White House Overrode Pentagon And The Intelligence Community's Objections To Release The Taliban Five

President Barack Obama meets with Senior Advisors in the Oval Office, May 27, 2014. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

White House Overrode Internal Objections To Taliban Prisoner Release -- Time

Pentagon, Intelligence officials used Top Secret intelligence to prevent previous release of Taliban Five, officials tell TIME.

To pull off the prisoner swap of five Taliban leaders for Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, the White House overrode an existing interagency process charged with debating the transfer of Guantanamo Bay prisoners and dismissed long-standing Pentagon and intelligence community concerns based on Top Secret intelligence about the dangers of releasing the five men, sources familiar with the debate tell TIME.
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National Security Council officials at the White House decline to describe the work of the ad hoc process they established to trade the prisoners, or to detail the measures they have taken to limit the threat the Taliban officials may pose. They say consensus on the plan was reached by the top officials of Obama’s national security team, including representatives from the Pentagon, State Department, intelligence community and Joint Chiefs of Staff. “These releases were worked extensively through deputies and principals,” says National Security Counsel Deputy for Strategic Communications Ben Rhodes. “There was not a dissent on moving forward with this plan.”

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My Comment: The decision to release these Taliban prisoners .... some of them wanted for war crimes .... was clearly a political decision and not a military-intelligence one. On a side note .... I must confess that the more that I am learning about this case .... I am becoming more disgusted on how this entire process played out. Not surprising .... most of the Democrats in the US Congress and the US Senate (who have access to information far more detailed than what I can get my hands on) have been eerily quiet on this issue. I guess their political instincts are coming into play, and they know that this prisoner swap story is becoming politically poisonous.