Call Sign Extortion 17 (26 page)

Chapter 46

Chaffetz on Fox: The Pink Elephant Lives

Later that day, following the congressional hearing, Congressman Chaffetz appeared in a five-­minute interview with Fox News about the hearing. A review of that interview shows how little the hearing accomplished and, in fact, how nothing was accomplished on the biggest pink elephant question looming over the mission: “Who were the seven Afghans?”

 

Shannon Bream, Fox News:
Doug Hamburger, whose son, Staff Sergeant Patrick was killed in this crash, said he wanted to know why Afghans were not interviewed as part of the military's post-­crash investigation. Did you get any answers on that point today?

Congressman Chaffetz:
I asked that specific question, in the hearing, of the Pentagon. They did not have a good answer on that. They agreed to get back to us on that. But we did not get a clarifying answer on that particular point.

 

The congressman asked the question about Afghans not being interviewed by the Colt team, and got no answer. The lack of response that Congressman Chaffetz got was unacceptable and showed the military, again, doing all it could to avoid the “A” word (Afghan).

But an even larger question still looms. Who were the Afghans who boarded that chopper?” That question was not asked and, of course, there was no answer. Here is another key exchange.

 

Shannon Bream, Fox News:
Charles Strange, the father of one of the Navy SEALs, Michael Strange, said he didn't believe the explanation
from the Pentagon that the Taliban wasn't tipped off to this mission—the Extortion 17 mission—And there are many of these families who say they feel in some way that the Taliban had gotten certain information—from somebody who leaked information, and that's how they knew this particular Chinook was coming. Any discussion of that?

Congressman Chaffetz:
I think it was a legitimate question. But if you look at the operation itself, there was actually a Ranger team that went in first, and then this SEAL team. Primarily SEALs. There were Army involved in this. Air Force as well. But this team was actually not . . . they were the backup. And when they were called into service, they didn't know exactly where they were gonna go until they actually went and took off. I don't think there was even an opportunity to tell the Taliban. It's horrific. It's awful. These people are going to the most dangerous places in the world. But I don't see any evidence that somehow the Taliban was tipped off and they were prepared, and that's what took out this helicopter.

 

The congressman's response seems inadequate here. He seems to proffer the theory that because this was a contingency mission, designed to back up the Rangers, that there was no way the Taliban could have been tipped off in advance.

But there are numerous holes in the congressman's assumption—emphasizing the word “assumption”—that the Taliban was not tipped.

First, Chaffetz should not have ruled out the possibility the seven Afghans who infiltrated the chopper were Taliban infiltrators. The military has remained suspiciously mum about them on every front. Could they have been carrying communications or tracking devices that would have allowed them to either talk to their comrades on the ground or communicate GPS positioning data?

Knowing the immense problem of well-­documented Green-­on-­Blue violence, one simply cannot come to an objective, intellectual conclusion that the Taliban was not tipped off until ruling out that the seven unidentified Afghans were Taliban operatives or sympathizers.

Moreover, Congressman Chaffetz did not even address the British press reports from the
Telegraph
and the
Daily Mail
. Here's the relevant
portion, again, of that August 10, 2011,
Daily Mail
report quoting an Afghan government official that the Taliban had been tipped.


 

He (Afghan government official) said that Taliban commander Qari Tahir lured US forces to the scene by tipping them off that a Taliban meeting was taking place.

He also said four Pakistanis helped Tahir carry out the strike.

‘Now it's confirmed that the helicopter was shot down and it was a trap that was set by a Taliban commander,' said the official, citing intelligence gathered from the area.

 

What steps were taken to ensure that these reports in the British press were not accurate? Wouldn't that be important? Instead, the pink elephant in the room was ignored again.

Congressman Chaffetz didn't mention these reports. Deputy Assistant Defense Secretary Reid didn't mention them. And General Colt, as previously reported, certainly didn't cover this issue in his questions.

Is this why the Afghans weren't interviewed, because they could have confirmed exactly what the British press quoted them as saying, that the Taliban had been tipped? Or does the military establishment not want it out in the open that Qari Tahir had set a trap by putting out information that this meeting was taking place?

