In Poland on Tuesday, President Obama conceded the five Guantanamo detainees released in exchange for Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl may kill again.
“Is there the possibility of some of them trying to return to activities that are detrimental to us?” he said. “Absolutely.”
The cavalier nature of the president’s admission is breathtaking. He tried to reassure us by saying that both Qatar, where these jihadis were sent, and the United States will be monitoring these men.
But Qatar has long been a source of support for radical Islamists. And the president refuses to tell us exactly how we will ensure these men do not return to the battlefield when we couldn’t stop others who were released before them.
Amid the press reports, it’s worth noting two other reactions. On social media, the deal, and especially adviser Susan Rice’s claim Bergdahl served with “honor and distinction,” is taking a shellacking.
On Capitol Hill, the leader of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Dianne Feinstein, took a poke at the president by saying she regretted there was “not a level of trust” sufficient for him to inform her first — and went on to say Obama’s deputy national security adviser had called to apologize.
Meanwhile Sen. Mark Pryor, facing a tough re-election in Arkansas, says he has “a lot of concern” about the deal.
The White House says it acted because Bergdahl’s health was declining.
Others wonder if this is a first step toward closing Gitmo. Still others speculate he was trying to distract attention from the scandal over the treatment of vets at our VA hospitals.
If so, clearly it has backfired. Attention now is on this rotten deal, and claims by those who served with Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl he’s a deserter who got other US soldiers killed.
As horrible as that would be, even worse would be a commander-in-chief who ended up having done much the same by giving five top Taliban commanders a second chance to kill Americans.