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Hagel discusses details of U.S. operation to exchange Taliban detainees for captive soldier Joy about Bergdahl release gives way to questions
(4 months later)
BAGRAM, Afghanistan — The commander of the U.S. Special Operations team that retrieved Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl on Saturday was in direct contact with his Taliban counterpart as the two sides arranged and approached their rendezvous near Afghanistan’s border with Pakistan, according to senior Defense Department officials. Joy about the release of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl yielded Sunday to questions about Obama administration decision-making in the deal for the American prisoner of war, which included the release of five high-ranking Afghan Taliban detainees.
As additional details of the operation began to surface Sunday, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and other officials said that every precaution was taken to reduce the margin for possible error or miscalculation. Congressional Republicans and others focused on a series of concerns that are likely to reverberate in coming days: whether the deal breached U.S. policy forbidding negotiations with terrorists, whether sufficient safeguards were in place to ensure that the released Taliban prisoners do no further harm to the United States and whether Congress was informed about the prisoner trade, as required by law.
“In an operation like this, where there’s always uncertainty, always danger, you prepare for all eventualities,” said Hagel, who arrived here Sunday afternoon on a brief, unannounced stop, where he met privately with more than a dozen members of the team that carried out the mission. Separately, some inside the military raised questions about the cost associated with rescuing Bergdahl, who drifted away from his unit five years ago under curious circumstances.
“They took every possible precaution we could take, through intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, through having enough of our assets positioned in the right locations, having enough helicopters, doing everything we could . . . to anticipate any violence or anything going in a different direction,” Hagel said. Most of the immediate concern expressed by military experts, including a former national security adviser to President Obama, centered on the five Taliban prisoners who were released Saturday from the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
“Fortunately, no shots were fired,” he said. “There was no violence. It went as well as we not only had expected and planned, but I think as well as it could have.” “It’s very, very important for the government of Qatar to make sure that these people are kept under control and do not return to the battlefield,” said Gen. James L. Jones who served as Obama’s national security adviser until November 2010. He noted in an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union” that previously released Taliban prisoners had returned to the battlefield.
Officials said “dozens” of Special Operations troops went to the site in helicopters for the meeting with 18 Taliban delivering Bergdahl, while additional militants waited in the distance. Susan Rice, the current national security adviser, said Sunday that the White House received a “series of very specific assurances” from the government of Qatar about its role in keeping the released prisoners in the Gulf state. The promises the Emir of Qatar made directly to Obama “enable us to have confidence that these prisoners will be carefully watched, that their ability to move will be constrained. And we believe that this is in the national security interests of the United States,” Rice said.
U.S. and NATO Commander Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr. said there was a sense of excitement at International Security Assistance Force headquarters as the news spread here Saturday. The released Afghan detainees, including former Taliban deputy defense minister Mohammad Fazl, will be subject to a year-long travel ban in Qatar, according to a memorandum of understanding signed by U.S. and Qatari officials.
“You almost got choked up,” he said. “It was pretty extraordinary. It has been almost five years and he is home.” The Obama administration declined to provide details of the memo and congressional Republicans expressed concern about it Sunday.
Captured in 2009 while serving in Afghanistan, Bergdahl had been held in western Pakistan for nearly five years by the Taliban-allied Haqqani network. But officials insisted Saturday that it was the Taliban, and not the Haqqanis, who turned him over. “It is disturbing that these individuals would have the ability to reenter the fight,” Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) said in an interview on the CBS’s “Face the Nation” show Sunday. “These are the hardest of the hard core,” said McCain, who was held prisoner for more than five years in Vietnam after his plane was shot down during the war.
Initial announcements on Bergdahl’s release said only that negotiations leading up to it began several weeks ago through the government of Qatar, and indicated no direct contact between the United States and the Taliban. On Saturday evening, McCain said he shared “the joy that the Bergdahl family feels.” However, he said he is “eager to learn what precise steps are being taken to ensure that these vicious and violent Taliban extremists never return to the fight against the United States.”
But planning for the actual operation that took place in the past week eventually put operational commanders on both sides in direct contact. Officials declined to specify the method of communication. Separately, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) said the White House made a mistake by deciding to “negotiate with terrorists” for the release of prisoners. He said the deal puts other Americans at risk from a group that routinely uses kidnappings and ransoms to get results.
Speaking to reporters aboard his aircraft en route to Bagram, Hagel rejected charges by some Republican lawmakers that the exchange of Bergdahl for five Taliban detainees held at Guantanamo prison had violated congressional requirements for advance notification on detainee transfers. He said that President Obama had used his executive power under the Constitution. “This fundamental shift in U.S. policy signals to terrorists around the world a greater incentive to take U.S. hostages,” Rogers said late Saturday. He has called for a full Intelligence Committee review of the matter. On Sunday, House Armed Services Committee Chairman Howard P. “Buck” McKeon (R-Calif.) said his panel will hold hearings on the prisoner exchange.
