Feds drop false statement charges against two Navy SEALS

I have written extensively about the three Navy SEALS facing courts martial for their behavior during the capture of a terrorist suspect in Anbar province in Iraq, most recently here.  Today, Fox News is reporting that some charges have been dropped against two of these brave men:

The government has dropped false statement charges against two Navy SEALs accused of mistreating an Iraqi detainee, but more charges remain for the team that captured and reportedly punched an alleged terrorist leader.

Petty Officer 2nd Class Jonathan Keefe of Yorktown, Va., and Petty Officer 1st Class Julio Huertas of Blue Island, Ill., are still charged with dereliction of duty for their role in the capture of Ahmed Hashim Abed -- a terror suspect who the military says masterminded the killing, burning and lynching of contractors for the company formerly known as Blackwater.

Four security contractors were killed and the mutilated bodies of two -- including a former Navy SEAL -- were hung from a bridge over the Euphrates River.

Keefe and Huertas allegedly failed to protect Abed as he was brought into custody and left with a bloody lip. Huertas also is charged with impeding an investigation.

Their trials are set for later this month in Iraq, though another trial stemming from the case will be held stateside.

Petty Officer 2nd Class Matthew McCabe of Perrysburg, Ohio, is charged with punching Abed, dereliction of duty and lying to investigators. His trial is set for May 3 in Norfolk.

Navy spokesman Lt. Arlo Abrahamson said depositions were taken Tuesday from several defense witnesses who have been granted immunity.

I savor good news wherever I can find it, and this is good news.

Biden chutzpah: Cheney trying to rewrite history?

When Vice President Joe Biden predicted that Iraq would be one of President Obama's greatest achievements, the reliable former V.P. Dick Cheney responded forthwith:

"If they're going to take credit for it, fair enough, for what they've done while they're there," Cheney said Sunday. "But it ought to go with a healthy dose of 'thank you, George Bush' up front and a recognition that some of their early recommendations, with respect to prosecuting that war, were just dead wrong."

Obama opposed the war in 2003 and, as an Illinois senator, the troop increase ordered in 2007 by President George W. Bush. Then-Delaware Sen. Biden voted in 2002 to authorize the use of force in Iraq but later declared the war against U.S. interests and opposed the surge, which he once called "a failure."

On Sunday's Meet the Press, Vice President Biden accused former V.P Dick Cheney of trying to rewrite history. Watch this video from Fox News, and decide for yourself who is trying to rewrite history:



IMHO, if anyone is trying to rewrite history, it is Joe Biden:

Federal judge tosses Blackwater case

Last week U.S. District Judge Ricardo Urbina dismissed all charges against five Blackwater World security guards accused of killing unarmed Iraqi civilians in a crowded Baghdad intersection in 2007. Three of these men were former U.S. Marines.  Two were Army veterans.

I reached out to my long time friend, a decorated Marine (retired) who served in Special Operations (and prefers to remain anonymous) to find out what he thought about the decision.  He graciously agreed to let me share his response.

I remember the incident when it happened. The media led their viewers to believe that Blackwater employees were an undisciplined bunch of trigger-happy mercs. My personal feelings of their leadership, interviewers, and recruiters were that they were "cowboys" with big egos that were, in my sole opinion, counter productive in a fire fight or diplomatic protection. It is not good business to be concerned about yourself when providing protecting in a hazardous area. However, like any other business, you have to sell yourself.



When providing protection for a mobile VIP, you get them to their objective as quickly as possible. If traveling behind a diplomatic flag, you don't stop or slow down. At the first sign of trouble return the VIP back to their home base; one of the chase vehicles will take care of the incident just long enough to suppress the fire and return to the VIP. No other action should be required. Certainly not to continue a fire fight or returning to the scene.


The true patriots of our country will always be willing to do what their President asks of them or what is needed to be done to keep our country intact and in line with our Constitution. However, if you can no longer trust your government to give their patriots the benefit of doubt for as long as they will be held accountable for their deeds and actions, does the country deserve these patriots? It's a difficult question to answer and not feel unfaithful. I, along with several others, can't remember how it feels to have a clear conscience or enjoy a peaceful sleep. But, we will always know that the American people and our Commander-in-Chief believed in us and they accept the things we were asked to do.


These young men, to be judged by their peers, would have to have a jury of those who have been in an intense fire fight or have been ambushed. I applaud the Judge. The accused may be guilty of a lack of fire discipline at the most. Now let's prosecute the prosecutors.

Paul Mirengoff at Powerline commented on the dismissal on Saturday:

I haven't studied the facts regarding the underlying charges, though I'm predisposed against criminal charges based on split second decisions made during a fire fight. As to Judge Urbina's decision, it seems pretty elementary that prosecutors can't base an indictment on statements made with the understanding that they won't be used. If that's what happened here, then the charges were correctly dismissed. As much as leftists must hate seeing individuals who protected American interests in Iraq walk, they may be hard-pressed to reconcile their displeasure with their civil libertarian posture. I'm confident some will manage this, though.



Urbina, by the way, is a liberal Clinton appointee. He was the judge who ordered the release of the Uighurs who were held at Guantanamo Bay.

