Call Sign Extortion 17 Read online

  Here’s how Secretary Gates responded: “Frankly, a week ago Sunday, in the Situation Room, we all agreed that we would not release any operational details from the effort to take out Bin Laden. That all fell apart on Monday—the next day.” He went on to say that “there is an awareness that the threat of retaliation is increased because . . . of the action against Bin Laden.”

  Secretary Gates also talked about meeting with members of the SEAL team, who expressed concern about the safety of their families as a result of Biden’s betrayal of confidence. On May 12, 2011, he was quoted by ABC News as saying, “when I met with the team last Thursday, they expressed a concern about that, and particularly with respect to their families . . . I can’t get into the details in this forum, but we are looking at what measures can be taken to pump up the security.”

  Clearly, Gates was not happy about the vice president’s inexplicable blabbing and breach of trust, and was frank in his comments to that effect. Unfortunately, Biden was not the only senior Administration official to violate the no-­details agreement reached in the Situation Room.

  Panetta’s Gaffe

  On June 24, 2011, while he was still CIA director, and four days before he would succeed Robert Gates as secretary of defense, Leon Panetta went even further than Vice President Biden, and specifically disclosed both Secret and Top Secret information concerning the SEAL team’s operation against the Bin Laden compound to filmmakers working on the movie Zero Dark Thirty, which would chronicle the attack by the SEALs on the Bin Laden compound.

  Panetta revealed details to the scriptwriter Mark Boal, who had been invited to CIA headquarters for a briefing that Panetta was giving on the details of Operation Neptune Spear. How coincidental that the Hollywood writer of the movie that would chronicle the event, thus placing the Obama Administration in a positive light, would happen to have been invited to a briefing given by the CIA director on Top Secret operational details of the event.

  Information concerning Panetta’s breach was discovered through Freedom of Information Act requests served by the Washington-­based watchdog group Judicial Watch, the same group that would later uncover previously unreleased details from the White House about those responsible for the “it’s a video” meme that would be trumpeted by the Administration in the wake of the Benghazi terror attacks against the US consulate.

  On June 15, 2013, the Pentagon inspector general reported that Panetta also discussed classified information designated as Top Secret and Secret during his presentation at an awards ceremony honoring the SEAL team, according to a draft of the inspector general’s report published by the Project on Government Oversight.

  With the inspector general confirming the improper release of classified information by Mr. Panetta, leaving no doubt that it actually happened, Mr. Panetta had little choice but to respond. His stated excuse was that he did not know that Mr. Boal (or anyone else lacking the proper security clearance) was in the room.

  Even if Panetta was telling the truth, that he “did not know” that Boal was in the room, that sort of error would still be an inexcusable act of sloppiness in protecting national security. For Panetta to reveal Top Secret information to an audience without knowing who was listening showed an incredible sloppiness in protecting state secrets designed to save American lives, and was an incredible lapse in professionalism. It was a mistake that the CIA director, of all people, should never have made. For the CIA to be so sloppy as to give someone like Boal access to Top Secret information, and then to hide behind the claim that he somehow slipped into a briefing without proper clearance, looms as an even scarier event than Mr. Biden’s loose lips.

  Regardless, by the time Biden, Panetta, and others were finished with their talking, at the end of June 2011, SEAL Team Six had an Administration-­enhanced target on its back, because the vice president of the United States and the director of the CIA (soon to become secretary of defense when Secretary Gates stepped down) could not keep their lips closed.

  In the summer of 2011, the Taliban, following up on promises for retaliation, and following the babbling sessions by Biden and Panetta, opened up hunting season on US helicopters flying over the Tangi River Valley in Afghanistan.

  On June 4, 2011, just three weeks after US intelligence discovered that the Taliban was moving one hundred insurgents into the valley, and thirty-­one days after the vice president’s gaffe, the Taliban opened fire on a United States UH-60L Black Hawk helicopter. The chopper survived, but barely, as “rounds burned out within 1 rotor disk of the aircraft.” In other words, the Black Hawk escaped by virtue of a near miss.

  Two days later, on June 6, 2011, the Taliban unloaded against a Chinook CH-47D, firing fourteen rocket-­propelled grenades, along with small arms fire, from five different points of origin on the ground. Fortunately, the Chinook in this case, unlike Extortion 17, was not at point-­blank range, and the pilot was able to maneuver it to safety.

  Yet again, on July 20, 2011, only seventeen days prior to the Extortion 17 shoot-­down, a Special Ops MH-47 chopper was fired at from Taliban ground forces over the Tangi River Valley. The Special Ops chopper was hit by small arms fire, but survived the attack and completed its mission.

  The Taliban Response

  So in the midst of babbling by Biden and Panetta, in the summer of 2011, the Taliban launched three attacks against helicopters flying over the Tangi Valley. Fortunately, they were 0 for 3 at this point, but it was very clear that the Taliban was determined to shoot down an American helicopter, both from their threats and their actions.

