Republicans accuse Obama of ulterior motive in Guantanamo prisoner swap

[December 11, 2015]  By Patricia Zengerle
 
 WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republican lawmakers accused President Barack Obama on Thursday of arranging the exchange of five inmates from the Guantanamo Bay detention center for accused Army deserter Bowe Bergdahl as part of his plan to close the prison.

The House Armed Services Committee's Republican majority released a report that found the Obama administration "clearly broke the law" by failing to notify Congress of the transfer of the prisoners from Guantanamo Bay before it took place.

Republican Representative Mac Thornberry, the committee's chairman, said in a statement that before the transfer, Congress was misled about the status of negotiations.

"It is irresponsible to put these terrorists that much closer to the battlefield to settle a campaign promise and unconscionable to mislead Congress in the process," he said.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest stood by the administration's actions, and said Obama "believes strongly" that the country should make every effort to recover anyone who wears a U.S. military uniform.

"There was a unique opportunity that was presented to safely recover Sergeant Bergdahl and that's exactly what we did," Earnest told a press briefing.

Democratic members of the House panel issued a statement criticizing the report as "unfair, partisan and redundant."

Bergdahl disappeared on June 30, 2009, from a U.S. outpost in Afghanistan and was captured by the Taliban, from whom he suffered years of abuse and torture. He was freed in 2014 in a prisoner swap that sent five Taliban prisoners who were being held at Guantanamo to Qatar.

That exchange took place before Congress was informed. It infuriated Republicans in Congress, many of whom strongly oppose efforts by Obama, a Democrat, to close the controversial prison.

Obama, who campaigned on a pledge to close the Guantanamo prison, views it as a damaging symbol of detainee abuse and detention without charge that his administration inherited from Republican President George W. Bush.

But he has not yet sent Congress a long-promised plan to close the facility, and recently signed a sweeping defense policy bill that included provisions making it more difficult to shut it down.

There are 107 detainees remaining at Guantanamo, dozens of whom have been approved for transfer.

(Reporting by Patricia Zengerle, additional reporting by Roberta Rampton; editing by David Gregorio, Bernard Orr)

[© 2015 Thomson Reuters. All rights reserved.]

Copyright 2015 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.