light. So I wanted a
Speaker 2: really good investigative journalist not to put the documents online,
Speaker 2: but to start looking into.
Speaker 1: It when you did give them to the ABC. To
Speaker 1: Dan Oaks, a former colleague of mine at the ABC,
Speaker 1: what did you think when the ABC published that story?
Speaker 1: What was your first reaction to it?
Speaker 2: Well, I was disappointed with a story because it was
Speaker 2: it was okay, it was good that something was happening.
Speaker 2: So that was good that something was happening. I didn't
Speaker 2: particularly like the emphasis on this or only on the
Speaker 2: soldiers and not on the leadership. I would have been
Speaker 2: happy if they'd done both. But well, the leaders have
Speaker 2: a case to answer about whether they knew was going Some.
Speaker 1: Of your critics say that you never set out to
Speaker 1: expose war crimes in the first place.
Speaker 2: What do you make of that, Well, what's a war crime?
Speaker 2: You know? If they say I was never out to
Speaker 2: expose bad soldiers. They've got a point. I think the
Speaker 2: two things are linked. I think more crimes are already
Speaker 2: part of the story, But the biggest story is who
Speaker 2: knew what and when they knew it. It's not about
Speaker 2: the last war, it's about the next one. If we
Speaker 2: don't have honest, trustworthy people who really play with a
Speaker 2: straight bat in charge about offense thoughts, we're not actually defended.
Speaker 1: Probably after the break, what has life been like for
Speaker 1: David McBride as he awaits his sentence. David, you ended
Speaker 1: up pleading guilty to three charges, and you face sentencing today,
Speaker 1: and it's been months since you entered that guilty play.
Speaker 1: What's the weight being like?
Speaker 2: Up and down? You know, I've got no money, I've
Speaker 2: lost my job, I've lost all my savings. I've lost
Speaker 2: I've lost lot. You know. I like the sort of
Speaker 2: person I've become, but I don't I don't recommend it
Speaker 2: if you want an easy ride, it's not a way
Speaker 2: to celebrity. Put it that way.
Speaker 1: Do you fear going to prison?
Speaker 2: I usually yeah. I've got a bit of a dichotomy
Speaker 2: about that. I don't fear the four walls. So much. Obviously,
Speaker 2: if you're prepared to put your life on the line
Speaker 2: for the military, you're prepared to die for your country.
Speaker 2: So I guess you can't complain about being put into prison.
Speaker 2: And in some ways, you know, they say you've got
Speaker 2: to live your life like it's your last. I never
Speaker 2: really did that before, and now the last couple of
Speaker 2: years at least, I have done that. Every time I
Speaker 2: watch a movie with my daughter, I really savor the experience,
Speaker 2: and we play a lot of video games together, and
Speaker 2: I love that. I was always a pretty affectionate dad anyway,
Speaker 2: but I'm more so now. I can't them an as
Speaker 2: they can't just say nice things to them. I guess
Speaker 2: I want them to remember me well. And it's because
Speaker 2: I really do love I love every minute with them.
Speaker 2: I spend a lot of time with my dog. One
Speaker 2: of the hardest things is going to be missing out
Speaker 2: with my dog, Jake. I'm secretly hoping I can get
Speaker 2: him as registered as an assistance dog so he can
Speaker 2: come in with me.
Speaker 1: So, given everything that's about to happen today, when you
Speaker 1: return to court to be sentenced, do you have any
Speaker 1: regrets about leaking those documents?
Speaker 2: This is the question look, I don't. I don't. I'm
Speaker 2: trying to get accountability at the top that hasn't happened yet,
Speaker 2: saying that if I hadn't done what I've done, it
Speaker 2: never would have happened. And my conscience as such that
Speaker 2: I had to do something. I did the best that
Speaker 2: I can in the circumstances, and I'm proud of myself
Speaker 2: for standing up. I didn't even know whether I could
Speaker 2: do it myself.
Speaker 1: So in the years since this started unfolding, we've seen
Speaker 1: the release of the Burton Report, which recommended the AFP
Speaker 1: investigate thirty six matters for potential prosecution. Do you think
Speaker 1: we'll ever see these crimes prosecuted.
Speaker 2: It's a good question, and I don't know. And some
Speaker 2: of my friends put it that way. Some of my
Speaker 2: friends say, who are also sort of on my side
Speaker 2: of Offen's agitatus, they say that the purpose of the
Speaker 2: Breton Report was to put the International Criminal Court off
Speaker 2: and to make sure there are no investigations. It does
Speaker 2: seem strange that ten years, eleven years, probably fifteen years
Speaker 2: after some of these things happened, that we still haven't
Speaker 2: We've only had one person charge and he was charged
Speaker 2: as a result of video and the apparently that a
Speaker 2: broken reports made it harder for people to actually be charged.
Speaker 2: And I don't know if that was the that was
Speaker 2: the idea of it, but it is a bit I
Speaker 2: think it is. It's unsatisfactory that we haven't had more
Speaker 2: charges yet now that we might not get conventions, but
Speaker 2: we really do need to get on with it.
Speaker 1: I've heard a lot of words used to describe you,
Speaker 1: David McBride. I'd so nice, I'm not so nice. I've
Speaker 1: heard whistleblower, trader, hero, showman. What words would you use
Speaker 1: to describe yourself?
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I'm a soldier. I mean you have to
Speaker 2: be a bit of a showman. You're not going to
Speaker 2: get you're not going to get accountability justice if you
Speaker 2: just unless you grewd it a fuss. So I do
Speaker 2: get that a lot, but it's like you've got to
Speaker 2: do what you've got to do in order to get
Speaker 2: a result. And trader, Yeah, well, I mean I don't
Speaker 2: think I'm a trader, but in the sense that I
Speaker 2: am out to try to make the Defense Force defend Australia,
Speaker 2: So I don't think it makes me a trader. So yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm doing what I can to make this country a
Speaker 2: bet of place. I don't think anyone can say that
Speaker 2: I'm not trying to do what is right, and maybe
Speaker 2: if there is an inquiry, I will achieve what I'm
Speaker 2: wanted to achieve. People might not like it, but my
Speaker 2: conscience is pretty happy with that.
Speaker 1: David, thanks so much for the chat today.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 4: Seven am, and will be back tomorrow with an episode
Speaker 4: on why. For the first time in generations, Australia is
Speaker 4: being asked to think seriously about how it will cope
Speaker 4: with a major war, not just whether our military is ready,
Speaker 4: but whether our civilians, supply chains and economy are prepared
Speaker 4: as well. We speak with Sam Rogavin, director of the
Speaker 4: lawyingitu's International Security Program, about what Australia is actually preparing
Speaker 4: for and how far that preparation could go well.
Speaker 6: I mean, one model is something like you see maybe
Speaker 6: in Finland or in Israel, where effectively it means you
Speaker 6: are to a degree militarizing the entire society, so you
Speaker 6: have universal conscription. North Korea is another example of that,
Speaker 6: perhaps a slightly more immidious example, where when you take
Speaker 6: it to an extreme, it ends up impoverishing really the
Speaker 6: entire society. That's one end of the spectrum I think
Speaker 6: for Australia will never reach those levels. I know there
Speaker 6: are some people who are calling for a reintroduction of conscription,
Speaker 6: but really in the short to medium term probably what
Speaker 6: it looks like is a national capability to withstand a
Speaker 6: pressure campaign against Australia.
Speaker 4: I'm Daniel James. Thanks for listening.