Pentagon, Intelligence officials used Top Secret intelligence to prevent previous release of Taliban Five, officials tell TIME.
To pull off the prisoner swap of five Taliban leaders for Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, the White House overrode an existing interagency process charged with debating the transfer of Guantanamo Bay prisoners and dismissed long-standing Pentagon and intelligence community concerns based on Top Secret intelligence about the dangers of releasing the five men, sources familiar with the debate tell TIME.
National Security Council officials at the White House decline to describe the work of the ad hoc process they established to trade the prisoners, or to detail the measures they have taken to limit the threat the Taliban officials may pose. They say consensus on the plan was reached by the top officials of Obama’s national security team, including representatives from the Pentagon, State Department, intelligence community and Joint Chiefs of Staff. “These releases were worked extensively through deputies and principals,” says National Security Counsel Deputy for Strategic Communications Ben Rhodes. “There was not a dissent on moving forward with this plan.”
But officials in the Pentagon and intelligence communities had successfully fought off release of the five men in the past, officials tell TIME. “This was out of the norm,” says one official familiar with the debate over the dangers of releasing the five Taliban officials. “There was never the conversation.” Obama’s move was an ultimate victory for those at the White House and the State Department who had previously argued the military should “suck it up and salute,” says the official familiar with the debate.
Obama has broad authority under Article II of the U.S. Constitution to order the prisoner exchange as commander in chief of America’s armed forces. The lengths to which he went to bring it about show how determined he was to resolve the lingering issue of America’s only prisoner of war in Afghanistan.
The Obama administration first considered whether the five men were safe to release at the very start of his term as president. In January 2009, Obama ordered a Justice Department-led review of all 240 Guantanamo Bay detainees. The five Taliban leaders were found to be high risks to return to the fight against Americans, confirming Bush administration assessments of the threat they posed, according to officials familiar with the group’s findings. “These five are clearly bad dudes,” says a second source familiar with the debate over their release, adding that the detainees are likely to return to the fight.
Thereafter, the administration established a regular process for handling the release of detainees from the military prison at Guantanamo Bay. Releases were considered and approved through the “Guantanamo Transfer Working Group” which comprised officials from the State Department, the Pentagon, the intelligence community, the Department of Homeland Security and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Over time, 82 detainees have been released by the Obama administration, according to the latest report to Congress by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
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SOURCE: Massimo Calabresi
TIME
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Reblogged this on Arlin Report and commented:
Of course he did , its part of his mission.