Military Knew Where Bergdahl Was, Didn’t Want To Risk Lives Rescuing Deserter

The Washington Times has a military source that the Pentagon was aware of Bowe Bergdahl’s whereabouts while he was being held by the Taliban, but they chose not to rescue him because they didn’t want to risk lives for a deserter. Another factor that kept them from conducting a rescue operation was the administration’s negotiation with the Taliban for his release.

Commanders on the ground debated whether to pull the trigger on a rescue several times in recent years, according to one of the sources, a former high-level intelligence official in Afghanistan, who said the conclusion each time was that the prospect of losing highly trained troops was too high a price to pay for rescuing a soldier who walked away from his unit before being captured by the enemy.

A second source told The Washington Times that the rescue operation plans were “high risk” and became even less attractive in recent months when officials in the Pentagon’s Joint Special Operations Command grew convinced that the Taliban and the militant Haqqani network, whose operatives were holding Sgt. Bergdahl, were eager to cut a deal for his release.

That’s not to say they are happy with the deal that was cut.

Both of the sources said military officials across the special operations community were appalled by the terms of the deal that ultimately got struck over the weekend between State Department-led negotiators and the Taliban, effectively securing Sgt. Bergdahl’s release from Haqqani network custody in exchange for the release of five former Taliban commanders from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. (Read More)

As I write this there is a couple on TV telling the story of how their son was killed while searching for Bergdahl in Afghanistan. Then the military lied to them.