Failed Navy Seal Officers No Allowed to Try Again

Navy SEALs Were Warned Against Reporting Their Principal for State of war Crimes

• April 23, 2019

Stabbing a defenseless teenage convict to expiry. Picking off a school-historic period girl and an one-time homo from a sniper's roost. Indiscriminately spraying neighborhoods with rockets and machine-gun fire.

Navy SEAL commandos from Team vii'south Blastoff Platoon said they had seen their highly decorated platoon chief commit shocking acts in Republic of iraq. And they had spoken upwards, repeatedly. Just their frustration grew every bit months passed and they saw no sign of official activeness.

Tired of existence brushed off, vii members of the platoon called a private coming together with their troop commander in March 2018 at Naval Base Coronado about San Diego. Co-ordinate to a confidential Navy criminal investigation report obtained by The New York Times, they gave him the encarmine details and asked for a formal investigation.

Simply instead of launching an investigation that day, the troop commander and his senior enlisted aide — both longtime comrades of the accused platoon leader, Special Operations Master Edward Gallagher — warned the seven platoon members that speaking out could price them and others their careers, according to the study.

The clear bulletin, 1 of the vii told investigators, was "Stop talking about it."

The platoon members eventually forced the referral of their concerns to authorities outside the SEALs, and Chief Gallagher now faces a court-martial, with his trial set to begin May 28.

But the account of the March 2018 meeting and myriad other details in the 439-page report paint a disturbing moving-picture show of a subculture within the SEALs that prized aggression, fifty-fifty when information technology crossed the line, and that protected wrongdoers.

Co-ordinate to the investigation report, the troop commander, Lt. Cmdr. Robert Breisch, said in the coming together that while the SEALs were free to report the killings, the Navy might non expect kindly on rank-and-file team members making allegations against a principal. Their careers could exist sidetracked, he said, and their elite status revoked; referring to the eagle-and-trident badges worn past SEALs, he said the Navy "will pull your birds."

The enlisted aide, Chief Chief Piddling Officeholder Brian Alazzawi, warned them that the "frag radius" — the area damaged by an explosion — from a war-crime investigation of Principal Gallagher could be wide plenty to take down a lot of other SEALs also, the report said.

[For more stories well-nigh the changing nature of warfare, sign upward for the weekly At War newsletter .]

Navy SEALs are regarded as the most elite commando force in the American military. Just that reputation has been blotted repeatedly in recent years past investigations of illegal beatings, killings and theft, and reports of drug use in the ranks. In January, the top commander of the SEALs, Rear Adm. Collin Greenish, ordered a 90-twenty-four hours review of the force'southward civilization and preparation; the results have not withal been made public.

Mind to 'The Daily': A Secret in the Navy SEALs

A chief in the elite force was celebrated as a hero. But members of his platoon say he committed war crimes.

transcript

transcript

Mind to 'The Daily': A Secret in the Navy SEALs

Hosted by Michael Barbaro; produced by Theo Balcomb, Alexandra Leigh Young, Eric Krupke and Jessica Cheung; and edited by Larissa Anderson

A chief in the aristocracy force was celebrated as a hero. But members of his platoon say he committed war crimes.

michael barbaro

From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is "The Daily."

Today: Navy SEALs were warned non to written report their platoon leader for war crimes. They did it anyhow.

It's Thursday, Apr 25.

Dave, when did y'all first hear nigh Master Edward Gallagher?

dave philipps

I get-go heard about him when he was arrested in September. And what caught my eye is that this was not just any crewman who was getting arrested. It was a special operations primary in the Navy SEALs, sort of the height, the elite of the entire Navy.

michael barbaro

Dave Philipps covers the military for The Times.

dave philipps

And even inside the SEALs, this guy, Eddie Gallagher, was a big deal. He'd been in for near 20 years. And in that time, he had qualified for everything, pretty much, that you lot maybe could. He was repeatedly awarded medals for heroic actions. He was an expert medic, a crack sniper, expert in explosives. He had been a trainer at the SEALs' BUDS school, yous know, literally, the guy who's yelling at yous while he's making yous crawl through the surf. And he had this reputation among SEALs as this existent hard-charging warrior, respected, loved. So to see him suddenly arrested was actually something.

