But at the same time, an equally dangerous game was being played out between this man in Canberra, Frank Lewincamp, the head of the highly secretive Defence Intelligence Organisation, and this man in East Timor, Lieutenant Colonel Lance Collins, in charge of intelligence for the 4,500 Interfet troops. So bitter would that battle become, according to an investigation for the Defence Department published this week, that Frank Lewincamp suspended the flow of intelligence to the troops in East Timor for 24 hours.

The issue broke this week with the publication of a report by naval barrister Captain Martin Toohey, who was asked by the army to investigate the Collins case. Lance Collins had lodged an official complaint because his name had mistakenly been put on a Federal Police warrant which was attempting to discover who leaked confidential information about East Timor to the media. Toohey's report was explosive. It concluded that the Defence Intelligence Organisation routinely distorted intelligence estimates to please the Australian government, who did not want to upset the Indonesian government and its army over their human rights violations.

Captain Toohey concluded: "I find as a fact that a pro-Jakarta lobby exists in DIO which distorts intelligence estimates ... which overlooks ... atrocities and terrorist activities committed by the TNI (the Indonesian military). In other words, DIO reports what the Government wants to hear."

But bunkered in Defence Department headquarters at Russell, in Canberra, as the crisis grew, it was a finding the embattled DIO chief, Frank Lewincamp, denied. Although initially shell-shocked, after 24 hours the government finally tried to discredit the Toohey report, releasing a subsequent legal review by Colonel Richard Tracey, QC. But Defence chiefs were not highlighting the fact that Tracey was the second review they had sought - the first was a Sydney magistrate and PhD in law, Colonel Roger Brown. He had comprehensively endorsed the Toohey report.

SENATOR ROBERT HILL, MINISTER FOR DEFENCE: Well, I don't know if it's for me to say.

JOHN LYONS: Defence Minister Robert Hill's attempts to use the Tracey report to discredit Captain Toohey and Lance Collins quickly backfired.

SENATOR HILL: Ah, another legal officer, a Mr Brown, in effect processed the report, as is necessary under the Defence regulations.

TONY JONES, ABC LATELINE: That's Colonel Brown?

SENATOR HILL: I think it's Colonel Brown, yes, Brown, anyway, who's another legal officer.

TONY JONES: Will you now release the review of the Toohey report, which was done by Colonel Brown, which we haven't yet seen?

SENATOR HILL: Well, I need to check that for privacy and so forth, as I did with Mr Tracey, but I don't want any secrets in this matter. I want a well-informed debate and I want all of those who have been criticised, in effect, to be treated fairly.

JOHN LYONS: Senator Hill claimed to be too busy the following day to release Colonel Brown's report. It was only late Friday night - after the major commercial television news bulletins had gone to air - that Defence bureaucrats finally released the report.

It was instantly clear why they'd wanted to give the Tracey report a 48-hour head start in the media. The Brown report said Toohey's findings were supported by evidence. It said most of Captain Toohey's recommendations could be implemented by General Cosgrove: "It is a vital element of both legal and intelligence work that advisers be free to tender their advice, whether popular or not, without fear of repercussions for failing to 'toe the party line'. Captain Toohey's findings clearly demonstrate that Lt. Col. Collins was denied this freedom by those in the Australian Defence Intelligence community who did not like his opinions."

In a clear direction to Lance Collins' superiors, Colonel Brown concludes: "It is open to you, on this evidence, to find that Lt. Col. Collins' complaints are substantiated, and you should make a decision in that regard."

The Lance Collins case is really about lack of accountability, a culture of cover-up. It's highlighted by this classified document that someone's leaked me. It's an email from a senior army officer which in effect coaches Defence Department personnel in how to now produce documents to avoid the current Senate inquiry. The email was written in January by Colonel Gary Hogan, the army's liaison officer for the inquiry. "Please be circumspect with this email."

JOHN LYONS: It's no wonder he wanted them to be circumspect. The email says bluntly: "All inquiry-related correspondence should be headed 'Internal working document' in order that the correspondence be exempt from tabling before the committee under the Freedom of Information Act. (Remember the inadvertent tabling of Commander Banks's personal notebook during the 'children overboard' inquiry.)"

JOHN LYONS: Even before the Senate inquiry had begun, Colonel Gary Hogan made it clear where the army is coming from: "We probably need a preamble for the army submission 'that re-emphasises to our inquisitors what the army's fundamental business is about, and that in view of the numbers, etc, the military justice system ain't so bad'.

PETER COSGROVE, DEFENCE FORCE CHIEF: I have every confidence that on the whole the military justice system is effective and serves the interests of the nation, of the Defence Force and its people.

JOHN LYONS: The document says Peter Cosgrove, the Chief of the Defence Forces, has directed all defence personnel that they should not become involved in sullying the reputations or gainsaying the motives of dead colleagues. According to Peter Cosgrove: "The dead are always right."

That's a sentiment that may surprise the widow of Merv Jenkins, the Defence Intelligence officer based in Washington who hanged himself in his garage in 1999. He'd been accused of being disloyal to Australia because he shared intelligence on East Timor with his American counterparts. The Defence Department has steadfastly refused to settle with Jenkins's widow. The email says the Minister Assisting the Minister for Defence, Mal Brough, is: "..seized of the political dimension to the inquiry, particularly during an election year. Some cynics have already labelled the upcoming inquiry 'Children Overboard II'."

After the week we've had with the Lance Collins affair and now the revelation of a cover-up with Defence Department personnel being coached on how to get around the Senate inquiry, one may well argue that at the moment in Australia the term "military justice" is a contradiction in terms.