  The military was aware of heavy antiaircraft fire on the ground in the Tangi River Valley, and was aware of the vulnerability of the CH-47 to ground fire only days before, but still dispatched the SEAL team on a CH-47, without pre-­suppression fire.

  On August 5, 2011, a crescent moon hung over Afghanistan. The moon set at 2200 hours (10:00 p.m.), leaving the skies over Pakistan dark in the hours after midnight.

  On the ground, the men of SEAL Team Six, their backs now targeted by the sloppy negligence of their own vice president and secretary of defense, sat and waited for duty to call.

  Because of a sloppy inability or unwillingness to maintain public secrecy by two of the highest-­ranking officials in the Obama Administration, the SEALs would go into this, their last mission, knowing that they had been singled out and effectively painted as targets by Washington politicians eager to take political credit for their unit’s heroic performance in Operation Neptune Spear.

  Chapter 6

  Background on the Colt Report

  The official military investigation of the shoot-­down produced the Colt Report. The report collected information gathered during a quickly assembled investigation conducted over a period of approximately thirty days, from August 7, 2011, the day after the shoot-­down, to September 7, 2011, the day Brigadier General Colt submitted the report to General James “Mad Dog” Mattis, then commander of CENTCOM (US Central Command).

  Colt, a one-­star US Army general who had been a helicopter pilot, ran the investigation and delivered his report to four-­star general James Mattis, because it was General Mattis who ordered Colt to conduct the investigation to begin with.

  To better understand the chain-­of-­command structure under which this investigation was ordered, it is important to know that CENTCOM is one of nine different “Unified Combatant Commands.” All these Unified Combatant Commands are commanded by a four-­star officer, either a flag officer (Navy) or a general officer (Army, Air Force, Marine Corps).

  The commanders of these Unified Commands report directly to the secretary of defense, who reports to the president. These commanders have actual warfighting capabilities as opposed to some other four-­star officers, such as the officers on the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who serve as military advisors to the president but are not in the chain of command for issuing orders for military operations.

  Six of th
e nine unified commands are geographically centered, giving the flag/general officer warfighting command in a certain part of the world. These include African Command (AFRICOM), Central Command (CENTCOM), European Command (EUCOM), Northern Command (NORTHCOM), US Pacific Command (PACCOM) and Southern Command (SOUTHCOM).

  This means that if conflict breaks out in any given part of the world, the four-­star officer in charge of that Unified Command issues operational orders to US military forces in that region. For example, in recent discussions of the 2012 terrorist attack on the US consulate in Libya, focus centered on Army general Carter Ham, who was the general commanding AFRICOM, because Libya is located in Africa, and the commander of AFRICOM is the general with actual warfighting authority in the chain of command in Africa. Likewise, CENTCOM, headquartered at MacDill Air Base in Florida, also has a geographic responsibility for theater and wartime operations that includes the Middle East, Central Asia, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Because Extortion 17 was operating in Afghanistan, it fell under CENTCOM’s area of responsibility, which is why General Mattis gave the investigation assignment to Brigadier General Colt, who in turn reported back to Mattis.

  The 1,250-page report included eighty-­nine multi-­paged exhibits, ten enclosures, and covered the sworn testimony of numerous witnesses, including the aircrews of Apache gunships and an AC-130 that were in the air when Extortion 17 was shot down.

  The Mysterious Release of the Colt Report

  How did the Colt Report get released to the public to begin with?

  The report was immediately classified as Secret, and how it would end up being largely declassified and released to certain SEAL family members in October of 2011 is not clear. But shortly after the report’s release to a limited number of family members, high-­ranking Pentagon brass discussed a plan to try to get it back, but ultimately did not pursue that strategy, perhaps for legal reasons, or perhaps because trying to get the report back might have proved disastrous for public relations reasons.

  Most likely, its declassification was the work of senior enlisted men and mid-­grade officers in the military who wanted to get the truth out about the mission. Indeed, a number of senior enlisted Special Forces members and mid-­grade officers have provided crucial off-­the-­record information about this mission, showing a dogged determination to get the truth out to the American people. Their willingness to talk may have been a product of the apparent tension between the lower-­level soldiers and the Pentagon’s upper brass and Administration officials over the foolish rules of engagement set forth by the Obama Administration, which many with personal knowledge of this mission believe were responsible for the deaths of the Extortion 17 crew.

  There is no way to be certain about why the report was declassified. But one thing is certain: Certain evidence revealed in the Colt Report leads to concerns about the military’s official position, and contains numerous contradictions and omissions that point to a cover-­up of the truth about the SEALs.

  Only a few copies of the report are in the hands of the public. A handful are in the possession of Extortion 17 family members, although, based upon the author’s discussion with several family members, because of the extreme pain of coming face-­to-­face with the circumstances of their loved ones’ deaths, it appears that very few have actually read the 1,250-page report, at least not in its totality.

  One copy is in the hands of the Washington Times, which has run several stories on the shoot-­down, some based on the report.

