Fallout from a U.S. special forces raid in Yemen which saw Navy SEAL Chief Special Warfare Officer William “Ryan” Owens fall in action is turning out to be a continuous headache for President Donald Trump.
Bill Owens, the SEAL’s father, sharply criticized Trump and called for an investigation into the raid during which his son died during an interview with the Miami Herald on Sunday.
“Nobody knows the truth of what happened except the person on the ground. When politicians get it, they warp it far from the truth.”
“The government owes my son an investigation,” Owens said during the interview.
The Trump administration has faced a steady stream of criticism for the raid since it became public, and Owens’ interview is more ammunition for those who would use the death of an American serviceman as a political tool with which to attack Trump.
Owens was killed in action during the Jan. 27 raid on an al-Qaida compound designed to secure vital intelligence regarding potential attacks. What was designed to be a precision extraction descended into a brutal firefight. Over a dozen al-Qaida militants were killed.
While the mainstream media were quick to paint the raid as “botched,” experts at the time suggested high-risk raids can often experience complications.
A report from The New York Times revealed that while Trump gave the go-ahead, the raid itself was planned during the Obama administration.
“President Barack Obama’s national security aides had reviewed the plans for a risky attack on a small, heavily guarded brick home of a senior [al-Qaida] collaborator in a mountainous village in a remote part of central Yemen,” The New York Times report reads. “But Mr. Obama did not act because the Pentagon wanted to launch the attack on a moonless night and the next one would come after his term had ended.”
Nevertheless, Owens Sr. is placing the blame squarely on Trump.
“Why at this time did there have to be this stupid mission when it wasn’t even barely a week into his administration?” Owens Sr. asked the Herald. “Why? For two years prior, there were no boots on the ground in Yemen — everything was missiles and drones — because there was not a target worth one American life. Now, all of a sudden we had to make this grand display?”
Calls for an investigation into the raid from neocon politicians, Democrats, and liberals in the media gained additional steam from the administration itself Sunday.
During an interview with George Stephanopoulos on ABC’s “This Week,” deputy White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said she believed Trump would welcome an investigation into the raid.
“I haven’t had the chance to speak with him directly about that, but I would imagine that he would be supportive of that,” Huckabee Sanders said. “The mission has a lot of different critics, but it did yield a substantial amount of very important intel and resources that helped save American lives and other lives,” she added.
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The same Miami Herald article which first reported Bill Owens’ interview also quotes a former SEAL who warned against an investigation, arguing that those who would be in charge of such an investigation are inherently incapable of understanding the events that transpired that day.
“Nobody knows the truth of what happened except the person on the ground. When politicians get it, they warp it far from the truth,” 21-year SEAL veteran Don Mann, author of “Inside SEAL Team Six: My Life and Missions with America’s Elite Warriors,” told the Herald.
“The SEALS, unlike other forces, make their decision on the ground and that decision — in this case — cost a life, which is very, very tragic, but that’s war,” he said.
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