The Chief of the Australian Defence Force was told almost six years ago about SAS soldiers drinking alcohol, often to excess, in an unauthorised bar known as "The Fat Ladies Arms" on their Afghanistan base.
In March, Lieutenant General Angus Campbell was asked in Senate Estimates if he had ever visited the unauthorised bar.
"I was unaware of it. I never visited it and have not sighted it. I don't even know if it was a physical location or if it was a concept around which drinking occurred," he said.
But in a document sent to him in August 2015 by the then Special Operations Commander, Major General Jeff Sengelman, General Campbell was told of "a drinking facility called the 'Fat Ladies Arms' which allowed for easy access to quantities of alcohol".
ABC Investigations understands General Campbell was told again about the Fat Ladies Arms at a high-level meeting he chaired the following year.
The bar operated at the Special Operations base at Camp Russell in Tarin Kowt in southern Afghanistan for several years until special forces withdrew in late 2013.
ABC Investigations has been told some SAS soldiers drank home-brew spirits at The Fat Ladies Arms, and that in one incident a pistol was discharged into the ceiling by a drunken SAS soldier.
A former SAS operator who was there has told ABC Investigations that the pistol was snatched from the holster of a female US Black Hawk pilot before it was fired into the ceiling in what was called a "roof pop".
Two female soldiers from the ADF Reconstruction Task Force based in Tarin Kowt were charged and sent home in 2010 after being caught drinking at the Fat Ladies Arms.
A Special Operations officer has told ABC Investigations that SAS soldiers had earlier driven around the Reconstruction Task Force base inviting female personnel to a party at the bar.
While the two regular soldiers were sent home, no member of the SAS was disciplined over the incident.
In another incident, a female Special Operations Task Group soldier has told ABC Investigations she woke up semi-naked in an SAS operator's bed at Tarin Kowt after being plied with home-brew spirits at the Fat Ladies Arms in 2012.
On another rotation in 2012, an SAS operator was hit from behind and knocked unconscious by a fellow SAS soldier who had been drinking in the unauthorised bar.
Other soldiers drank out of the prosthetic leg taken from the body of an Afghan killed by an SAS patrol in 2009.
The document titled Commanding in Adversity, written by then General Sengelman, is publicly available on the Defence website.
In it, General Sengelman told General Campbell, who was then the Chief of Army, that the bar "was so extensively used that it is difficult to conclude that almost everyone in the [Special Operations Command] chain of command was not aware of this".
General Sengelman warned that unacceptable behaviour had become normalised and "became so extensive and pervasive that the Chain of Command became actually or wilfully blind to this".
The then-Special Operations commander also included quotes from unnamed SAS soldiers about the drinking at their bar.
"It made me aware that there was a well-organised unauthorised process that enabled the venue to be well-stocked with alcohol and that alcohol was being regularly consumed by [SAS] personnel," said 'Major Y'.
"The drinking did not get out of hand until the construction of a Bar, the Fat Ladies, in Afghanistan," a 'Sergeant Z' is quoted as saying.
"After nearly 20 years service within the Regiment, I have great concern that we have not changed and that some of the troop commanders who are now Majors are compromised."
ABC Investigations contacted Jeff Sengelman, but he declined to comment.
ABC Investigations understands that the Fat Ladies Arms was again raised at a high-level Defence meeting chaired by General Campbell the following year in 2016.
At the time, General Campbell was the Chief of the Army.
The meeting was told that all ranks, including task force and unit commanders, had consumed alcohol at the SAS bar and that it translated into risky behaviour by the Special Forces.
Responding to questions from the ABC, a Defence spokesperson said: "Having not sighted, nor visited the place or places which came to be known as 'The Fat Ladies Arms', [General Campbell] stands by his testimony at Senate Estimates (March 2021)."
Defence confirmed that General Campbell had "learnt of" the Fat Ladies Arms in 2015, albeit months after the ABC understands he was given the document Commanding in Adversity.