michael barbaro

And Dave, what were the accusations against Chief Gallagher?

dave philipps

What the people in the platoon say is that when they deployed to Iraq in 2017, he kind of went off the track. He spent most of his time in a hidden sniper perch where he would fire v or 10 times every bit much as other snipers. They say he would shoot indiscriminately at civilians in the metropolis. At 1 bespeak, he shot a daughter who was wearing a flowered hijab who was going down to the river with friends. And other SEALs, through their telescopic, saw the body carried off by the other girls.

And in another case, he shot an old man, they say, and that man collapsed.

michael barbaro

This is just an one-time man walking down the street.

dave philipps

That's what they say. I hateful, this is a war zone, merely it's also a place where millions of people live. And then that was common. And in fact, the SEALs say that they grew so concerned about him firing at civilians that they would regularly fire warning shots, you know, sometimes only a meter or ii from civilians, to scare them abroad then that their main wouldn't have a clear shot.

And then in May of last year, something else happened.

They were backside the lines during a battle where the Iraqi Special Forces were fighting ISIS fighters. And during this fight, an ISIS fighter was wounded in the leg, and he was brought back a little means backside the enemy lines. This is a child who was somewhere between 14 and 17 years old.

archived recording

[SPEAKING Arabic]

dave philipps

He was witting at the fourth dimension. He was even able to exist interviewed by a journalist that was there.

archived recording (speaker one)

[SPEAKING ARABIC]

archived recording (speaker 2)

[SPEAKING ARABIC]

archived recording (speaker 1)

[SPEAKING Standard arabic]

archived recording (speaker 2)

[SPEAKING ARABIC]

dave philipps

And then he was brought to the SEALs. And the SEALs say they put him on the ground and started giving him medical care. And what the SEALs say is that while they were in the process of giving this guy medical attending, Chief Gallagher came over and took out a custom-made knife that he'd brought with him. And without saying much or anything at all, they say, he stabbed the captive in the neck and in the body and killed him.

A short fourth dimension afterward that, he gathered the platoon together over the body of this dead teenager and performed an enlistment ceremony while someone from the platoon took photographs. This is a ceremony where every so frequently, you have to voluntarily re-enlist, raise your right mitt, and swear to uphold the Constitution. And Master Gallagher, he wanted to do it over the body of this dead ISIS fighter.

michael barbaro

And Dave, what are you lot thinking when you hear these gruesome accusations against Chief Gallagher?

dave philipps

What I thought at beginning was, look, here's a guy with an exemplary tape every bit a sailor. Here'southward a guy who's done eight deployments since 2001. And my first inclination was maybe and so many deployments had left him with postal service-traumatic stress disorder or a traumatic brain injury or all of the above. And if that was true, I thought that was a really important story to tell. So what I did is I reached out to his family. I spoke to his brother, I spoke to his married woman, and I spoke at length about his tape, trying to parse out — were there things that had happened in the by that might contribute to this idea that he was injured, and that the SEALs had failed to meet that? And the family said, emphatically, no. That'southward not what's going on here. And they told me a really startling story. They said, what's going on hither is that Eddie's men turned on him. And they wanted to get rid of him. And then they started concocting lies. First, it was just stealing snacks. And then it was bad leadership and bad tactics. And when they realized that their small lies weren't plenty to get rid of him, they started making upwards stories virtually even worse things that he did. Eventually, it was that he had murdered people.

michael barbaro

Then while the members of the platoon are leveling these extremely serious accusations of war crimes against Chief Gallagher, in the telling of his wife and family, they have concocted these stories considering they hate him, and they want to ruin his career, and they don't want him to be their primary.

dave philipps

Right. What they say is that he is such a demanding leader, so tough on them, such a warrior, that they tin can't hack it, and they've come up with a plan to get rid of him. And they don't just say this to me.

archived recording

There is no way to draw what information technology looks like to exist maliciously lied well-nigh, to exist at the cease of a game of telephone that now has resulted in my husband's life is on the line.

