White House press secretary Jay Carney refused on Tuesday to state whether the United States considers the prisoner swap for POW U.S. Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl a negotiation with terrorists.
CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer pointed out that Bergdahl “was being held by the Haqqani network.” In 2012, then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton declared the Haqqani Network in Pakistan and Afghanistan for that matter, but mostly in Pakistan, to be a terrorist organization” contrary to Carney’s assertion that Bergdahl was held by the Taliban. Carney didn’t respond to that point, but asserted that the negotiations were “entirely appropriate.”
When he was asked whether it was “OK now for the United States to negotiate with terrorists,” Carney simply referenced the “long history in this country in our military of not leaving anyone behind.”
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett
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