  One copy of the report is in the hands of the author.

  The following chapters examine the report with a view toward forensic, testimonial, and other evidence, approaching the shoot-­down as a prosecutor would conduct an initial investigation to determine exactly what happened, based on a total overview of all the evidence available, and to determine who is responsible for the shoot-­down of the SEAL team.

  Chapter 7

  The Colt Report: A General Overview

  The internal evidence in the Colt Report on the shoot-­down of Extortion 17 reveals numerous inconsistencies and contradictions that suggest a cover-­up to prevent the American public from knowing the truth.

  The military, and civilian Pentagon officials, claimed that the death of these men was “just one of those things,” or words to that effect, and “could not have been prevented.”

  But the evidence will show that nothing could be further from the truth.

  Colt Report Undermines Military’s Previous Position

  The Colt Report’s limited release, in October of 2011, effectively undercut public positions taken by the military a month earlier, in September of 2011.

  A similar approach was taken one year later in the immediate aftermath of the Benghazi terror attacks. Initial reports released by the Executive Branch noted that the US consulate was attacked when an angry mob gathered around it was incited by a video. In the weeks and months to follow, additional evidence surfaced leading to the conclusion that the “it was a video that incited a demonstration” narrative was inaccurate. Much in the same way, the military and the government would make initial claims about the shoot-­down, which later proved to be false in the face of clear evidence leaked by the Colt Report. For example, the military claimed that the rocket-­propelled grenade that brought down Extortion 17 was fired from a building 220 meters away, but evidence in the Colt Report proved that claim to be inaccurate.

  Just three days after the shoot-­down on August 9, 2011, the military stated that none of the bodies of the SEALs and Afghans on Extortion 17 could be identified because they were so badly burned. But once the Colt Report leaked out, along with the results of independently released autopsies, that claim was proven to be false.

  Not only would contradictions within the Colt report debunking the military’s self-­serving claims about the shoot-­down prove to be significant, but conspicuous and inexplicable omissions from the report would prove to be just as if not more significant.

  Spin After the Shoot-­Down

  Essentially, much like the inaccurate “it was a video” meme played over and over again after Benghazi, the military tried desperately to spin a “we did nothing wrong” narrative to absolve itself of the death of thirty Americans.

  But from the foolish rules of engagement that provided these men of Extortion 17 with no pre-­suppression fire, to the selection of a defenseless, Vietnam-­era helicopter with a National Guard flight crew that flew the SEAL team into a “hot zone” where the Taliban had vowed to shoot down an American helicopter, to the incredibly irresponsible decision by the vice president and CIA director to publicly “out” the identity of the SEAL team that killed Bin Laden, both the military and the Obama Administration did virtually everything wrong in the ordering, planning, and execution of this mission.

  If Operation Neptune Spear, the mission that killed Bin Laden, was perfectly and sublimely executed, then Operation Lefty Grove, the name of the operation underway when this chopper was shot down, was the epitome of negligent callousness, a textbook example of how to get men killed.

  The contradictions and omissions in the Colt Report, and evidence from outside sources, including the autopsies of SEALs that revealed bullets in their bodies, and British press reports citing the Afghan government’s claims that the Taliban knew the exact flight path of Extortion 17, all served to undermine the government’s claim that they did nothing wrong.

  Allowing seven unidentified Afghans to board that aircraft, without authority, and allowing that aircraft to take off and fly into a hot zone to face hostile fire was a major security breach by both the military and civilians at the Pentagon.

  Keep these dates in mind:

  Extortion 17 was shot down on August 6, 2011. The bodies of all thirty Americans plus the bodies of eight Afghans (seven unidentified Afghan commandos plus an interpreter) were flown back to Dover Air Force Base three days later, on August 9, 2011, where grieving and dis
traught families were met by President Obama.

  That same day, August 9, 2011, the military publicly took the position that “Given the nature of the attack, there were ‘no identifiable remains’ of the 30 troops.” Those senior military officers publicly reporting that there were “no identifiable remains” had no way of knowing that less than three months later, the Colt Report would be released to families and would contradict the strange “no identifiable remains” claim.

  These and other public claims made by the military, including conclusions made by Brigadier General Colt himself, would later be contradicted by internal evidence shown in the report, which was somehow released, to the probable surprise of senior military officials.

  Why would the military release clearly false information that there were “no identifiable remains”? Again, no one knows except the Pentagon. But given that some family members had been told by US military officers that the bodies had been cremated, the “no identifiable remains” line could have been placed out there to either (a) justify cremation of the bodies, or (b) justify cremation of some of the bodies, or (c) create the impression that bodies had been cremated, whether they had or had not been cremated.

  Why would the military want to create such an impression?

  If the bodies had been cremated, or if the public thought the bodies had been cremated, there would be no way to determine who the Afghans were who boarded Extortion 17. And if there was no way to determine who the Afghans were, then there was no way to say, one way or the other, whether they were Taliban sympathizers who played a role in bringing that chopper down.