Hunter to Gates: Review SEAL abuse claims - Marine Corps News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Marine Corps Times

Hunter to Gates: Review SEAL abuse claims

SAN DIEGO — A San Diego area congressman and Iraq war veteran is asking Defense Secretary Robert Gates to look into charges levied against three Navy SEALs in connection with the alleged abuse of a detainee in Iraq in early September, calling the charges an “overreaction.”

“It’s just so absurd. I mean, they split his lip. In a boxing situation, that’s legal,” Rep. Duncan D. Hunter, R-Calif., told Navy Times during a telephone interview Thursday. “They punched a terrorist in the face and, boom, we’re going to launch these guys out of the Navy.”

U.S. Special Operations Command Central on Oct. 2 charged three SEALs — Special Warfare Operators 2nd Class Matthew McCabe and Jonathan Keefe, and SO1 Julio Huertas — with various violations after the early September capture of Ahmed Hashim Abed, whom the U.S. suspects planned the 2004 ambush of four U.S. contractors in Fallujah, Iraq.

McCabe is charged with one count each of assault, dereliction of duty and making a false official statement. Keefe is charge with one count each of dereliction of duty and false official statement. Huertas is accused of dereliction of duty, false official statement and impeding an investigation.

All three are assigned to SEAL Team 10, based in Little Creek, Va.

The three SEALs have all refused nonjudicial punishment and are expected to be arraigned on the charges in Norfolk this month. McCabe’s special court-martial is expected to begin in January.

“We believe that prosecution of these men is not warranted,” Hunter wrote in a letter drafted to Gates, which Hunter is circulating on Capitol Hill in order to gain signatures of support from other lawmakers.

“As we understand it, there was no allegation of torture or sustained abuse. There was simply just this one alleged act,” he wrote in the letter. “Prosecuting individuals for such a limited act seems to us to be an overreaction by the command.”

Hunter said the SEALs, who he described as “exceptional sailors,” should be commended for capturing Abed, not punished.

“They captured a terrorist who had planned an attack that not only killed Americans but also maimed and mutilated their bodies,” he wrote in the letter. “We believe that prosecution of these sailors for such an apparent limited action will have a negative impact on others in the military who risk their lives in dangerous, often ambiguous situations.”

Hunter, a Marine reservist, said this case is “personal.” He was deployed to Iraq at the time of the contractors’ killing, serving with 2nd Battalion, 1st Marines, and went into Fallujah with the infantry battalion that spring in what was the first offensive into the then-insurgent-held city.

“It’s kind of personal. It’s just an unfair treatment of our guys,” he said. “I went into Fallujah in ’04 because of these four Blackwater guys getting hanged. These are the SEALs who captured the guy who masterminded the capture.”

Prosecuting them instead, he argued, sends a terrible message to deployed forces. “Everything is looked at now through tinted glass,” he said, adding that more troops are wondering, “Can I get in trouble for this?”

Related reading

• Rep. Hunter’s letter to Secretary Gates