At a joint news conference with British PM David Cameron in June 2014, President Obama laughed off questions surrounding the exchange of five high-ranking Taliban leaders for alleged deserter Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, saying, "I’m never surprised by controversies that are whipped up in Washington."
The president's comments came in response to a question from a reporter about whether or not he was "surprised" by pushback over the prisoner swap. Obama dismissed the controversy surrounding his choice to keep Congress out of the loop and Bergdahl's possible desertion, declaring he will "make no apologies for making sure that we get back a young man to his parents":
OBAMA: Heh heh. Yeah, uh, I’m never surprised by controversies that are whipped up in Washington, right? That’s — that’s par for the course. But I’ll repeat what I said two days ago. We have a basic principle. We do not leave anybody wearing the American uniform behind. 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.
We had discussed with Congress the possibility that something like this might occur, but because of the nature of the folks that we were dealing with and the fragile nature of these negotiations we felt it was important to go ahead and do what we did and we’re now explaining to Congress the details of how we move forward, but this basic principle that we don’t leave anybody behind and this basic recognition that often means prisoner exchanges with enemies is not unique to my administration. It dates back to the beginning of our republic.
And with respect to how we announced it, I think it was important for people to understand that this is not some abstraction, this is not a political football. You have a couple of parents whose kid volunteered to fight in a distant land. Who they hadn’t seen in five years. And weren’t sure whether they’d ever see again. And as Commander in Chief of the United States Armed Forces I am responsible for those kids, and i get letters from parents who say if you are, in fact, sending my child into war make sure that that child is being taken care of and I write too many letters to folks who unfortunately don’t see their children again after fighting a war. I make absolutely no apologies for making sure that we get back a young man to his parents and that the American people understand that this is somebody’s child and that we don’t condition whether or not we make the effort to try to get them back.
After an extensive investigation, the U.S. Army has charged Bergdahl with desertion and misbehavior before the enemy, charges Army Forces Command spokesman Col. Daniel J. W. King suggested in his statement Wednesday could lead to a sentence of life in prison. Here are the formal charges as laid out by Col. King:
KING: The U.S. Army Forces Command has reviewed the army's investigation surrounding sergeant Robert Beaudry Bergdahl's 2009 disappearance in Afghanistan and formally charged Sergeant Bergdahl under the Armed Forces Uniform Code Of Military Justice on March 25th, 2015 with desertion, with intent to shirk important or hazardous duty and misbehavior before the enemy by endangering the safety of a command, unit or place, and has referred the case to an article 34 preliminary hearing. Again, Sergeant Bergdahl is charged under the uniform code of military justice with one count of article 85, desertion with intent to shirk important or hazardous duty and one count of article 99, misbehavior before the enemy, by endangering the safety of a command unit or place.
