The White House and Congress are on a collision course as they each try to improve the federal government’s interactions with families of hostages held by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria and other extremist groups, as well as overarching efforts to free their loved ones.
A key House Republican and Democrat are blasting the administration, which plans to release new steps to improve efforts to free Americans held overseas Wednesday, for not pushing far enough to provide tough oversight of the process.
Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., a member of the Armed Services Committee who has spearheaded a bipartisan legislative effort to overhaul the Obama administration’s hostage policies, said initial information leaking out from the administration about its proposals is “pathetic” and “nothing more than window dressing.”
Rep. John Delaney, a Democrat from Maryland whose constituents include the family of Warren Weinstein, an al Qaeda prisoner who the CIA accidentally killed in a U.S. drone attack in January, told CNN Tuesday that he is “disappointed” by the White House steps.
“I think it’s short-sighted,” Delaney said. “The report makes clear is that we haven’t done a good job here … When you have a problem you’ve got to stop with incremental solutions and you need more of a wholesale solution.”
Hunter went far further, arguing that the FBI is the wrong agency to coordinate the effort because it has a comparatively limited overseas reach compared to the Pentagon, which has far greater assets, intelligence and manpower in key hot spots abroad.
“Among the issues I believed the White House would get right, this was one. I was wrong,” he said. “And sadly, I was told of numerous reports of infighting during the progression of the hostage policy review, with both the FBI and the State Department arguing for a leadership role, while discrediting the other.”
The FBI is precisely the wrong agency to head up the hostage recovery efforts because the controversy over the administration’s record on hostage policy began there, Hunter argued. He cited an Army green beret whistleblower’s account of the FBI threatening families who complained to him and other lawmakers about their problems with the FBI.
The FBI, Hunter said, also tried to retaliate against that green beret, Army Lt. Col. Jason Amerine. He testified before the Senate recently, citing the attempted retribution as a “prime example of how the FBI retaliates against any interest that’s not its own.”
Both members of Congress were briefed on the White House plans Tuesday afternoon by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
Hunter and Delaney, along with Sens. John Cornyn, R-Texas, and Ben Cardin, D-Md., introduced legislation Tuesday to create what some are referring to as a hostage czar but with greater powers to coordinate and unify the government’s response to hostage situations.
The senators did not respond to the Washington Examiner’s questions about their reactions to leaked aspects of the steps the White House is taking to improve its hostage recovery efforts. Instead, they issued statements supporting their version of reform, arguing that the families have suffered enough.
“Too frequently, the suffering families of hostages were left in the dark, unsure who in government was working exclusively to ensure the safe return home of their loves ones,” Cardin said in a statement.
“There are no remedies to the pain the Weinsteins and other affected families have endured, but we must as a nation respond more effectively to these tragedies. That is why this legislation is so vital,” Cardin said.
“The weeks, months and years of silence about a loved-one’s well-being are unbearable, and we need to do more to help those here in the U.S. waiting for answers and to ensure some unity of effort by the federal government,” Cornyn added.
The White House, however, wants to create a government-wide fusion center headed by the FBI, with the State Department and Department of Defense providing deputies. The center also would include officials from the Treasury Department focused on tracking terrorist financing, as well as the intelligence community. It will include a team tasked with keeping in regular contact with the families, who have bitterly complained about inconsistent contact with the Obama administration.
But the families, who the White House briefed Tuesday about their plans, are already expressing skepticism that the step will solve the turf battles between the Pentagon, FBI and the State Department they believe are at the heart of problems the administration has faced in trying to get their loved ones home.
A spokeswoman for the Weinstein family told Foreign Policy Monday that “hostage families are understandably skeptical about this review.”
Many of the families had supported the appointment of one point-person, preferably someone with the White House National Security Council, to shepherd the process, help referee turf battles and leverage the right resources.
Despite the differences between Congress and the White House on efforts to improve the process, the Obama administration appears ready to tamp down another controversial aspect of its hostage policies.
The administration appears poised to stop threatening loved ones of captured Americans with prosecution if they try to negotiate directly with the extremist groups or attempt to round up funds for ransom demands.
The White House on Tuesday said the general U.S. policy of not negotiating or paying ransom to extremists groups will remain intact, but left some wiggle-room for allowing the families to take their own actions and deal directly with their loved ones captors without fear of prosecution from the United States.
“The reason that we have our policy in place is that the resources of the United States government are not going to be used to make concessions to terrorists,” White House press secretary Josh Earnest said, clearly differentiating between official U.S. funds and private ransom payments. “We do not want to open the door to even more Americans being vulnerable to a hostage taking.”
The mother of James Foley — a U.S. journalist beheaded by the Islamic State — had expressed outrage at how the U.S. government dealt with her son’s case, reporting shortly after his death last fall that the Justice Department had threatened that his family members could be charged if they raised a ransom to free him.
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., told reporters Tuesday that he vehemently disagrees with any threat of prosecution from the U.S. government to families of hostages who try to pay ransom or negotiate directly for the release of their loved ones.
“It would be insane to do that,” he said.
McCain has said he considers the death reported earlier this year of Arizona constituent Kayla Mueller at the hands of Islamic State militants one of the saddest moments of his life. He worked to free her after she was captured in Syria in August 2013.
