Report: Congress 'Misled' About Taliban Five to 'Settle a Campaign Promise'
As the House Armed Services Committee released a lengthy report on President Obama's swap of five Taliban detainees for Bowe Bergdahl, one former Guantanamo detainee took a bow this week as a new spokesman for al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.
The House report covers the transfer of Taliban communications chief Mohammad Nabi Omari, deputy minister of intelligence Abdul Haq Wasiq, interior minister Khairulla Said Wali Khairkhwa, deputy minister of defense Mohammad Fazl, and senior military commander Mullah Norullah Noori in May 2014 to Qatar.
Chairman Mac Thornberry (R-Texas) noted that since that moment, the committee has been conducting an investigation into the actions of then-Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and senior Pentagon officials.
"Our report finds that the administration clearly broke the law in not notifying Congress of the transfer," Thornberry said. "Leading up to the transfer, DOD officials misled Congress as to the status of negotiations. Pentagon officials best positioned to assess the national security risks were left out of the process, which increases the chances of dangerous consequences from the transfer.".......
.............."Transferring five senior Taliban leaders from GTMO offered the prospect of making other transfers appear to be less threatening or contentious. If these five left GTMO, it could ease the case for the departure of others presumed to be less risky... Some of the Taliban Five have engaged in threatening activities since being transferred to Qatar. Regrettably, this outcome is a consequence of a poorly managed process undertaken contrary to a law specifically intended to minimize the risk posed by detainee transfers."
As if on cue, this week AQAP released a video titled "Guardians of Sharia" featuring Ibrahim Qosi, who cut a plea deal with the tribunal in 2010 and was released to Sudan in July 2012.
Two years later, Qosi had joined AQAP and is now one of the leaders of the al-Qaeda branch in Yemen. In the video, a first-time appearance since his release from Gitmo, he stressed the importance of “individual jihad" against the United States............
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The evil at the heart of this administration is the stuff of nightmares.