As the Obama administration’s case for the Bowe Bergdahl-Taliban prisoner exchange further unraveled last week, the geo-political implications of the deal became clearer. They’re not pretty.
In the hours before Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel clicked on the microphone to testify about the swap on June 11, Obama administration officials told reporters to expect a forceful defense of the exchange and an aggressive refutation of the criticism that has attended it.
That didn’t happen. Instead, Hagel walked members of the House Armed Services Committee through the administration’s well-worn talking points, which had already failed to satisfy many members of Congress. And on several occasions he contradicted explanations administration officials had offered over the previous 10 days—including some arguments that Hagel himself had made.
In the early stages of the controversy, the administration defended the decision, and its choice not to inform Congress as required by law, by pointing to the failing health of Bowe Bergdahl. The captive soldier’s “health was deteriorating,” Hagel said during a June 1 interview on Meet the Press. “This was essentially an operation to save the life of Sgt. Bergdahl.”
Administration officials had pressed this case aggressively in the days following the swap, culminating in a front-page article in the Wall Street Journal reporting that the final proof-of-life video provided by the Taliban showed Bergdahl looking frail. “Rapid deterioration of soldier’s health persuaded leaders to back exchange,” the paper reported. A spokesman for Director of National Intelligence James Clapper pointed to Bergdahl’s condition as a key reason for the urgency of the exchange, telling the Journalthat the intelligence community had “evidence that Sgt. Bergdahl’s health was failing and that he was in desperate need of medical attention.”
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