Prime Minister John Key has rubbished claims by writer Nicky Hager that the New Zealand main camp in Bamiyan, Afghanistan, harbours a secret CIA base.
Mr Key said he had not heard anything to suggest United States personnel there had links to the CIA.
Hager makes the claim in his latest book, Other People's Wars, on New Zealand's role in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. It includes allegations that military and intelligence officials did not tell politicians the full story.
"Somehow, in spite of media visits and hundreds of soldiers passing through the base, the New Zealand military managed to keep secret the fact that they shared the Bamiyan camp with a US intelligence base," Hager said. "All the evidence" pointed to the US personnel being CIA officers.
Governor-General Sir Jerry Mateparae, who was formerly head of the Defence Force and the Government Communications and Security Bureau, also rejected the claim that the provincial reconstruction team's Kiwibase camp included a covert CIA base.
"That would be news to me. Certainly what I know - and what advice I gave - that would not support [it]," Sir Jerry said.
"And I've had two jobs where I would expect to know."
He also denied that New Zealanders had been misled over the military's role in Afghanistan. "What has been publicised about New Zealand's role in Bamiyan is exactly what they are doing."
Labour leader Phil Goff said it would be "shock, horror, surprise if we didn't have intelligence facilities designed to keep New Zealand Defence Force personnel safe in an area of deployment".
Mr Key said he had not read the Hager book. "Mr Hager's views on this stuff are well known, so the conclusions he reaches come as no surprise.
"New Zealanders would expect that our forces have the best information they possibly can to protect themselves when they're in a very dangerous and hostile environment," Mr Key said.
"The vast bulk of that intelligence is actually gathered by our own people."
His spokesman said New Zealand worked co-operatively in several spheres with partner countries in Afghanistan, including the Bamiyan base, where there were personnel from many countries such as Malaysia, the European Union and United States.
"In the realm of intelligence, while it is relatively well known we co-operate with our partner nations, particularly to ensure the safety of our troops, we do not go into the details of such arrangements."
Hager said he had been working on the book for five years and had been helped by military, government, intelligence and defence sources including documents. "This . . . is by far the largest leak of military intelligence documents in the history of New Zealand."
Asked if there would be an investigation into the military leak, Mr Key said: "We don't even know if there has been a leak. We just know Nicky Hager's written a book." He said he was not taking it seriously.
Hager said few people outside the military understood what happened in Afghanistan and in New Zealand's part in the "War on Terror".
As well as covering Bamiyan, the book outlined New Zealand's reaction to the 9/11 attacks, the role of the SAS in Afghanistan and the role of Kiwi "peacekeepers" in loading explosives for British paratroopers.
Source
Taranaki Daily News
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