WASHINGTON — Hillary Clinton staked out a skeptical position on a Taliban prisoner swap for released soldier Bowe Bergdahl in internal administration deliberations when she served as secretary of state, according to reports on the evolution of the deal.
The leaked descriptions of a tough-minded Clinton allow the possible presidential candidate to carve out some distance from President Obama, who ultimately authorized an exchange for Bergdahl, even as Clinton expresses general support in public for the deal that first emerged on her watch.
Since Obama stood with Bergdahl’s parents in the White House Rose Garden to announce the sergeant’s release, the deal has come under fire from lawmakers for the price paid (five prisoners from Guantánamo Bay), risks that the detainees could return to the battlefield, and the administration’s failure to inform Congress.
Clinton “was heavily involved from the beginning, she was very skeptical of the arrangement, she was very wary of it,” a former administration official told the Daily Beast. “If we had come to some agreement, she perhaps would have backed it, but we never got to that point.”
Rep. Jim Moran (D-Va.) said Clinton felt that members of the Haqqani network, who were holding Bergdahl captive, were “really bad guys.”
“She was reluctant to enter into negotiations with them,” he said.
Officials told CNN that Clinton favored stricter restrictions on monitoring the five detainees who got released. The terms of the final deal related to the conditions of their release have come under fire by Sen. John McCain and others, after Reuters reported detainees were already spotted wandering around Doha, Qatar.
The administration has said the ex-detainees, who include high-ranking former Taliban officials, must remain in Qatar for a year, but hasn’t spelled out all the terms of their post-confinement status.
Clinton publicly defended the idea of negotiating with the Taliban in public.
“You don’t make peace with your friends,” she testified before a congressional committee in 2011. “There first would have to be a demonstrated willingness on the Taliban’s part to negotiate and to meet the conditions already laid out for joining negotiations.”
The terms under consideration during Clinton’s tenure at the State Department would have included a series of confidence-building measures. The Taliban would open an office in Doha, Qatar, and renounce terrorism. The Guantánamo detainees would have been released in two batches, the second of which would have been simultaneous with Bergdahl’s release.
In public comments on Monday, Clinton was supportive of Obama’s action — although she did leave some room for distancing should the former detainees re-emerge as a threat.
“This young man, whatever the circumstances, was an American citizen — is an American citizen — was serving in our military,” Clinton said. “The idea that you really care for your own citizens and particularly those in uniform, I think is a very noble one.”
But she hedged: “I think we have a long way to go before we really know how this is going to play out … You don’t want to see these five prisoners go back to combat. There’s a lot that you don’t want to have happen.”
Clinton wasn’t the only official to harbor doubts about the swap. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Cal.), chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, indicated the idea didn’t fly when the administration briefed her panel on it.
“There were very strong views and they were virtually unanimous against the trade,” she told a group of reporters Tuesday.
The Washington Post reported that Clinton was part of a group from Obama’s first-term cabinet that opposed the terms of the exchange, citing a former senior administration official.
They included Defense Secretary Robert Gates, CIA Director Leon Panetta and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper.
On Wednesday night, Clinton’s camp pushed back against the notion that she was against a deal.
“The notion that Secretary Clinton ever rejected a transfer like this out of hand is not accurate,” said Clinton spokesman Nick Merrill.
“In fact, she authorized negotiations with the Taliban that included a transfer for Sgt. Bergdahl. She set a high bar and insisted on strict conditions for any deal, but as she said this week, America has a noble tradition that we leave no soldier behind.”