dave philipps

They start talking to local TV news in San Diego, where all the SEALs are based.

archived recording

And for something similar this to have been perpetrated against him and his family unit is zilch less than disgusting.

dave philipps

And then to national news.

archived recording

If yous want to know what a real Navy SEAL's like, expect at someone like Eddie, who literally just faced down death.

dave philipps

And go repeatedly on Fox News.

archived recording

They fabricated up stories to cast aspersions. And these stories were swallowed whole by a prosecutor who had no idea what he was doing.

dave philipps

And actually portrayed the main as a hero who'due south beingness wrongfully targeted past the very authorities that he swore to serve.

archived recording ane

Is that the way you treat a decorated Navy SEAL?

archived recording 2

Information technology'south preposterous, Brian.

dave philipps

And before long, they find an ally in Republican congressman Duncan Hunter.

archived recording (duncan hunter)

You accept a malicious prosecution that tin can use every muddied trick in the book to try to become their betoken across.

dave philipps

Who'south also a military veteran.

archived recording (duncan hunter)

So fifty-fifty if everything that the prosecution said is true — then allow's say that Chief Gallagher killed a verified, designated ISIS combatant — my answer is, so what? That'southward his job.

dave philipps

And he starts agitating that the primary is being mistreated. And presently, he and the family become the support of first a handful of other congressmen, and and then twoscore congressmen who sign a letter saying that the chief must exist released before trial and so that he tin defend himself.

archived recording i

But we demand the intervention of the president of the United States, sadly.

archived recording 2

Please review that letter. What is happening here isn't right and nosotros need help.

archived recording 3

This unabridged system is broken, so that'south why we're calling on the president of the United States to prepare it.

dave philipps

And at the end of March —

archived recording

Trump tweeted, "In honour of his past service to our country, Navy SEAL Eddie Gallagher will soon be moved to less restrictive confinement while he awaits his solar day in court. Process should movement quickly."

dave philipps

So a couple hours later, Eddie Gallagher, who's been sitting in the Navy brig for months, is moved to a much less restrictive environment at a Navy hospital in San Diego, where he awaits his court martial trial in May.

[music]

dave philipps

Meanwhile, while all this is going on, with the family defending him in the press, I go this thick stack of confidential documents that show this instance is way more than complicated than either the family'due south story or the platoon's allegations.

michael barbaro

And what kind of documents do you lot all of a sudden take?

dave philipps

It'southward summaries of interviews with more than a dozen SEALs. It is background information on previous things that the chief was declared to have done and we had known cypher nearly. And information technology is hundreds of text messages betwixt Main Gallagher and other SEALs that were seized when his phone was taken when he was arrested. This is the blazon of stuff that we never get to run into.

michael barbaro

And what story do these documents tell you? What are y'all finding?

dave philipps

Well, for a long time, the SEALs have had a growing reputation every bit the most elite commandos in the United States armed forces, right? These are the guys who killed Osama bin Laden. And and then we know that they are this very special and secretive commando system deployed all over the world. And they have limited oversight because of this special mission that they have. Because of that, there's this subculture that has grown up within the SEALs. Some people call them the Salts. Other people call them the Pirates. But we're talking near these roguish state of war fighters, the guys who've actually been there and done the stuff. And those people are actually prized in this culture. You know, it is a culture of state of war fighters. And they celebrate toughness, and they gloat killing in ways that I recall a lot of u.s. would find kind of shocking. And to a certain extent, they care less well-nigh the rules than they do nigh getting things done. And they volition cover for each other when necessary. And these documents prove that that pirate culture is there. But they also show united states of america this whole subculture nosotros never knew about, people who disprove the Pirates, that don't hold with what they're doing, that don't think they should exist able to get away with things, that think they should be reported. And those people, one of the SEALs described them to me as the Boy Scouts.

michael barbaro

Then you're seeing in these documents a conflict between these two camps in the SEALs — one yous knew about, the Pirates, the other, which is new to you, the Boy Scouts.

