A combat-decorated Green Beret told Congress today that he fell under criminal investigation by the Army this year after informing Congress about a scuttled deal he tried to cut with the Taliban to free Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl along with all of the American and Canadian civilian hostages held by terrorists in Pakistan.

 Warren Weistein is dead. Colin Rutherford, Joshua Boyle, Caitlin Coleman and the child she bore in captivity are still hostages in Pakistan. I failed them. I exhausted all efforts and resources available to return them but I failed," Army Special Forces Lt. Col. Jason Amerine said before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

President Obama recently announced that Weinstein, a USAID worker held for years, was accidentally killed along with an Italian aid worker in a CIA drone strike on a Pakistan al Qaeda hideout last January. Coleman is an American, who, along with her Canadian husband Boyle and their unborn child, were taken hostage in Afghanistan two years ago possibly by the Haqqani Taliban network. Rutherford also is a Canadian.

 

 

At a hearing looking into retaliation against federal whistleblowers, Amerine's testimony is startling, not just for his extraordinary claims of bureaucratic infighting that failed to free at lease five hostages held by the Haqqanis and their longtime al Qaeda allies. But also because the be-medaled operator will be that rare whistleblower to appear in uniform before the committee as a living Army legend.