Posted on 06/04/2014 6:40:39 PM PDT by kristinn
President Barack Obama, it seemed like the right thing to do, according to officials in his administration: Release five Taliban detainees at Guantanamo Bay prison in return for Bowe Bergdahl, the only known American prisoner of war in Afghanistan.
As a political firestorm engulfs the White House over that deal, Reuters interviews with current and former Obama administration officials involved in the negotiations, along with U.S. lawmakers, reveal how a close-knit circle in the Obama administration pursued the plan despite intense discord in the past over similar proposals.
The White House was ultimately persuaded to go ahead, in part, after Qatar agreed to take the Taliban detainees and said it would allow the United States to track the five men in the Gulf emirate. Under that arrangement, the United States installed extensive surveillance equipment to monitor their movements and communications, the officials said.
The deal, however, has caused an uproar among Republicans in Congress, who have questioned both the secrecy of the prisoner swap and the wisdom of freeing five Taliban prisoners. Some of Bergdahl's former comrades have also accused him of deserting his post before his capture by the Taliban in June 2009. The Pentagon has declined to comment on those allegations.
While they were prepared for some political blowback, Obama administration officials said they felt the outcry would have been fiercer if in six months' time, as the United States wraps up its mission in Afghanistan, it emerged that Obama had missed an opportunity to secure Bergdahl's freedom.
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
Yup, and they all follow the same script with the talking points and the wording nuances.
BO knows he owns this country and he likes to rub in in once in a while.
Things are going pear shaped for Obama. Bowe is now in a military hospital in Germany. No reports on his condition are forthcoming. It would be in the best interest for the administration if he never made it out. Think about it.
CC
I believe there were two reasons: Distract from the VA scandal, which was getting legs, and have an excuse to release “Obama’s Five.”
Aren’t the detainees at Gitmo “enemy combatants” and thus not POW’s captured from an enemy nation (like Afghanistan)?
TOTAL CRAP! You don't risk soldiers lives over a deserter, unless you are trying to apprehend him and stop the damage he is causing.
Bttt.
I think that makes a lot of sense. I like it a lot. I had a companion theory as well -— I think Obama also wanted an excuse to release the baddest dudes at Gitmo and get that out of the way to make it easier later to later release the rest of the prisoners and close the place down
That also makes sense, and fits well with this latest report that he is planning to release a sixth.
btw Anderson Cooper bemoaned the video somebody took of B. Obama working out, said he feels sorry for the president that it is being shown. Let's just say Obama did not look impressive.
HAHA, Obama knows what he's doing.
The five are all CIA agents who replaced the originals.
They all are on CIA payroll to find the nests.
Valerie Plame (Wilson) trained them for this mission,
SHHHH, keep it hush, hush, the terrorist might be lurking here.
They should never have gone to Gitmo. They should not have lived that long. And our soldiers would have come home long ago.
That is sort of like giving Obama a Nobel Peace Prize before he launched air strikes on Libya, promoted a coup in Egypt, armed and funded rebels in the Syrian Civil War and promoted the coup in the Ukraine.
Good point.
Oh Lord! The cat’s out of the bag now!
I guess I may as well mention that story about how those detainees were the easiest to turn at Gitmo. They cooperated with their interrogators immediately. They didn’t need water-boarding, just a few Penthouse magazines, some cable tv and extra pilaf.
This guy told me they had to fake scenes of intimidation and punishment so the others wouldn’t get suspicious.
Frankly, I’m not sure about the guy. He was drunk as hell when he told me. So was I, and I forgot his name.
I read that he was, in fact, never classified as a POW.
As an aside, Jake Tapper's book "The Outpost" is about Camp Keating, Bergdahl's post.
They had time to install “extensive surveillance equipment” in Qatar but not time to tell congress.
Yep. And things are being fasttracked. One White House leak said that it is better to have this blowback now rather than in "6 months" as deals are finalized. Six months out are around the time of the mid-term election.
He's pushing for another "Obama Got Osama" moment to rally his base to the polls ("Obama ENDED the war..."). Releasing the rest of the detainees at Gitmo is probably part of the negotiation.
Clinching it was a phone call Obama made two days later, on May 27, with the emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, who said Qatari officials had agreed to measures to prevent at least an immediate return to the battlefield of the five Taliban prisoners, the officials said."
Just who did Prince Barry talk to on May 25? Did he really travel to Afghanistan on Memorial Day, of all days, so he could secretly meet face-to-face with Mullah Omar, or one of his deputies?
Sounds to me like Hussein got between a rock and a hard place. Someone told him he better release or else, so he found a way, come hell or high water to get those 5 out of there. It wasn’t to save the deserter,(he could have been part of it all along) it was to save his bony a$% from whomever was threatening him.
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