dave philipps

Right. And the Pirates, I think, would argue, hey, look, war is messy, and we can't be tied down with expectations that were made at a desk somewhere in the U.s.. And the Boy Scouts come across that every bit a very glace gradient and say, no, nosotros need to follow the rules that are given to united states as professional soldiers.

michael barbaro

So how exactly do you encounter that conflict play out from these documents inside this platoon?

dave philipps

You can run across the schism starting to widen the day that the captive is stabbed and killed. That dark, the leader of the enlisted men — this is the guy who's just below Main Gallagher — he brings them all together, co-ordinate to the documents, and has a meeting without the chief at that place. And he says, hey, guys, here'due south what happened today. Is anyone O.K. with it? And they all said no. And they started to program for what they were going to do if the master tried to practice something like that again. And they decided, clearly, we need to keep all captives abroad from him, and we need to go along anyone else away from him who might exist endangered by him. Well, while they're having this coming together, the principal walks in, and it's clear to him, according to the documents, what they're talking about. And what the documents say is that his response was, well, that's how we used to practise it. And if you lot have a problem with it, I won't do it around you anymore. And when they continued to press him, he said, well, you know, they do a lot worse to usa.

According to the documents, a few hours later, they study the chief to his commander. At present, the commander is a young lieutenant. Technically, he's superior to Chief Gallagher. Only he's also a lot less experienced and a lot younger, nigh x years younger. What the documents say is that the lieutenant said he would take intendance of it. But he apparently never does anything.

And so a few weeks afterwards, the platoon comes dorsum over again, and says, we all the same have these concerns. What are you doing? And the lieutenant says, I'll take intendance of it. Only over again, nothing seems to be happening.

So they hope, when they get home from their deployment at the end of 2017, that maybe they can go something started by going to higher members in the concatenation of command. Then next, they become to the lieutenant'southward boss, and they tell him the same affair, according to the documents. And they go the same kind of answer.

michael barbaro

Which is what?

dave philipps

O.K. We'll expect into this. And then months become by, and there's a growing suspicion that zip is going to happen.

michael barbaro

And at this indicate, what are these platoon members saying to each other most what they're experiencing? And why practice they seem so adamant to keep trying to study this?

dave philipps

It would accept been really like shooting fish in a barrel for the platoon to just walk away. But they were concerned that Primary Gallagher was going to be promoted and put in fifty-fifty more responsibility than he had been in as their platoon leader. They thought he might be in charge of several platoons, or in accuse of training other people to go to places similar Republic of iraq. And and so in March of 2018, they called this confidential meeting where they got their troop commander, a lieutenant commander who was in accuse of several platoons on the team, and his right-hand man, who is a master master, and called them into an empty classroom at the Naval Base on Coronado, where they had this sit-down. And they said, await, we want to make sure you lot understand. Here is what's going on. He killed a little daughter. He killed an former man. He stabbed this person. We want y'all to start an investigation.

michael barbaro

Then this is by far the nigh important, consequential, serious audience they have reached in their attempts to get this hierarchy to pay attending to their allegations.

dave philipps

Correct.

michael barbaro

And what did these two senior officials say in response?

dave philipps

The documents say that they essentially cautioned the SEALs that this was a really bad idea. The lieutenant commander said, hey, look, the Navy is not going to look kindly on a bunch of lower-ranking enlisted guys making accusations against a busy chief. You know, you could lose your place in the SEALs over this. He said, you know, they'll pull your birds, which is a way of saying, they will take away this coveted pin that all of the SEALs wear that has an eagle on top of a trident. And so the master chief, the senior enlisted guy, he pipes in, and he says, you know, the frag radius of something similar this could be very large.

michael barbaro

The frag radius. What's that?

dave philipps

Pregnant how big is the surface area of damage from an explosion? And he said, the frag radius of a war crimes investigation could be big enough to pull in a lot of other SEALs. And the documents say that the SEALs left this meeting with the takeaway that the command wanted them to stop talking near this.

michael barbaro

And so do they drop it?