If Qari Tahir had, in fact, floated this information to lure the chopper, as the British press reported, then the Taliban would know the flight path of the chopper, and all they would need to do would be to surround the meeting area with men with RPGs and wait for the sound of the rotary blades.

Moreover, if they had sympathizers aboard Extortion 17 with communications or tracking devices, then the trap becomes more executable. For the congressman to simply come to the conclusion that the Taliban was not tipped was a premature conclusion, based upon speculation and not enough information.

According to Doug Hamburger, father of guardsman Pat Hamburger, who died in the shoot-­down, his son had reported that one of the biggest problems with Afghan forces flying aboard US helicopters was that the Afghans were often insistent upon carrying their cellphones aboard.
This often created a bone of contention between the Afghans and the Americans.

With the cellphones, the Afghans could text, they could call, and many of these cellphones had tracking features, which would, in theory, make it relatively simple to track the position of an approaching helicopter.

The congressman might not have seen any evidence of an inside job, but he wouldn't have the evidence unless he asked the right questions—unless, of course, the predetermined goal was to wind up with no evidence. Another excerpt from the Fox News broadcast:

 

Shannon Bream, Fox News:
So the families say they've got inconsistent stories. They've been told things and there are discrepancies that don't line up. Do you think they're getting any closer to having any kind of closure? Not that you can when you lose a loved one like this. But at least to get some answers that make sense for them?

Chaffetz:
Well Shannon, that's really the reason we held the hearing today. I think we clarified things about the black box. About the operation itself. About the so-­called flash flood.

 

With all due respect to Congressman Chaffetz, absolutely nothing was clarified about the black box. If there was no black box, then why did the Pathfinder team spend considerable time and effort looking for a black box? Why did the Pathfinders testify under oath that this was the first time they had never found a black box?

Moreover, why weren't the families informed that there was “no black box” way back in October 2011, at the meeting between General Colt and Extortion 17 families in Virginia? The black box was very much on the minds of family members then, and they specifically asked Brigadier General Colt about it.

The families interviewed by the author say that Colt never told them that there was no black box. Billy and Karen Vaughn, parents of fallen Navy SEAL Aaron Vaughn, say when Colt was asked about the black box, he was cagey and told them to read the report.

Charles Strange, father of Navy cryptologist Michael Strange, was blunter. When he asked Colt about the black box, according to Mr. Strange, Colt informed him that the black box had been “blown away by the flood.”

So Mr. Reid's new claim on February 27, 2014, that there was no black box was a major shift in the story that the military had floated—no pun intended—up to that point about the box disappearing in the flood.

Why wait so long to make this claim? Why the apparent shift? None of it rings true. And none of these questions were pressed by congressional committee members. Instead, there appears to be a willingness on the part of Congressman Chaffetz to simply buy into the military's “there was no black box theory,” without questioning prior contradictions.

Chapter 47

Cremation and the Destruction of DNA Evidence

The congressional subcommittee not only did not touch on the issue of what happened to the bodies of the Americans killed, but just as important for purposes of getting to the truth, they did not explore what happened to the bodies of the seven Afghans who infiltrated the aircraft.

Many family members were upset about the handling of the bodies after Extortion 17 was shot down. Much has been said, and rightly so, about a joint “ramp ceremony” at Bagram Air Base, on August 8, 2011, just two days after the shoot-­down, when all thirty Americans, and all eight Afghans (the seven unidentified Afghans plus the Afghan translator) were flown to Bagram, where their caskets were removed from Air Force jets, and words were spoken over their bodies by a Muslim cleric (imam) in Arabic.

When the cleric's words were later translated, his words were interpreted to be highly disrespectful, calling the deceased Americans of Extortion 17 “the companions of the fire” and a number of other questionable comments.

The imam's prayer over the bodies included the following, according to the translator, who had been associated with Congresswoman Michele Bachmann's office:

“In the name of Allah, the merciful forgiver. The companions of the fire (the sinners and infidels who are fodder for hell fire), are not equal with the companions of heaven. The companions of heaven (Muslims) are the winners.”

These words, many of the families argued, were highly inappropriate, insulting, and inflammatory because (a) the majority of Americans aboard Extortion 17 were professing Christians and there were no Americans aboard who were Muslim, and (b) the language concerning “companions of fire” and “infidels” appeared to be a direct slap to those who died in the fiery inferno that was Extortion 17. It certainly was not appropriate, and was indeed highly insensitive, that the fallen, non-­Muslim Americans, laid out in coffins before the imam, were called “infidels.”

