CNN "State of the Union with Candy Crowley" - Transcript: Department of Veterans' Affairs and Bowe Bergdahl
Interview
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CROWLEY: With me now, my group of wise guys, General Jim Jones, Obama's first national security adviser, House Intelligence Chairman Mike Rogers, Nicholas Burns, former undersecretary of state and current Harvard University professor.
So, you all know what the story is. It does seem to me that we had a clash of mottoes: the U.S. doesn't negotiate with terrorists, leave no man behind.
REP. MIKE ROGERS (R-MI), CHAIR, HOUSE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE: Well, I mean, obviously, we should be happy for the family. They have gotten their loved one back. That's very, very important.
The methodology and what we used is very troublesome. Remember, al Qaeda in the Maghreb...
CROWLEY: And by the methodology, you mean...
ROGERS: Negotiating with terrorists.
CROWLEY: OK.
ROGERS: Remember, this was an individual who was held by a terrorist group in another country, Pakistan. We know that to be true.
Across Northern Africa, the number one way that al Qaeda raises money is by ransom, kidnapping and ransom. We have now set a price. So we have a changing footprint in Afghanistan, which would put our soldiers at risk for this notion that, if I can get one, I can get five Taliban released.
And the problem is, the way we're changing our footprint means we get less intelligence. And that's already starting to happen. And we will get more degradation of the ability to collect intelligence to even stop force protection efforts for our soldiers. That's why so many of us are so concerned about what really is a break with U.S. policy of not negotiating with terrorists.
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CROWLEY: And -- but the truth is, we weren't really ever at war in Afghanistan against Afghanistan or Pakistan or any country.
We were at war with a group -- expand it to groups -- but, nonetheless, in the world of asymmetric warfare, where we are fighting groups and not nations, we used to do prisoner exchanges with nations all the time when we were at war with them.
Why not now?
ROGERS: Because, again, the Haqqani Network is a terrorist organization. It's not a nation-state. They don't control government services or -- or anything that even closely resembles...
CROWLEY: But we were at war with them, yes?
ROGERS: Well, we're with war with anyone that declares war against the United States, which is al Qaeda and its affiliates and those who have provided resources to do bad things.
CROWLEY: Right. And, therefore, if you're at war with this group, as you would be with a state, you know, with Germany, you know, in the past, don't you of necessity have to negotiate a prisoner exchange?
ROGERS: No. Here is where I disagree completely. Now, we have other means to use, and remember, they came to Congress about a year ago and said, we're thinking about doing these negotiations. And by the way, they didn't get a very warm reception from either party in the national security committees. They said, this is fraught with trouble.
Well so this all of a sudden comes a year later. They didn't notify congress. I think they violated the law in two different places here. Why is because this is a -- this is morphing into different places. So, an al Qaeda affiliate in now Africa looks a lot and functions a lot like the al Qaeda affiliates operating out of the tribal areas in Pakistan.
You can't -- if you negotiate here, you've sent a message to every al Qaeda group in the world that says, by the way who are some who are holding U.S. hostages today, that there is some value now in that hostage in a way they didn't have before. That is dangerous. And so our argument is, listen, we don't fight this like we would fight a nation state war. You can't, and you shouldn't negotiate with terrorists for this very reason.
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CROWLEY: Is there no one in Congress you can trust for the information to call up (ph) the chairman of the intelligence committee or the chairwoman on the other side and say, I want you to know this is happening, we have to act now?
SUSAN RICE, NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: Well, we did do that. In fact we have briefed Congress in the past about this potential.
CROWLEY: In the past. But when you knew you were going.
RICE: When the deal was done and Sergeant Bergdahl was in U.S. custody is when we began making notifications to Congress.
CROWLEY: But the deal had already been made and the prisoners in Guantanamo Bay were already on route of a plane to go to --
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RICE: No. Actually Congress began to be notified when Sergeant Bergdahl was in American hands which was actually before the prisoners have left Guantanamo.
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CROWLEY: Congressman, she said, look, the DOD, the Pentagon went to the Justice Department, asked them if it was OK given the laws surrounding who needs to be consulted about the release of these Gitmo prisoners and the Justice Department said, fine.
ROGERS: Well, there a reason that Congress is involved by law, by statute, by constitutional authority in these decisions prior to the notification has to be -- to keep Congress currently informed, number one. And the reason is you don't want to talk to each other about something as sensitive as this. That's why Congress is involved in these issues. And it happens frequently on some very sensitive issues.
Everything from the Osama bin Laden raid which was briefed to those members of us with the clearances literally months and months in advance and followed up to the day of the raid. So some notion that this was so secretive and so sensitive that it couldn't happen is just wrong.
And you know, she said she notified. I'm mystified by that. They didn't notify Congress appropriately and here is why. Other places that we have let the Gitmo prisoners go to these particular countries, by the way, which we paid them to take them, has been a disaster. It hasn't worked, which is one of the things that last year we brought up to them, it's not working.
So, if we're ever going to continue this, you need to change it. Well, they didn't like the advice and counsel they got from Congress and apparently decided they were going to go their own direction. I always think that's dangerous, just like the secret negotiations with Iran has huge consequences with our allies, this is going to cost huge consequences as well.
And I just don't understand why you wouldn't engage with people who have done this for a long time and bring, I think, good advice and counsel could have alleviated some of the problems that they're going to get into in the next days and months ahead, including the risk to our U.S. soldier.
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ROGERS: He was there for five years. His service to his country is unparalleled, no one should question that. But the management of the V.A. in the last five years has not been good. An eight percent increase in veterans, 34 percent increase in funding. Someone has to be held accountable.
Now, I didn't call for his resignation. I thought he should come to Congress and lay out a plan to fix it. That never really happened and he becomes a distraction. This is as serious a problem as I have ever seen and the culture is rotten to the core that would allow double lists and veterans to actually die sitting on those lists. Something is rotten at the V.A. and we need to get to the bottom of it.
I would bring somebody from the outside to get a handle on this thing and it should be quick. It should be severe. This notion that nobody gets fired in this town and everybody is a wonderful human being and the way they manage is just simply not the way the world works. If we want to get to the bottom of it, people I think need to be held accountable yesterday and at the same time a plan of implementation to get it fixed.
CROWLEY: General Jones, you probably knew General Shinseki and know him well. Do you think this was about politics or do you think this was about his service at the V.A.?
JONES: Well, I think frankly, Ric Shinseki, who I do know well, he was chief of staff at the army when I was commandant of the Marine Corps. We've been associates for a long time. There was no finer soldier that I know.
But what's happened at the V.A. is something that I know that he is deeply troubled by and was surprised by. It really suggests a systemic problem of enormous proportions. And we have a saying in the military that, a leader is responsible for all that his unit does and fails to do. No one has lived up to that more than Ric Shinseki. And that's why I think that probably today in retrospect he really feels that he should have known, and he regrets he didn't and -- but I think there's a lot of problems in the chain of command that kept him from knowing what he should have known.
CROWLEY: Well, got (ph) to (INAUDIBLE) chain of command, I think. General Jim Jones, Congressman Mike Rogers, Former Ambassador Nick Burns, you have added immensely to our discussion today. I really appreciate you coming.
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