Prime Minister John Howard has urged people not to overreact to
the images of young soldiers mucking about with weapons and says
there is no need for a special inquiry into the incident.
One image shows an Australian soldier pointing his pistol
directly at the head of a soldier dressed in Arab robes. In another
a soldier is quick-drawing his gun and pointing it at the camera.
Today the inquiry investigating the death of Private Jake Kovco,
who was shot dead with his own pistol in his barracks in Baghdad,
said it wanted to see the images.
Counsel assisting the Kovco inquiry Colonel Michael Griffin said
he wanted to determine if the images could be relevant to the
inquiry.
In evidence last month, it was alleged Private Kovco joked
around with his pistol like a gun-slinging cowboy in a western
movie.
Colonel Griffin said the video and images — posted on the
YouTube website but since removed — were apparently shot between late 2003 and 2005, well before March 2005 when Private Kovco and other members of his detachment arrived for a six month posting.
Colonel Griffin told the three-member board the images could
still be relevant.
"One possibility for the cause of the incident is inappropriate
weapons handling in the room," he said.
"There's also the evidence of a history of misuse of the weapons
and a lack of awareness of lethality of this weapon."
The video clips feature mostly innocuous vision of soldiers
engaged in patrolling and barracks life.
But some segments attracted the anger of defence chiefs who
promised strong disciplinary action against the unnamed soldiers
responsible, saying their actions brought all other defence
personnel into disrepute.
Opposition's tough stance
Labor backed tough action.
"If the allegations are sustained I believe that these people
should be asked to leave the services," Labor defence spokesman
Robert McClelland told reporters.
Opposition Leader Kim Beazley said there should be a full
inquiry.
"It should be a proper inquiry but it should not result in any
finger-pointing at the totality of the performance of Australian
troops," he said.
Mr Howard says Australians shouldn't get into a lather over the
images leave it to defence to investigate.
"We should leave it to the military to deal with this. The
military is quite capable of dealing with this without a whole lot
of gratuitous advice from me or other people in the political
arena," he said on Macquarie Radio.
Neil James, executive director of the Australia Defence
Association, said while the matter should be kept in perspective,
an example should still be made of the culprits.
He said the images depicted no mistreatment of Iraqis, unlike
American images of Abu Ghraib prison, and were nowhere near as bad as insurgent videos showing the beheading of hostages.
"It is a silly thing to do in a counter-insurgency war because
they are just giving the ammunition for the opposition to misuse in
their own propaganda," he said.
Retired brigadier and commander of the Special Air Service
Regiment Jim Wallace said the soldiers had broken army rules but
they were fairly minor offence.
"It is digger humour gone wrong," he told the Seven Network.
"There's no doubt there should be punishment as they do
contravene the basic rules of weapon handling and also the cultural
sensitivity training that soldiers have done. But it should be at a
very low level."