“We believe that the President of the United States, as commander in chief, has the power and authority to make the decision that he did under Article II of the Constitution,” Hagel said. Obama has hesitated at times to assert his executive power without seeking congressional approval. The congressional queries provoked a strong response from Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, who stopped in Afghanistan on Saturday while en route from Asia to meetings in Brussels.
“We believed that the information that we had, the intelligence that we had, was such that Sgt. Bergdahl’s safety and health were both in jeopardy and, in particular, his health was deteriorating,” Hagel said. “It was our judgment that if we could find an opening and move very quickly … that we could get him out of there, essentially to save his life.” “We didn’t negotiate with terrorists,” Hagel said in an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” Since the negotiations were handled mostly by Qatar, the United States did not negotiate directly with the Taliban. The administration’s announcement of Bergdahl’s release said only that negotiations began several weeks ago through the government of Qatar, and there was no indication of any direct contact between the United States and the Taliban.
Obama’s national security advisers were “unanimous that this was the right thing to do” and Hagel had signed the transfer order, he said. Qatar has agreed to supervise the five released men under unspecified conditions, and to keep them from leaving that country for one year. Congressional Republicans have complained that the administration did not consult with Congress about the negotiations within 30 days of the prisoners’ release, as required by law.
Hagel also confirmed that Afghan President Hamid Karzai was not informed of the operation in advance and was told afterward in a call from Secretary of State John F. Kerry. “I think they violated the law,” Rogers said. “There is a reason that Congress is involved by law, by statute, by constitutional authority in these decisions,” he added, noting that plans to raid the compound of Osama bin Laden were shared with key members of Congress months before the event. “So some notion that this [Bergdahl rescue] was so secretive and so sensitive that it couldn’t happen is just wrong,” Rogers said.
“This was an operation … that had to be very closely held,” Hagel said. “Very few people knew about this operation. We did not want to jeopardize [it], we couldn’t afford any leaks anywhere.” Hagel told reporters traveling with him that the veil of secrecy was necessary because of Bergdahl’s urgent health situation.
Hagel said he eventually hoped to meet with Bergdahl, but that all contacts were dependent on medical assessments of his condition. “The first focus is on his health and getting him the medical attention that he needs,” Hagel said. “I won’t interfere with that” until “the doctors say that it’s appropriate that I could speak with him.” “It was our judgment that . . . we needed to get him out of there essentially to save his life,” he said.
The Afghan government said Sunday that the prisoner release “contradicted a prior understanding with the Islamic Government of Afghanistan.” Hagel confirmed that Afghan President Hamid Karzai was not informed of the operation in advance, and that he was told about it afterward in a call from Secretary of State John F. Kerry.
A statement from the Afghan Ministry of Foreign Affairs said although Afghanistan welcomed the release of the Guantanamo detainees, the decision to send the men to Qatar violated “international laws, which say that no government can submit a citizen of another country to a third nation as a prisoner.” Hagel defended keeping the operation secret — from the Afghan government and others.
The government asked for the former detainees’ “unconditional freedom” and that they be able to leave Qatar. The statement did not say whether the Kabul government wants them to return to Afghanistan, or whether it would accept their relocation to Pakistan, where the rest of the Taliban leadership is based. “This was an operation . . . that had to be very closely held,” he said. “We did not want to jeopardize [it], we couldn’t afford any leaks anywhere.”
The Afghan government has made that request to the U.S. Embassy in Kabul. The deal produced a mixed reaction from the Afghan government Sunday. A statement from the Afghan Ministry of Foreign Affairs welcomed the release of the Taliban prisoners but said the decision to send the men to Qatar violated “international laws, which say that no government can submit a citizen of another country to a third nation as a prisoner.”
The news of the prisoner exchange also came as a surprise to Afghan peace negotiators, who have been trying fruitlessly to revive talks with the Taliban. For years, they have considered the prospect of releasing Taliban detainees a useful step toward reconciliation. But Saturday’s exchange did not appear to be a part of broader Afghan peace efforts. The Afghans asked for the former detainees’ “unconditional freedom.”
Negotiators said Sunday that they see the release as a positive sign, but they suggested that they should have played a larger role, particularly by receiving the detainees after their release. In addition to reassurances Obama received by telephone, he met personally with Qatari emir Sheik Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in New York on Wednesday, where the president gave a graduation address. The sheik is the father of the current emir, who turned power over to his son last year.
“We did know for a year that there were talks about this matter, but we were not aware of the actual process of it happening in the past week or so,” said Ismail Qasimyar, the Afghan High Peace Council’s director of foreign relations. “We hope the releases can lead to peace. We expected the handover of the Afghan prisoners to the government, because legally that is an international principle and our right.” Bergdahl was flown to the U.S. military’s medical center in Landstuhl, Germany, where he was being evaluated Sunday. Details of his condition were not released. His parents met briefly with reporters in Boise, Idaho, on Sunday. They said they had not yet spoken with their son and used the news media appearance to communicate with him.
