White House broke law on Bergdahl: report

August 22, 2014 10:07 am | Updated November 17, 2021 04:42 am IST - Washington:

A top government watchdog has found that the Obama administration flouted a legal requirement to inform the U.S. Congress at least thirty days before it transferred five senior Taliban commanders from the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba to Qatar in exchange for the return of ‘lost’ American soldier Bowe Bergdahl.

Additionally, the General Counsel of the Government Accountability Office, Susan Poling, said, the Pentagon broke the law in a second regard in late May when it used appropriated funds to carry out the transfer despite no money being available for that purpose, thus violating the U.S. Antideficiency Act relating to financing restrictions.

At the time that the exchange occurred the White House responded to sharp criticism from House Armed Services Committee Chairman Howard McKeon and the ranking Republican on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence James Inhofe on this matter explaining that it had to act despite the legal requirement for the transfer due to the “unique and exigent circumstances.”

Hitting out at the decision Senator Saxby Chambliss, Vice Chairman of the Select Committee, said the GAO finding supported the view that Mr. Obama had “completely disregarded laws duly passed by Congress and signed by his own hand” by signing off on a prisoner transfer that cost nearly $1 million.

“This latest overreach regarding our national security has dangerous implications,” Senator Chambliss said, adding that the U.S. had a longstanding policy of not negotiating with terrorists for good reason, and these senior Taliban leaders would soon re-join the fight.

However the Pentagon defended the transfer, insisting that it was conducted lawfully and in consultations with the Justice Department. Pentagon Press Secretary Rear Admiral John Kirby said, “The administration had a fleeting opportunity to protect the life of a U.S. service member held captive and in danger for almost five years,” and it was necessary to forego the notice to get the soldier back safely.

Sergeant Bergdahl returned in early June from Taliban captivity after the Obama administration took unprecedented steps to extract him from Afghanistan, a move that came in for even more criticism after evidence in a leaked, classified military report suggested that the soldier had wandered away from his military base on several occasions at a training range in California and at his remote outpost in Afghanistan – and then returned.

Further the prisoner swap incurred the wrath of Republicans on Capitol Hill after accounts by Sergeant Bergdahl’s former colleagues that were corroborated by Pentagon sources suggested that he may have been a deserter or even enemy collaborator, and the soldier’s father was noted to have been sending supportive messages to a Taliban spokesperson on Twitter.

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