dave philipps

No. In fact, they get more and more frustrated, because at the same time that they're going to the chain of command with concerns, with reports of war crimes, the chain of control is heaping praise on Primary Gallagher. They named him their tiptop chief in the team, the top of 12. They said that he should exist promoted right away. And non long after this coming together, he is awarded a Bronze Star for valor for heroic actions in Iraq.

michael barbaro

Even though those effectually him who awarded him this would probably have known virtually these allegations.

dave philipps

Right.

michael barbaro

Dave, at this point, how much does Master Gallagher know about these allegations and the platoon'due south efforts to study them up the chain of control?

dave philipps

What the documents tell us is that though the upper-level members of the team were non starting a formal investigation, they were telling Principal Gallagher about the accusations. And he was and so using that data to try and intimidate the men who were making accusations confronting him, and, to a certain extent, subvert any investigation that might happen.

michael barbaro

And how was he doing that?

dave philipps

Well, Chief Gallagher had a actually broad reputation all over the SEALs. Retrieve, he was an instructor for years, so there were hundreds of SEALs who went through their initial grooming with him and knew him and looked upward to him. So he started tapping into that network of SEALs and SEAL veterans, essentially passing the word that these guys were snitches, and that they should be treated harshly, ostracized, blacklisted. And that's a very big bargain, because all of these guys are going on in their careers. They've just come back from a deployment. They're getting new assignments. And if he spreads the give-and-take that, hey, this guy is a snitch, and he's speaking out against Eddie Gallagher, they may find themselves unwelcome in all sorts of coveted career fields. Then while this is all going on, the guys in the platoon have one more meeting with the concatenation of command, where they walk in and say, unless you report this to Navy investigators right now, we will go to the media, and nosotros will go to the very tiptop contumely of the Navy. At that point, the concatenation of command blinks, co-ordinate the documents, and says, fine, let's exercise it correct now. Almost immediately, criminal investigators first interviewing SEALs from the team. They raid Principal Gallagher's house. They eventually put him in the brig. They outset gathering information. They even get to Iraq to effort and turn upwardly physical evidence of some of the bodies in these allegations. And the investigation they conducted is what I've got in my hands.

michael barbaro

And where does the investigation stand right now?

dave philipps

Main Gallagher'southward been charged with premeditated murder and attempted murder and near a dozen other charges. And if he's bedevilled of that kickoff charge, he could spend his life in prison house.

michael barbaro

Dave, the information that you have gleaned from these documents, and the consistency of the platoon members' allegations, and the persistence with which they have pursued them all feels very damning.

dave philipps

Yeah, information technology does. Merely remember, we oasis't heard from Chief Gallagher yet or his defense. And a lot of times, in these types of cases, the facts don't really matter. This isn't just in the SEALs, but in our civilisation as a whole. Over and over in these war crimes cases, I call back people look at them through a lens of seeing this person as the hero who is trying to do something, and war is a dirty business organisation, or through a lens of seeing them every bit a state of war criminal who's the inevitable product of a horrible part of our world. Some people will defend the war criminal no matter what. Information technology happened in the Iraq war. Information technology happened in Afghanistan, fifty-fifty when facts were really clear. And it even happened in Vietnam during the My Lai massacre, which is the worst war atrocity in what was a very, very dark war. We now come across that equally something reprehensible. Only at the fourth dimension, there was a huge function of the culture that dedicated what happened. And when a young lieutenant named Lieutenant Calley was prosecuted and convicted, they marched in his support. They wrote songs about him. And one of those songs became a Acme 40 Billboard hitting. It was called "The Battle Hymn of Lt. Calley."

michael barbaro

Only the story we're talking about now is not merely that familiar story of people defending our defenders at all cost. In fact, it's about a group of platoon members who are very much defying that expectation and that civilization and are persisting in making these allegations in the face of all that pressure to keep placidity. And I wonder if that means that we're in a kind of new era for the U.South. military machine and especially for the Navy SEALs.

dave philipps

I don't know if we tin say that this is a new era. But at that place is this actually telling moment in the documents. It's a confidential text chat between Chief Gallagher and one of his longtime friends, some other SEAL. And Primary Gallagher is talking about the investigation, and how he thinks these guys are traitors. And so the other SEAL says, I never thought that other SEALs would tell on each other in this community. And Chief Gallagher says, me, either. Those days are gone.

michael barbaro

Dave, thank yous very much.

dave philipps

Cheers.

archived recording

(SINGING) My name is William Calley, I'grand a soldier of this land, I've tried to do my duty and to gain the upper hand. Only they've made me out a villain, they have stamped me with a make, as we go marching on.

michael barbaro

The trial of Chief Edward Gallagher is scheduled to brainstorm on May 28. Nosotros'll exist right back.

