On Monday, a one-year “cooling off” period in Qatar for five senior Taliban leaders exchanged for Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl expires, leaving them free to return to the fight in Afghanistan if no other arrangements are made.
The Obama administration says it’s talking with Qatari officials on steps that could be taken to ensure the five won’t become a threat to Americans, but won’t give any details.
“It is true that the United States has been in touch with our partners in Qatar about the kinds of steps that we believe are important to protecting the national security of the American people,” White House press secretary Josh Earnest said Friday. “We’re talking to them about a range of issues and when we have an announcement on this, we’ll let you know.”
But that’s not good enough for many in Congress, where the swap has been controversial since it was announced on May 31, 2014. Republicans in particular see it as the prime example of how President Obama’s determination to close the Guantanamo Bay military prison in Cuba is harming national security.
“This release was a complete overreach by the White House, ignoring U.S. law,” House Foreign Affairs Chairman Ed Royce, R-Calif., said Friday. “Already over the past year, it’s been reported that the flimsy ‘security assurances’ in Qatar have been violated, jeopardizing our security. In a few days, these assurances disappear and Taliban leaders will be free to return to the battlefield, putting U.S. security interests and Americans at risk.”
The five detainees — Mohammad Fazl, former Taliban army chief of staff, Khairullah Khairkhwa, former interior minister in the Taliban government, Noorullah Noori, a former provincial governor, Mohammad Nabi Omari, the Taliban’s chief of communications, and Abdul Haq Wasiq, former deputy intelligence chief — were all deemed “high-risk” detainees recommended for continued detention. But administration officials defended the swap as a normal exchange of prisoners as U.S. involvement in the Afghan war wound down, and cited an urgent need to free Bergdahl after five years of captivity for his welfare.
As part of the secret talks that led to the swap, Qatar agreed to hold the five men for one year to mitigate the risk of them becoming a threat to Americans.
The Government Accountability Office concluded in August that Pentagon officials broke the law with the transfer by not notifying Congress at least 30 days in advance and by using appropriated public funds for a different purpose. Additionally, the Pentagon has confirmed that at least one of the detainees had contacted his former colleagues in a bid to try to return to the fight while in Qatar.
Meanwhile, Bergdahl’s behavior while in captivity also has become the subject of controversy. He faces a July 8 hearing at Fort Sam Houston, Texas, in an investigation that will determine whether he will be court-martialed on charges of desertion and misbehavior before the enemy.
The House Armed Services Committee, which is investigating the circumstances of the swap, has accused the administration of stonewalling its efforts by refusing to hand over documents related to the Justice Department’s advice on whether it was legal. The defense policy bill passed by the House on May 15 would withhold 25 percent of funding for the Office of the Secretary of Defense until the administration submits the information.
“We want to know why the president and his advisers felt they could ignore a law designed to provide the people’s representatives advance warning of such transfers, not to mention the ability to ask common sense questions related to the safety of our country,” Armed Services Chairman Rep. Mac Thornberry, R-Texas, and Rep. Vicky Hartzler, R-Mo., chairman of the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee, said Thursday in a statement.
They said ending the restrictions on the five Taliban leaders “will endanger our troops abroad and our families at home. Understanding why and how this came about is the responsibility of the Congress, one we intend to carry out.”
Republicans have used the potential threat from the five Taliban as the crux of their argument against the administration’s accelerated pace of releases from Guantanamo as Obama, blocked by Congress from closing the prison, tries to empty it by executive order.
In February, the Senate Armed Services Committee approved legislation that would effectively block any new releases or transfers from the prison for the rest of Obama’s presidency.
Meanwhile, a staff investigation by Royce’s committee concluded that six former Guantanamo detainees released to Uruguay remained a threat because they do not appear to be under any of the restrictions U.S. officials promised had been imposed. That could be another violation of U.S. law related to releases, Royce wrote in an April 29 letter to Secretary of State John Kerry.
“The president’s view that Guantanamo drives the terrorist threat is a fundamental misread of terrorist motivations — one that jeopardizes the safety and security of the United States and our allies,” Royce wrote.