Disgusting as that language may be, from a forensics standpoint, the whole hullabaloo over the ramp ceremonies, both at Bagram and then again on August 9, 2011, at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, where the thirty American caskets and eight Afghan caskets were flown for another ramp ceremony, this time with President Obama present—was a convenient distraction to a bigger point: What happened to the bodies?

Gary Reid spent a portion of his limited time at the congressional hearing defending the imam's comments, but nobody asked the question, “What happened to the bodies?”

Perhaps even more important, no one asked, “Why were the unidentified Afghans flown back to the United States?”

Were they flown back because it had been determined that they were Taliban infiltrators and, if this information got out, that it could be highly damaging to the United States? Not a single member of the congressional panel asked that question on February 27, 2014.

Think of the oddity of bringing foreign soldiers back to the United States to have their bodies disposed of here. It would seem that the Afghans, if they were up to something honorable, would be entitled to a burial with honors in Kabul or an Afghan military cemetery somewhere in Afghanistan.

Think of how odd it would be if, on the beaches at Normandy, the bodies of fallen British and Canadian soldiers had been scooped up by the United States and brought back to the United States for disposal, rather than being left with the military authorities for a dignified treatment and burial in their own countries. Such treatment would have been an arrogant slap in the face to America's British and Canadian allies.

So just why were these Afghans brought back to the USA? And what became of their bodies?

Several family members were flat out told by US military officers that all the bodies had been cremated. One of the family members who received this information was Mr. Charles Strange of Philadelphia, the father of US Navy cryptologist Michael Strange. Mr. Strange has been publicly vocal about this issue and has demanded answers as to why Michael and the others were cremated.

So why is the cremation issue relevant to the forensics puzzle of this case? If the bodies were cremated, DNA evidence was destroyed. If DNA evidence was destroyed, it becomes impossible to identify the unidentified Afghans. Thus, if the unidentified Afghans were Taliban infiltrators or sympathizers, their identities will probably never be known because of the military's decision to cremate. If, in fact, this aircraft was infiltrated, and possibly even sabotaged by Taliban sympathizers who drew weapons while the aircraft was in flight, or possibly communicated with Taliban attackers on the ground, then cremating the bodies might be a way to keep that information from the public. Could this explain why the bodies of the Afghans, strangely, were brought back to the United States?

Going back to the topic of the brief congressional hearing on February 27, 2014, with all those casualty and funeral experts appearing before the subcommittee (four of the five witnesses were military casualty and funeral experts), one would think that there would have been some solid testimony about what happened to the bodies after they were transported back to the United States.

The cremation account, like the black box account, had been reported several times in the public domain, and even Congressman Chaffetz, who was conducting the hearing, was quoted by Bob Cusack in the article in
The Hill
on July 23, 2013, as saying, “The body I saw didn't need to be cremated.” Yet, at Chaffetz's own hearing, none of the four mortuary/funeral experts either confirmed or denied the cremation reports. Instead, they opted for absolute silence. Why didn't Chaffetz ask whether the bodies were cremated? Why not ask about the family members who were told by military officials in 2011 that all the bodies from Extortion 17, including
Americans and Afghans, were cremated? Why not ask for a confirmation, a denial, or at least some clarification?

It was as if the military members testifying and the members of the congressional committee were determined not to touch this very important issue, pointing to either gross incompetence or a cover-­up.

Is it possible that not all the bodies were cremated? Note that previously in this book, we've qualified the verb “cremate” with the adverb “apparently.”

That's because the military has never publicly said that the bodies were cremated, although officers have told some family members that their sons were cremated. To create even more confusion on the issue, one family member of an Extortion 17 crewmember has reported that a local coroner witnessed seeing his son's body in the casket prior to burial. The young man in question was not interred in Arlington. Though most of the SEAL team members are buried in Arlington, some, including most of the National Guardsmen, are buried in their hometowns around the country.

