In an appearance on Fox News Channel’s “The Kelly File” on Monday, former Navy SEAL Marcus Luttrell, whose survival story was publicized in the movie “Lone Survivor” reacted to the deal the U.S. government made for the release of U.S. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, which came at the expense of releasing five high-ranking Taliban from the U.S. detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
According to a recent USA Today poll, only 16 percent of military veterans polled thought the deal was a good one. But 68 percent of the respondents said it was the wrong the thing to do, which Luttrell acknowledged was his position.
“I agree with that,” Luttrell said. “From a military perspective, it was a bad deal. I mean, we worked real hard getting those guys. They just weren’t the bottom of the barrel — the IED placers. I mean, they were high-value targets. We spent a lot of time and intel going after these guys and getting them at a great cost to us as a matter of fact. And the way the organization works, it’s not built from the bottom up, it’s built from the top down, OK? So you get the guys in there that know what they’re doing, that know how to put something to together — the propaganda machine all the way to the tactics and they recruit and build on top of that. And the fact that they, I mean, very well could say, ‘Hey you know, the Americans had me for 12 years. They never broke me. I’m this guy. I’m back. Follow me.”
Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor
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