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U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta
Karen Bleier/AFP/Getty Images
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A former top adviser to President Obama on Wednesday questioned the release of dangerous terrorists in exchange for an imprisoned American soldier as anger spread among lawmakers in Washington over the secret deal to free Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl.
“I don't fault the administration for wanting to get him back. I do question whether the conditions are in place to make sure these terrorists don't go back into battle,” former CIA director and Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta told a gas industry gathering in Pittsburgh.
Panetta, who was in the Cabinet for four of the five years Bergdahl spent in Taliban custody, said he opposed a swap for the terrorists held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, when he was Defense secretary.
“I said, ‘Wait, I have an obligation under the law,'” Panetta said during a lunchtime address at the Hart Energy Developing Unconventionals DUG East conference at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center, Downtown. “If I send prisoners from Guantanamo, they have to guarantee they don't go back to the battlefield. I had serious concerns.”
He said talks fell apart because the Taliban “asked for five top guys.” He did not say when during his 2011-13 tenure in the Pentagon that discussions took place.
“I just assumed it was never going to happen,” Panetta said.
News of Bergdahl's release broke Saturday, and questions escalated into criticism and rebuke as members of his unit said the last American prisoner of war in Afghanistan had left his remote base intentionally. Lawmakers complained they weren't advised of the swap in advance.
“This is one of the reasons why a number of us have been so strongly opposed to the release of individuals there,” Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., said as renewed opposition grew to Obama's goal of closing the Guantanamo Bay prison.
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