Ever since talks for the release of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl began in November 2010, Taliban representatives had a consistent message for the Obama administration. Their priority was freeing a group of Taliban leaders at the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in exchange for the captive U.S. soldier.Continue reading.
The Taliban had a harder time getting a handle on a divided U.S. government's position, as officials in Washington sent mixed messages about the administration's intentions and what it could deliver, according to U.S. officials close to the talks. Different officials and agencies at different times issued demands and threw up roadblocks.
At several points, the Taliban team seemed confused as to why President Barack Obama couldn't just issue an edict to make the exchange happen, say those close to the talks. So U.S. negotiators brought to one meeting a copy of legislation that restricted Mr. Obama's ability to free the detainees on the Taliban's list, and then explained how the provisions limited their room to maneuver.
In the end, Mr. Obama made a decision that wasn't far from what the Taliban had wanted from the start. On his own authority, the president released the group's leaders from Guantanamo in return for Sgt. Bergdahl, without notifying Congress.
That change of heart is one big reason why the prisoner swap has sparked a political backlash that has consumed Washington since the weekend return of Sgt. Bergdahl, who was captured in 2009. Republicans and many Democrats in Congress are furious with the White House for not consulting with lawmakers. Sgt. Bergdahl's hometown in Idaho has been so riven by debate over his release that it has canceled a homecoming celebration.
According to officials, White House aides feared that briefing lawmakers about the talks would increase the chances of leaks, which could scuttle the swap. Worse yet, U.S. officials feared that the captors, who might not have known about the proposed swap, would kill Sgt. Bergdahl if they found out about the negotiations.
Mr. Obama on Thursday defended the exchange and the secrecy surrounding it. "We had a prisoner of war whose health had deteriorated, and we were deeply concerned about. And we saw an opportunity, and we seized it. And I make no apologies for that," he said at a news conference in Brussels.
Even before the first U.S.-Taliban meeting in Munich in November 2010, the proposed talks faced bureaucratic infighting. Top officials in the White House supported the talks, which Mr. Obama authorized. But some officials were reluctant to entrust such a sensitive effort, which they saw as critical to Mr. Obama's legacy, to the late Richard Holbrooke, then the special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Mr. Holbrooke was a well-known, long-serving U.S. diplomat, but his high-profile style of personal diplomacy bothered some of his administration and military counterparts, according to current and former officials involved in the discussions. But the White House agreed to tap his deputy, Frank Ruggiero, to represent the U.S. in Munich, as Mr. Holbrook had proposed. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was supportive but skeptical about the prospects, current and former officials say.
Mr. Holbrooke saw the first round of talks in Munich as a critical opening. The Taliban made clear they really cared about obtaining freedom for the detainees and easing U.S. sanctions against the group. Mr. Holbrooke told aides the U.S. would use both issues as leverage to try to advance its priority of getting the Taliban to enter talks to reconcile with the Afghan government to coincide with an eventual U.S. troop withdrawal and end of the war.
Mr. Holbrooke was just starting to put together a negotiating strategy for the next round of meetings when he died unexpectedly, leaving a leadership void. The U.S. government and the Taliban leadership both knew that talks would be unpopular with their respective fighters on the ground and needed to be closely-held. Then-commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, Gen. David Petraeus, and other military leaders argued that the time wasn't right. Military leaders preferred to notch further battlefield gains to weaken the Taliban before beginning talks, current and former government officials said. Gen. Petraeus declined to comment...
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