Report: Obama Administration Plans Turnover of Taliban Leaders in Gitmo

(Newsroom America) -- The Obama administration is taking "operational steps" to move five Taliban leaders from Guantanamo Bay as part of an effort to promote peace talks with the Afghan Taliban, Fox News reported, quoting an unnamed senior congressional official.

The move comes ahead of a hearing Thursday where senior intelligence officials plan to testify on national security threats, sources said.

The five detainees, which were not named, were hand-picked by the Taliban preparing for the talks, said the report.

Efforts to bring the Taliban to peace talks have been roundly criticized by Republicans, including Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, who said they smacked of "desperation."

"Candidly, I don’t like the direction they are going in (with) reconciliation,” Rogers said, in comments reported by Fox News. "I base it on the things that I know about how the Taliban works. The tribal relations in the region, and I’ve been on the committee for six years looking at this stuff ... it seems like a bit of desperation to try to catch up to their policy of ‘we’re getting out.'"

The senior congressional official told Fox News that money had been spent already to send the five selected Taliban prisoners to a third country. The official said the administration did not plan to release all five at once, but three now and the others at a later date.

"They (the administration) have taken operational steps to make it happen," said the official.

Fox News said the administration denied any money had been spent to effect the release.

"We haven't committed any resources," White House spokesman Tommy Vietor told Fox News. "We've engaged in diplomatic efforts alone, and we've consulted with Congress and will continue to do so. In absolutely any case, our efforts will be consistent with U.S. law."

Rogers said the administration was allowing the Taliban a better negotiating position by putting the release plan forward before getting anything in return.

He said the Afghan Taliban know the White House's political objective is to withdraw U.S. forces by 2014, and that as time passes, the weaker the U.S. position becomes.

The Taliban "are notoriously good at this," Rogers told Fox News. "When I say good at it, I mean using any type of negotiation process to re-establish themselves in a better place when it's done."

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