A damning report into Operation Burnham has found that a child was likely killed during the NZ Defence Force's 2010 raid of an Afghan village, and that the Defence Force misled the public and Ministers.
The Attorney-General has released the findings of the inquiry, sparked by allegations made in the book Hit and Run.
It describes the Defence Force's response as "woeful", "inexcusable" and "unacceptable".
It says that while the operation was professional and legal,and there was no organisational strategy to cover up, the Defence Force knew it may have killed or injured civilians.
However, it continued to tell the public and its minister otherwise.
The inquiry also criticised the Defence Minister at the time, Dr Wayne Mapp, saying he failed to correct the public record, even after he was told civilian casualties were possible.
It said that was a "significant departure from the standards expected of Ministers".
Mapp told Checkpoint for years he forgot about the 2011 briefing he received from Colonel Blackwell, and it was only during the circumstances of the 2019 inquiry that it came back to him.
"I should have contacted the Chief of Defence Force General … and I should have contacted the Prime Minister's Office," when he remembered, he said.
"That was a major failing on my part.
"I've reflected on this a huge amount as to why it went out of my memory.
"When I checked my diary which I had under my house I realised, I did get a briefing," he said.
"Somehow it surfaced back into my memory that I could remember Colonel Blackwell sitting opposite me.
"None of us can ever remember when we forgot, by definition. I can only surmise it was the death of Corporal Leon Smith which occurred about two weeks after the [September 2011] briefing which somehow had the effect of removing it from my memory. That was a very traumatic thing.
"Somehow it went from my memory. If you talk to Jon Stephenson I never mentioned it to him, when the programme on Māori TV came out I had no recollection of it.
"It is unsatisfactory, I did fail the Defence Force, and I failed in fact my fellow colleagues and I guess ultimately I failed New Zealand, by not taking that briefing up immediately and then allowing a proper process to take place," he told Checkpoint.
"I let New Zealanders down by not following the proper process and so in that sense I do apologise for that. I like to have thought of myself as someone who actually was across things, and in this instance I clearly failed.
"I've always been of the view that New Zealand as a nation owes compensation to the victims. I have always felt that we haven't done enough as a nation to find out. Well now we have the report, we have more information. And I think is now incumbent upon the government now having got the report to do more for the villagers."
