The White House is in serious damage control mode over the prisoner swap of Sgt Bowe Bergdahl for five key members of the Taliban who were held at Guantanamo Bay detention camp.
The president argued on Tuesday, “We have consulted with Congress for quite some time about the possibility that we might need to execute a prisoner exchange in order to recover Sergeant Bergdahl. We saw an opportunity. We were concerned about Sergeant Bergdahl’s health. We had the cooperation of the Qataris to execute an exchange, and we seized that opportunity. And the process was truncated because we wanted to make sure that we did not miss that window.”
The president continued, “But let me just make a very simple point here, and that is, regardless of the circumstances, whatever those circumstances may turn out to be, we still get an American soldier back if he’s held in captivity. Period. Full stop. We don’t condition that. And that’s what every mom and dad who sees a son or daughter sent over into war theater should expect from not just their Commander-in-Chief but the United States of America.”
Many in Congress are bristling at the fact they were left in the dark regarding the prisoner exchange for Bergdahl. Senator Dianne Feinstein, the chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, “it’s very disappointing that there was not a level of trust to justify alerting us to that,” Feinstein continued “I had a call from the White House last night, from (Deputy National Security Adviser) Tony Blinken, apologizing for it.”
The administration is also reeling from comments made by Susan Rice, the president’s National Security Advisors who claimed when interviewed by NBC reporter Andrea Mitchell, in which she state, Bergdahl “served with honor and distinction.”
This was disproven immediately by members of Bergdahl’s platoon who stated he abandoned his post and reports and may have been looking for the Taliban.
Reports have also began to surface that six soldiers were killed looking for Bergdahl, with one of them being 2nd Lt. Darryn Andrews.
The mother of 2nd Lt Andrews, spoke out, “It gets really hurtful when I think, this guy was worth my son’s life? My son who was patriotic? Who was a true soldier? Who defended his country with his life?” Andrews told Army Times via phone on Monday. “That guy was worth that? I don’t think so.”
“She continued, I bet you anything there were soldiers killed or wounded capturing those five guys,” she said. “So what does that do for their sacrifice? They sacrificed for nothing, because they turned right around and let them go.”
She was also upset hearing the government released these five key Taliban members.
There are numerous unanswered questions regarding how Bergdahl’s walked away from his unit, and there are reports this was not the first time.
Additional aspects of this exchange need to be investigated, as Congress before rejected unanimously a previous attempted prisoner exchange; why then would the president proceed forward without notifying congress?
Who in the in the administration approved of this transfer, especially in the intelligence community or at the Pentagon? Did they even know?
A lot of unanswered questions!
There are questions for Bergdahl himself. Once he is cleared by military medical personnel, questions need to be answered and the Pentagon and the administration have to be more transparent of what happened the day he walked away from his unit.
The other confusing aspects of this Bergdahl prisoner exchange were comments by the president on Tuesday.
The president commented, In terms of potential threats, the release of the Taliban who were being held in Guantanamo was conditioned on the Qataris keeping eyes on them and creating a structure in which we can monitor their activities. We will be keeping eyes on them. Is there the possibility of some of them trying to return to activities that are detrimental to us? Absolutely. That’s been true of all the prisoners that were released from Guantanamo. There’s a certain recidivism rate that takes place. I wouldn’t be doing it if I thought that it was contrary to American national security. And we have confidence that we will be in a position to go after them if, in fact, they are engaging in activities that threaten our defenses.”
If we have confidence they will return to the battlefield then why release them in the first place?
This continues a foreign policy in disarray.
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