He does not appear to be affected here.
Bergdahl Explains His Reasoning in Newly Released Documents
ABC: Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl said he left a post in Afghanistan in 2009 to draw attention to what he saw as bad decisions by officers above him, according to documents released Wednesday that also show he was diagnosed with a psychiatric disorder.
Attorneys for Bergdahl, who faces charges including desertion, said they released the documents to help counteract negative publicity over the case.
Bergdahl told a general who investigated the case that he hoped to cause an alarm by leaving his post, then walk to a larger base in Afghanistan so he could have an audience with a top commander.
“So, the idea was to — it was— literally, it was a sacrificial — it was a self-sacrifice thing,” Bergdahl said, according to the transcript of a 2014 interview with Maj. Gen. Kenneth Dahl.
Another newly released document from July 2015 shows that an Army Sanity Board Evaluation concluded that Bergdahl suffered from schizotypal personality disorder when he left the post. A Mayo Clinic website says people with the disorder have trouble interpreting social cues and can develop significant distrust of others.
Bergdahl faces charges of desertion and misbehavior before the enemy, the latter of which carries up to a life sentence. He was held five years by the Taliban and its allies before a swap involving five Guantanamo Bay detainees, prompting criticism from some in Congress that the move threatened national security.
His military trial had been tentatively scheduled to begin over the summer, but it has been delayed by disagreements over access to classified materials.
Bergdahl’s attorney Eugene Fidell said the decision to release the documents was made to fight negative publicity and because prosecutors have already entered part of the interview into the court record.
“The more Americans know about this case, the better,” Fidell said in an email.
An Army spokesman didn’t immediately respond to an email seeking comment about the new documents after hours Wednesday.
In the interview, Bergdahl expressed misgivings about how he and other soldiers were sent to help retrieve a disabled armored vehicle before encountering explosives and enemy fire that turned a six-hour mission into one lasting several days. None of the men was killed, but Bergdahl said an officer complained they were unshaven upon their return to base.
He said he began to worry that if he didn’t say anything, a future bad order could get someone in his platoon killed.
He described coming up with a plan to leave the observation post his platoon was manning: “The only thing that I could see was, I needed to get somebody’s attention.”
He ruled out going to the media and instead decided to trigger an alarm by sneaking off and then walking to a larger base nearby. He described his thought process, referring to himself in the third-person: “That guy disappears. No one knows what happened to him. That call goes out. It hits every command. Everybody goes, what has happened?”
Within a couple days, he planned to show up at the base: “the Soldier shows up … People recognize him. They ID him. They go, ‘What did you just do?’ And that Soldier says, ‘I am not saying anything about what I did until I am talking to a general.'”
Instead, he wound up in enemy captivity.
**** The Bergdahl case is delayed indefinitely.
Military: A military appeals court halted proceedings against U.S. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl on Tuesday while it considers a dispute over how much leeway the defense should have in accessing classified information.
The order delaying the case against Bergdahl, who walked off an outpost in Afghanistan in 2009, was issued by the U.S. Army Court of Criminal Appeals. Prosecutors asked the appeals court to consider overturning a decision by the trial judge regarding thousands of pages of classified documents. The defense has argued that prosecutors want them to follow a cumbersome process of seeking classified information while it prepares for trial.
The issue had been debated for weeks in pretrial motions and emails between the sides. It wasn’t clear how long the trial tentatively scheduled for this summer could be held up while the prosecution’s appeal unfolds.
The judge overseeing Bergdahl’s military trial, Col. Jeffery Nance, ordered prosecutors last week to turn over many of the classified documents they had gathered, subject to certain rules.
“All CI which the government may offer into evidence at trial will immediately be provided to the defense” within the specified constraints, he wrote in his Feb. 2 order, using an abbreviation for classified information.
The judge also disagreed with prosecutors’ arguments that Bergdahl’s attorneys needed an extra layer of approval when they did their own research from the officials who initially restricted a given document — referred to as original classification authorities.
Within days, the prosecutors asked the appeals court to overturn the judge’s decision, adding in their written appeal that “no session of the court should be held or rulings should be issued until conclusion of the appeal.”
A defense attorney for Bergdahl, Eugene Fidell, issued a statement describing the timeline of events leading up to the appeal but declined further comment when reached by phone.
Bergdahl faces charges of desertion and misbehavior before the enemy, a relatively rare charge that carries a punishment of up to life in prison. He was held by the Taliban and its allies for five years after he left the base in Afghanistan.
Bergdahl, of Hailey, Idaho, walked off his post in eastern Afghanistan’s Paktika province on June 30, 2009, and was released in late May 2014 as part of a prisoner swap, in exchange for five detainees in Guantanamo Bay. The move prompted harsh criticism, with some in Congress accusing President Barack Obama of jeopardizing the safety of the country.
He was arraigned in December but has yet to enter a plea.
Walter Huffman, a retired major general who served as the Army’s top lawyer, said the appeals court should move swiftly to resolve the issue because of rules giving the matter priority, but the case could be delayed further if either side were to appeal again.
“It will be resolved as speedily as it can, but if it’s appealed to another court the clock starts ticking again,” he said.