The cremation issue marks another example of inconsistency, contradiction, confusion and stonewalling on the part of the military regarding a subject of crucial importance. The military claims none of the remains are identifiable, even though testimony in the Colt Report, autopsies, and the report from the local coroner clearly contradict that claim.

Then, on top of those contradictions, we have Congressman Chaffetz's remark about the “body not needing to be cremated.”

Remember that at the time of this statement, Congressman Chaffetz, as chairman of the National Security subcommittee, had access to confidential, Top Secret information that the general public was not privy to. His comment is very telling.

Remember, too, that cremation is germane to an understanding of this case because it goes to the identity, or lack of identity, of the Afghans who infiltrated the helicopter without legal authorization or authority. Creating the illusion that the bodies were cremated because they were so badly burned and unidentifiable serves as a deterrent against the public demanding the identity of the Afghans.

On this issue, there has been more contradiction and sleight-­of-­hand from the military. For instance, the official military reports, disseminated by military spokesmen to the public, claimed that the bodies were so badly mangled that there were “no identifiable remains.” On August 9, 2011, Pentagon spokesman Marine Col. David Lapan told reporters that there were “no identifiable remains” of the thirty troops.

A
McClatchy
newspaper article written by Nancy A. Youssef and Jonathan S. Landay that same day, August 9, 2011, also reported a Pentagon spokesman as saying “there were no identifiable remains.” The
Potomac Local News
reported that Petty Officer Michael Strange was going to be cremated, a procedure not consented to or approved of by his family. Other news outlets reported the same thing in covering the arrival of the bodies at Dover, parroting the Pentagon line that none were identifiable.

This Pentagon-­foisted version of events, that “all bodies were so badly mangled that there were no identifiable remains,” creates the perfect backdrop for justification of the cremation of bodies. In other words, since “there were no identifiable remains,” then we (the military) had no choice but to go ahead and cremate.

Of course, nowhere has the military publicly admitted to cremation. But casualty assistance call officers (CACO) did tell Mr. Strange that his son and the others were cremated.

Mr. Strange later saw a photograph of his son's body, taken at the crash site, and determined that he did not have to be cremated, because his body was still sufficiently intact. Mr. Strange was extremely upset when he saw the photograph, and came to the realization that cremation was in fact unnecessary.

But internal sworn testimony contained within the Colt Report (but not mentioned in the Executive Summary) totally contradicts the military's official “there were no identifiable remains” line.

Remember that the military probably was not anticipating the public release of underlying evidence from the Colt Report, and probably calculated that it could get away with yet another false narrative by publicly claiming that “there were no identifiable remains.” Why spread such a false narrative, unless you're embracing justification for cremating bodies?

Consider, for example, the sworn testimony of the J3 operations officer provided at Exhibit 1, page 116 of the Colt Report.

 

So they pulled off there, no signs of survivors. I do want to highlight here, and I will show you in the next slide, there was a single, coherent crash site. It was all together. There were a number of individuals outside the wreckage, and those were the individuals, the six friendly KIA. Later on, I heard a number that there were actually eight outside—identified as outside the wreckage that were not really burned and they were recognizable.

 

This is the same officer who also started to testify about the unauthorized Afghans who infiltrated the aircraft, but was cut off midstream by his boss.

The public claim made by the Pentagon that “there were no identifiable remains” was undercut and undermined by internal sworn testimony within its own report.

Why would the military disseminate false information about the bodies' condition? With sworn testimony that at least eight bodies were “not really burned” and “were recognizable,” why would the military publicly claim that there were “no identifiable remains”?

It's important to understand regarding this false claim, as with so many of the other public contradictions and inaccuracies contained in the Colt Report, that the data in the report had not been declassified, and those conveying the false information probably never thought that the real, underlying data would be quickly declassified and analyzed.

So why disseminate the false reports that
all
the bodies were unidentifiable, contradicting internal evidence that at least eight were recognizable? Here's why: Because if all the bodies were truly mangled and burned to the point that they could not be identified, then the military could better justify its decision to cremate.

All these claims about the bodies being unrecognizable would seem to justify the military's purported cremation of the bodies which, conveniently, destroyed DNA evidence on the identity of the Afghan infiltrators.

As the blatant contradictions and inaccuracies mount, it becomes more and more obvious that the military spun a web of lies to hide the truth about what really happened.