Republicans have lambasted the White House for releasing five Taliban leaders in exchange
for Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl, saying the “dangerous” deal violated US policy on not talking to terrorists and may have broken the law.
GOP leaders rounded on the Obama administration on Sunday, accusing it of bypassing Congress and of encouraging terrorists to seize other US service members as hostages.
Susan Rice, Obama's national security adviser, appeared on two talk shows to mount the administration's defence of the decision. She justified the swap and the decision not to inform Congress of its imminence in terms of a “sacred obligation” to leave no US soldier behind.
The defence secretary, Chuck Hagel, told NBC: “We didn't negotiate with terrorists. As I said and explained before, Sergeant Bergdahl was a prisoner of war. That's a normal process in getting your prisoners back."
The angry Republican response, a day after the dramatic release of Bergdahl, who spent five years in captivity, signalled
a new partisan battle in Washington despite relief at the soldier's release.
Bergdahl was freed around 6pm local time on Saturday. The Landstuhl regional medical centre
said in a statement that he arrived at the facility in south-western Germany on Sunday morning.
The hospital said its staff would “evaluate his condition, begin any necessary medical care and assist in his recovery process”. It added that it was "sensitive to what Sergeant Bergdahl has been through and will proceed with his reintegration at a pace with which he is comfortable".
In the US, Senator Ted Cruz expressed sympathy for Bergdahl and his family but also suggested the White House had just put a price on its soldiers.
“What does this tell terrorists?” he said on ABC. “First, that if you capture a US soldier you can trade that soldier for five terrorist prisoners? That’s a very dangerous precedent.”
Mike Rogers, the chairman of the House intelligence committee, told CNN that al-Qaida affiliates in north Africa and elsewhere would be emboldened to try to capture more bargaining chips.
“We have now set a price,” he said. “We have a changing footprint in Afghanistan which would put our soldiers at risk for this notion that ‘If I can get one, I can get five Taliban released’.”
Rogers said Congress gave the administration a cool reception a year ago when it broached the possibility of negotiations for Bergdahl. “All of a sudden a year later they didn’t notify Congress,” he said. “I think they violated the law in two different places.”
Two other Republican lawmakers, Howard McKeon, a member of the House of Representatives from California, and James Inhofe, a senator from Oklahoma, also accused the White House of breaking the law. Senator John McCain, a former PoW himself, did not go that far but expressed concern about the swap.
On Saturday, President Obama sought to project a sense of mission accomplished when he spoke from the White House Rose Garden,
flanked by Bergdahl's parents.
"The United States of America does not ever leave our men and women in uniform behind," he said.
The GOP condemnation raised the political stakes for both sides, putting the White House on the defensive but also exposing Republicans to accusations they would have abandoned a junior soldier to indefinite captivity and possibly death.
Officials said Bergdahl was able to walk to safety but was apparently having problems speaking English. He was due to be treated in Germany before flying home.
The deal, variations of which have been mooted since 2011, exchanged five Taliban members from Guantánamo Bay, including a founding member of the movement, Khairullah Khairkhwa; a former head of the army, Fazl Mazlum; the deputy intelligence chief Abdul Haq Wasiq; and the former commander of northern Afghanistan, Nurullah Nuri.
The men must stay in Qatar – which liaised between Washington and the Taliban during negotiations – for at least a year, as a safeguard against them immediately returning to the battlefield.
Rice defended the decision to make the deal, saying the US had an obligation to bring home a young man who had endured a terrible ordeal and was in fragile health.
“When we are in battles with terrorists and terrorists take a US prisoner, that prisoner still is a US serviceman or woman,” she told CNN. “We still have a sacred obligation to bring that person back, we did so and that’s to be celebrated.”
The Department of Defence consulted the Department of Justice and concluded the situation's “acute urgency” justified bypassing Congress, Rice said.
“It was determined that it was necessary and appropriate not to adhere to the 30-day notification requirement because it would potentially have meant that the opportunity to get Sgt Bergdahl would have been lost … we could not take any risks with losing the opportunity to bring him back safely.”
President Obama spoke to the emir of Qatar on Tuesday, when a deal appeared possible, and was assured the the freed Taliban members would be monitored, she said, adding: “There are restrictions on their movement and behaviour.”
Rogers, a leading foreign policy hawk, said he was happy for Bergdahl's family but insisted that the deal violated a precept of US foreign policy.
“If you negotiate here you send a message to every [al-Qaida] group in the world, some of whom are holding US hostages today, that there is some value now in that hostage they didn’t have before. You can’t negotiate with terrorists for this very reason.”
Cruz, a Tea Party-affiliated senator from Texas, claimed the US could have used military force to rescue Bergdahl and suggested the soldier would feel ashamed at the circumstances of his release.
“Can you imagine what he would say to his fallen comrades who lost their lives to stop these people who are responsible either directly or indirectly for taking US lives?” Cruz asked.
“That’s why we sent our soldiers in there. The idea that we’re now making trades, what does that do for every single soldier serving abroad?”