U.S. releases "dangerous" Iranian proxy behind the murder of U.S. troops

The Long War Journal is reporting that the U.S. has released an Iranian prisoner responsible for the murders of five U.S. soldiers in Karbala in 2007:

Qais Qazali, the leader of the Asaib al Haq or the League of the Righteous, was set free by the US military and transferred to Iraqi custody in exchange for the release of British hostage Peter Moore, US military officers and intelligence officials told The Long War Journal. The US military directly implicated Qais in the kidnapping and murder of five US soldiers in Karbala in January 2007.


“We let a very dangerous man go, a man whose hands are stained with US and Iraqi blood,” a military officer said. “We are going to pay for this in the future.”


The US military has maintained the release of members and leaders of the League of the Righteous is related to a reconciliation agreement between the terror group and the Iraqi government, but some US military officers disagree.


“The official line is the release of Qazali is about reconciliation, but in reality this was a prisoner swap,” a military intelligence official said.


Moore and four members of his personal bodyguard were kidnapped at the Finance Ministry in Baghdad in May 2007 by a group that calls itself the Islamic Shia Resistance, which is in fact a front for the League of the Righteous. The group had always insisted the release of Qais, his brother Laith, and other members of the Asaib al Haq be released in exchange for Moore and the others. Three of Moore’s bodyguards were executed while in custody, and the fourth is thought to have been murdered as well.


“This was a deal signed and sealed in British and American blood,” a US military officer told The Long War Journal. “We freed all of their leaders and operatives; they [the League of the Righteous] executed their hostages and sent them back in body bags. And we’re supposed to be happy about it.”

Andy McCarthy wrote about the negotiations for the release of these terrorist murders back in June of 2009 (H/T HotAir):

Prepare to be infuriated.



On Jan. 20, 2007, five American soldiers were killed and three seriously wounded in Iraq. As Bill Roggio relates at the Long War Journal, it was a daring operation: a twelve-man terrorist team disguised as U.S. servicemen attacked our troops as they held a previously arranged meeting with local officials in Karbala. Four of the soldiers were alive when they were abducted from the scene. They were handcuffed and murdered in a remote location when the coalition forces attempting to rescue them closed in.


Given the sophistication of the raid and the intelligence required to pull it off, it was a virtual certainty that the mullahs’ special forces, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, were behind it. More than a decade earlier, in concert with Hezbollah (Iran’s forward terrorist militia), the IRGC had bombed the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia, killing 19 members of the United States Air Force. In Karbala, the IRGC had relied on what Michael Ledeen of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies aptly calls its “most lethal element,” the Quds (Jerusalem) Force, in combination with a burgeoning, Hezbollah-like network of local Shiite terrorists.


This was confirmed two months later when U.S. forces captured Ali Mussa Daqduq, a high-ranking veteran of Hezbollah, in Basrah. As Roggio explains, Daqduq had been tasked by Iran to organize a network of terror cells to strike coalition forces in Iraq. The network would operate under the direction of Qais Qazali. Qazali and his brother, Laith Qazali, were captured along with Daqduq.


Unquestionably, Iran, acting through the Qazali network — which is better known as Asaib al-Haq, or the League of the Righteous — was responsible for the murder of our troops in Karbala. As Ledeen documents in his book The Iranian Time Bomb (reviewed here), Gen. David Petraeus made that clear at an April 2007 press conference. Petraeus detailed that the Qazali brothers were among “the key members” of a network of “extremist secret cells.” These groups, he said, 

were provided substantial funding, training on Iranian soil, advanced explosive munitions and technologies as well as run-of-the-mill arms and ammunition, in some cases advice and in some cases even a degree of direction. When we captured these individuals . . . we discovered . . . a 22-page memorandum on a computer that detailed the planning, preparation, approval process, and conduct of the operation that resulted in five of our soldiers being killed in Karbala . . . . There are numerous documents which detailed a number of different attacks on coalition forces, and our sense is that these records were kept so that they could be handed in to whoever it is that is financing them. And there’s no question, again, that Iranian financing is taking place through the Quds Force of the Iranian Republican [sic] Guards Corps.

About two weeks ago, the Obama administration released Laith Qazali after extensive negotiations with the Asaib al-Haq terror network. That network has long been in negotiations with the fledgling Iraqi government, dangling the possibility of laying down its arms, renouncing violence, and integrating into Iraqi society, provided that its top members — particularly Qais and Laith Qazali, as well as Ali Mussa Daqduq — be released. Realizing, however, that these terrorists were responsible for kidnapping and killing American soldiers in gross violation of the laws of war, the Bush administration had declined to release them.


The Obama administration has not only released Laith Qazali, it has been in negotiations to release his brother, Qais Qazali, as well. The negotiations and release were carried out in flagrant disregard of the longstanding policy against exchanging prisoners for the release of hostages. Undermining that policy endangers all American troops and civilian personnel — as well as the troops and civilian personnel of our allies — by encouraging terrorists to kidnap them to use as bargaining chips.

Today seven CIA agents were killed by Taliban suicide bombers in Afghanistan.  Meanwhile Obama is releasing murderers of our troops, so they can live to kill another day.  Disgusting.