Exchange Of Idaho Soldier Bowe Bergdahl For Taliban Detainees Sets Off Debate --Wise?

President Obama in the Rose Gardenwith 

with parents of U.S. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl 

Bob Bergdahl as Jani Bergdahl

Credit: AP

By Hannah Allam and James Rosen, May 31, 2014, Mcclatchydc.com

WASHINGTON — An American soldier who spent nearly five years in Taliban captivity was freed Saturday in exchange for five members of the Taliban who’d been imprisoned for years at the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay in an unprecedented prisoner exchange that sparked both jubilation and controversy.

Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, 28, the only U.S. soldier taken captive by the enemy in 12 years of Afghanistan conflict, was turned over to a U.S. military task force in eastern Afghanistan at about 10:30 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time, U.S. officials said. Less than four hours later, the five Taliban detainees took off from Guantanamo headed for the Persian Gulf state of Qatar, which had brokered the deal. Under the terms of their transfer, the five are to remain in Qatar for at least a year.

President Barack Obama, flanked by Bergdahl’s parents, made brief televised remarks Saturday evening thanking the foreign governments, American diplomats and U.S. military personnel who were behind the release effort.

“Sergeant Bergdahl has missed birthdays, and holidays and simple moments with family and friends which all of us take for granted,” Obama said. “But while Bowe was gone, he was never forgotten.”

Bergdahl’s parents, Jani and Bob Bergdahl, echoed the president in short, emotional remarks of their own in which they suggested that their son faced a long recovery after his years under Taliban control. Bob Bergdahl said his son was having trouble speaking English. Then, he addressed him directly in Pashto, one of the languages spoken in Afghanistan. “I am your father,” he said, translating his remarks.

The deal resolves the question of whether the U.S. military would withdraw from Afghanistan without Bergdahl, who went missing from his base on June 30, 2009. But it also immediately sparked controversy.

For one, the Obama administration failed to notify Congress 30 days in advance, as U.S. law requires, that it was transferring the five Taliban detainees from Guantanamo. U.S. officials explained their decision to notify Congress only after the detainees were being turned over to Qatari diplomats by saying Obama was acting in his capacity as commander in chief.

“This is a case of the commander in chief exercising his prerogative to get one of his soldiers back,” one official said. He asked not to be identified because he was not authorized to address the issue publicly.

But some members of Congress were unimpressed. “Our joy at Sergeant Berghdal’s release is tempered by the fact that President Obama chose to ignore the law, not to mention sound policy, to achieve it,” said a joint statement by Rep. Howard P. “Buck” McKeon, R-Calif., chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, and Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., the ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

There were also questions about the wisdom _ and precedent _ of freeing five high-ranking Taliban, all of whom were on the Obama administrations list of detainees to be held indefinitely without charges, in exchange for one American service member.

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