Prisoner swap
June 2, 2014
DW: Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel said that the release of Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl marked the high point of his tenure. Why do you think this swap is so important for Hagel and President Obama?
Anand Gopal: Well, this is the only prisoner of war in the entire 13-year conflict in Afghanistan, and it is one of the last remaining issues to be resolved in terms of the military, because the US military has a motto of not leaving people behind.
More generally, though, you could see this as a possibility of being a confidence-building measure in terms of possible peace talks with the Taliban. What they've been asking for from day one is a prisoner exchange - trading Guantanamo prisoners for Bergdahl. And this has been tried for a couple of years, and has failed. You could see this as a breakthrough - in fact, as the first step in the possibility of starting peace talks.
The decision to trade these five high-level Taliban officials has prompted heavy criticism from Republicans. Do you think that the decision is compromising national security?
No, I don't. In fact, I think this is actually bolstering the security of the United States. The reason is these five Taliban figures - they're going back to Qatar. The story of the five is very interesting, because all of them had tried to surrender and switch sides in 2001 and 2002. So, many of them could have actually been members of the Afghan government if they hadn't been captured.
For example, one of the five is somebody from the same tribe as Hamid Karzai. And he tried to join the Afghan government, and Pakistan arrested him and gave him to the United States and sent him to Guantanamo. Another one was somebody who was actually a member of the Afghan government. He was a former Taliban member who joined Hamid Karzai's government, but due to false intelligence from a warlord, he was arrested and sent to Guantanamo.
So, these people aren't going to affect the situation on the battlefield. What their release can do, however, is increase the possibility of an eventual negotiated settlement.
The Qatari government acted as an intermediary between the US and the Taliban. After these negotiations, do you think the US can still claim that it does not negotiate with terrorists?
The Taliban are not considered a terrorist group. They haven't been labeled a terrorist group by the United States. There are individual members of the Taliban who are on the United Nations blacklist. But as a group, the Taliban are not considered a terrorist group.
Republicans accuse the president of having violated the law by not giving members of Congress their required 30-day notice before moving prisoners from Guantanamo to Qatar. How do you see this?
They may be right, actually. They're supposed to have 30 days' notice, and he didn't do it. I think that's accurate. I think we might be seeing another scandal - perhaps not to the extent of Benghazi, but on a smaller level - developing in Washington because of that.
You touched on this already, but in what regard does a deal with the Taliban open the door for further negotiations?
This is what we call confidence-building measures. Both sides need to give something to the other side that's relatively easy to give that can build confidence to proceed. Hopefully, this will be the thing that will jump start the talks, because they've stalled. For the last three years, this has been the sticking point. Neither side has been able to move beyond this to get to something more substantive, so hopefully this will actually jumpstart it.
Do you think the US should be part of the peace process, of reconciliation, or should they stay out?
The Taliban has said they're not interested in negotiating with just the Afghan government. I think they recognize that the United States is the real authority, and just negotiating with the government in Kabul won't be sufficient. Pakistan also needs to be involved because they're also a real authority here - because the Taliban are a proxy to Pakistan in the same way that the Afghan government really are proxy to the United States. So, both sides really need to be involved for this to move forward.
Afghanistan expert Anand Gopal is a fellow at the New America Foundation in Washington, DC. Previously he worked as a fellow for the "Wall Street Journal" in Kabul.