The Briefing Room
General Category => National/Breaking News => Topic started by: mystery-ak on December 13, 2015, 01:59:44 pm
-
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/12/13/inside-the-botched-rescue-of-bowe-bergdahl.html
So Close12.13.1512:01 AM ET
Inside the Botched Rescue of Bowe Bergdahl
The U.S. government paid a ransom in the hopes of freeing the captive American soldier, a Congressman alleges. But when the FBI went to get Bowe Bergdahl, he wasn’t there.
In late February of 2014, a representative of the Federal Bureau of Investigation traveled to the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan ready to bring home Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, who had been held for nearly five years by an ally of the Taliban.
The operation wasn’t announced publicly. But within U.S. national security agencies, word spread that the most well-known American hostage, who had disappeared from his remote post in Afghanistan in 2009, was about to be released. It was a particularly anxious moment because the Taliban had recently broken off talks over a potential prisoner swap for Bergdahl.
But the FBI wasn’t anticipating a prisoner exchange. Instead, according to a member of Congress and another individual who is knowledgeable about the operation, the U.S. government had sent money to Bergdahl’s captors in the hopes of freeing him.
The FBI’s representative waited. But Bergdahl never came. Any hopes for his homecoming were soon eclipsed by concerns that the information that prompted the rescue effort was false or misleading. Had the FBI been duped? Had the U.S. paid a ransom for Bergdahl and been cheated?
Bergdahl was eventually freed at the end of May, 2014, in exchange for five Taliban prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay. But the botched rescue operation three months earlier raised questions about whether the FBI, which is in charge of efforts to repatriate all Americans held hostage overseas, had received shoddy intelligence about where Bergdahl was being held and his condition, and if other efforts to recover Americans might also be the victim of bad intelligence.
“What we know is that non-DOD [Department of Defense] organizations, led by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), undertook the recovery mission,” Rep. Duncan Hunter, who has investigated the Bergdahl case and is a critic of the Obama administration’s hostage rescue efforts, wrote in a letter Friday to the Justice Department Inspector General.
“In fact, in February 2014, it was the FBI that disclosed to military officials that Bergdahl’s release was imminent; however, after several days, nothing happened,” Hunter said.
A copy of the letter describing the FBI’s lead role, which hasn’t been previously reported, was obtained by The Daily Beast.
What had prompted the FBI to send an emissary to a dangerous border region, all while efforts were under way, albeit in fits and starts, to conduct a prisoner swap?
continued
-
Interesting the Daily Beast of late has had some good article. I wonder how much money obama gave his pals the Taliban? **nononono*
-
This is impeachable and prosecutable if backed up by evidence.
-
This is impeachable and prosecutable if backed up by evidence.
Just like many other things they have done.
-
We should have tried to get our guy back, but we should not have paid the price of five of their bad guys.
-
This is impeachable and prosecutable if backed up by evidence.
I think he has committed impeachable offenses, but you'll never hear the Republicans say that. Obama is getting away with it by their non-action.
-
I think he has committed impeachable offenses, but you'll never hear the Republicans say that. Obama is getting away with it by their non-action.
Which, drawing from another thread, is bigotry on the part of the American people. If he were just some old white guy, he would have been impeached 5 years ago.
-
Which, drawing from another thread, is bigotry on the part of the American people. If he were just some old white guy, he would have been impeached 5 years ago.
Probably wouldn't even have been elected in the first place.
-
Which, drawing from another thread, is bigotry on the part of the American people. If he were just some old white guy, he would have been impeached 5 years ago.
Yep.
Affirmative action, political correctness, multiculturalism, white guilt, open borders, reverse racism; all of this comes from sloppy, disordered thinking and hyper emotionalism, the domain of liberals.
-
:amen:
Which, drawing from another thread, is bigotry on the part of the American people. If he were just some old white guy, he would have been impeached 5 years ago.
If he was a white guy he never would have been running for President, let alone beaten HRC in the 2008 primary.