Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel on Wednesday defended the administration’s prisoner swap for Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, calling the trade part of the “dirty business” known as war.
Hagel, the first senior administration official to publicly testify before Congress on the issue, characterized the swap as a “part of war,” and said it was necessary to keep Congress in the dark because leaks might have endangered Bergdahl’s safety.
{mosads}“War, every part of war like prisoner exchange, is not some abstraction or theoretical exercise,” Hagel said. “All of these decisions are part of the brutal, imperfect realities we all deal with in war.”
“War is a dirty business,” he said. “And we don’t like to deal with those realities, but realities they are.”
The administration’s release of five Taliban detainees from the prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, for Bergdahl has been widely criticized by members of Congress.
Lawmakers have said President Obama broke the law by not notifying Congress in advance of the trade. A 2014 defense bill required the president to notify Congress 30 days in advance of transferring prisoners from Guantánamo.
The criticism has been especially pointed from Republicans, but some key Democrats joined the GOP criticism during Wednesday’s hearing.
“There was no reason that that 30-day notice couldn’t have been given to the leadership of Congress,” said Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.), the ranking Democrat on the House panel.
“The law is the law,” Smith continued. “The way you challenge constitutionality is you go to court, and you figure out whether or not the courts say it’s constitutional or not. And until the courts rule on that, it is the law.”
“A little heads-up, maybe a couple of hours’ call to the leaders of the Congress might have served you all very well,” Rep. Niki Tsongas (D-Mass.) added.
The White House has said that law was unconstitutional, something Obama said in a signing statement released at the time.
Hagel conceded that he and U.S. officials “could have done this better” in terms of notifying Congress, but argued the administration did the best it could given the “extraordinary situation.”
Yes, we could have done this better,” he said. “But I also said that we thought we had one shot here.”
Lawmakers have also said Obama may have compromised national security with the release of the five Taliban members, whom they say could return to the battlefield.
A group of Republican senators have introduced a resolution demanding an investigation into whether the release hurt national security.
Hagel said the talks leading up to Bergdahl’s release began last September.
In January, the Taliban provided a proof of life video showing that his health was “poor and possibly declining,” giving officials “growing urgency to act.”
Talks were briefly broken off but then restarted again in April, when the U.S. began to intensify discussions with Qatar, which agreed to detain the Taliban individuals for a year and limit their activities.
Hagel said after a final deal with Qatar on security measures was signed on May 12, Qatari officials warned that risks to Bergdahl’s safety were growing, and U.S. officials moved forward on mechanics of the exchange.
“As the opportunity to obtain Sergeant Bergdahl’s release became clearer, we grew increasingly concerned that any delay, or any leaks, could derail the deal and further endanger Sergeant Bergdahl,” Hagel said.
“We were told by the Qataris that a leak would end the negotiations for Bergdahl’s release. We also knew that he would be extremely vulnerable during any movement, and our military personnel conducting the hand-off would be exposed to a possible ambush or other deadly scenarios in very dangerous territory.
“For all these reasons and more, the exchange needed to take place quickly, efficiently and quietly. We believed this exchange was our last, best opportunity to free him,” Hagel said.
Hagel had a few heated exchanges with Republicans.
Rep. Michael Turner (R-Ohio) asked how the administration was violating U.S. policy in not negotiating with terrorists, when the Haqqani network, a Taliban associate designated as a terrorist group by the State Department, had held Bergdahl for at least parts of his five-year captivity.
Hagel said the network played “no role” in the deal and that the U.S. dealt directly with the Qatari government and the Taliban — not the Haqqani network.
“So now, the new policy of this administration is, ‘We don’t negotiate with terrorists directly?’ ” Turner asked.
“We didn’t negotiate with terrorists, Congressman,” Hagel shot back.
The exchange prompted Rep. Jim Cooper (D-Tenn.) to remark, “I don’t know if my friend on the other side of the aisle’s already running for majority leader or not, but it sounds like the tone here is way too political.”
Hagel sought to take full responsibility for the swap, saying that the decision was his, in consultation with officials of multiple agencies, and that the president was “aware of it.”
“This is an imperfect business,” Hagel said. “If we want our prisoner of war back, we have to make some accommodations to that.
“We did it with a substantial mitigation of risk. We thought this was the smartest, wisest, most responsible thing that we could do to protect our people, get our prisoner back,” he said.