On Saturday, the Taliban posted several photos of the released detainees meeting with other Taliban officials in Qatar. The images showed men with long, graying beards in emotional embraces. “Give yourself all of the time you need to recover and decompress,” said his mother, Jani Bergdahl. “There is no hurry. You have your life ahead of you. . . . You’ve made it. . . . You are free.”
The Taliban also released a rare public statement from its leader, Mohammad Omar. As Defense Department officials contemplated what was described as a likely transfer of Bergdahl soon to Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, there was another emotional reunion — in Doha, Qatar.
The Taliban posted several photos of the released detainees meeting with other Taliban officials. The images showed men with long, graying beards in emotional embraces.
The Taliban also released a rare public statement from the organization’s leader, Mullah Mohammad Omar.
“I extend my heartfelt congratulations to the entire Afghan Muslim nation,” the statement said.“I extend my heartfelt congratulations to the entire Afghan Muslim nation,” the statement said.
Omar also thanked the government of Qatar “for their mediation and for hosting them.”Omar also thanked the government of Qatar “for their mediation and for hosting them.”
Initially taken to a forward operating base near the Pakistani border where the handoff took place, Bergdahl was later flown to Bagram and then to the U.S. military’s Landstuhl medical center in Germany. A senior Defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity about details not made public, said he likely would later be taken to Brook Army Medical Center in San Antonio. The releases occurred just after the United States announced the conclusion of its combat mission in Afghanistan. The Afghan army is preparing to take over the ongoing battle with the Islamic hard-line Taliban.
Hagel and other officials said they had few initial details on Bergdahl’s condition beyond the fact that he walked to the U.S. helicopter under his own steam after being turned over by the Taliban. They said that he appeared to have difficulty speaking English after nearly five years in captivity with Pashtun-speaking Afghans. The last time a senior Taliban official was released from Guantanamo Bay, in 2007, the detainee, Mullah Abdul Qayyum Zakir, returned to Afghanistan and became director of military operations.
While American prisoners of war have been held before in solitary confinement — including in Vietnam — in most cases they were able to communicate with other prisoners, if only through knocks on the wall or taps on pipes. Hagel and other officials said that every precaution was taken to reduce the margin for possible error or miscalculation.
Bergdahl, Hagel said, “was by himself” since his capture in the summer of 2009. “As far as we know, there were no other Americans.” “Fortunately, no shots were fired,” he said. “There was no violence. It went as well as we not only had expected and planned, but I think as well as it could have.”
“There’s some emotion for me on this because of my own experiences” as an Army sergeant in Vietnam, he said. “This is a happy day. A happy day.” The commander of the U.S. Special Operations team that retrieved Bergdahl on Saturday was in direct contact with his Taliban counterpart as the two sides arranged and approached their rendezvous near Afghanistan’s border with Pakistan, senior Defense Department officials said.
“When you can bring one of your own people home, and you think what he has endured the last five years … I am as intensely happy and gratified as I suspect anybody is.” Officials said that “dozens” of Special Forces troops went to the site in helicopters for the meeting with 18 Taliban delivering Bergdahl, while additional militants waited in the distance.
Asked whether the exchange could endanger U.S. forces in the future and embolden terrorists to take more Americans as prisoners, as some U.S. lawmakers have charged, Hagel said: “Again, I remind you this was a POW exchange. He was a prisoner. As we know certainly from what we’re dealing with all over the world today with terrorist groups, they take hostages, they take innocent schoolgirls, they take business people. They will take any target that they can get to. Again, our focus was on the return of Sgt. Bergdahl.” It was a rare battlefield meeting for fighters on two sides of a deadly war.
Following the transfer of the five, who departed Guantanamo Saturday, accompanied by Qatari officials aboard a U.S. military aircraft, about a dozen Taliban prisoners remain among about 150 detainees still at the prison. International law experts have questioned how long the administration can continue to hold those who have not been charged after the final withdrawal of U.S. combat troops from Afghanistan in December, a moment Obama has said will mark the end of the war. Once released by his Afghan captors, Bergdahl walked onto the waiting U.S. aircraft.
At the very least, experts and administration officials have said that they anticipate a number of new lawsuits will be filed by detainees. Once airborne, he scribbled the letters “SF?” on a paper plate, seeking confirmation that he was with Special Forces troops.
Hagel said he had not focused on any possible action by the military against Bergdahl, whom military officials have said was captured after he apparently voluntarily walked off his post in eastern Afghanistan. “Yes!” one of the troops yelled back above the din of the aircraft’s blades, according to a defense official who described Bergdahl’s first moments of freedom. “We’ve been looking for you for a long time.”
“Sgt. Bergdahl is a member of the U.S. Army… Our first priority is assuring his well-being and his health and getting him reunited with his family. Other circumstances that may develop, the questions, those will be dealt with later,” he said. Bergdahl then broke down in tears.
But the senior Defense official indicated punitive action was unlikely, no matter what the circumstances. “Five years is enough,” he said. Sieff reported from Kabul. Karen DeYoung in Bagram, Afghanistan, contributed to this report.
Kevin Sieff and Sayed Salahuddin in Kabul, Afghanistan, contributed to this report.