[music]

michael barbaro

Here's what else you need to know today.

archived recording

Some of these suicide bombers, near of them come up from maybe middle- or upper-middle-grade. So they are financially quite contained.

michael barbaro

On Wednesday, authorities in Sri Lanka offered the well-nigh detailed portrait yet of the nine suspected suicide bombers who carried out last week'due south massive terror attacks.

archived recording

Some of them have, I recall, studied in various other countries. They hold degrees from — you know, they're quite well-educated people.

michael barbaro

One of them had studied in Britain and completed postgraduate studies in Commonwealth of australia before returning to Sri Lanka. Two of them were a married couple.

archived recording (speaker ane)

Is information technology confirmed that the ninth suicide bomber was a adult female?

archived recording (speaker 2)

Aye.

archived recording (speaker one)

O.K. And was she trained as a suicide bomber?

archived recording (speaker 2)

Whether she was trained I cannot say at the moment. But she definitely did commit suicide by diggings a jacket.

michael barbaro

So far, law have arrested 60 people for allegedly playing a role in the attacks and warned that boosted attacks in Sri Lanka are still possible. And The Times reports that in the months earlier President Trump forced out his secretary of homeland security, Kirstjen Nielsen, she had tried and failed to focus the administration on the ongoing threat of Russian meddling in U.S. elections. Nielsen was blocked by master of staff Mick Mulvaney, who told her not to discuss the outcome in front of the president, because he still equated any discussion of Russian election activity with questions most the legitimacy of his 2016 election. Eventually, The Times constitute, Nielsen gave up her endeavor to organize a meeting of chiffonier secretaries to coordinate a strategy for protecting the 2020 election against Russian interference.

That's it for "The Daily." I'k Michael Barbaro. Meet you tomorrow.

Every bit Chief Gallagher's men were sounding an alarm well-nigh killings in Iraq, his superiors were lavishing praise on him. An evaluation quoted in the investigation report chosen Chief Gallagher the best chief of the 12 in the team, and said, "This is the man I want leading SEALs in combat."

A few days after the March 2018 meeting, the chief was awarded a Statuary Star for valor under burn in Iraq.

A month later, the 7 platoon members finally succeeded in spurring their commanders to formally report the killings of the three Iraqis to the Navy Criminal Investigation Service, by threatening to go directly to top Navy brass and to the news media.

Master Gallagher was arrested in September on more than a dozen charges, including premeditated murder and attempted murder. If bedevilled, he could face life in prison house. He has pleaded not guilty and denies all the charges.

[ Chief Gallagher's trial opened on June 17 in San Diego. ]

The chief's lawyer, Timothy Parlatore, said the Navy investigation study, which was first reported past Navy Times, does not offer an accurate account of what happened in Iraq. He said that hundreds of boosted pages of evidence, sealed by the courtroom, included interviews with platoon members who said the chief never murdered anyone.

At the same time, some conservatives have rallied to Chief Gallagher's defense, raising money and pressing publicly for his release.

Primary Gallagher, through Mr. Parlatore, declined to be interviewed for this article.

The Navy has charged Chief Gallagher's immediate superior, Lt. Jacob Portier, with failing to report the master's maybe criminal actions and with destroying evidence. Lieutenant Portier has pleaded not guilty. Through his lawyer, he, too, declined to be interviewed.

The investigation report indicates that a number of other loftier-ranking SEALs also knew of the allegations against the chief, and did not written report them. But no ane else has been charged in the case.

Main Gallagher learned of the March 2018 meeting presently subsequently information technology happened, the report indicates, and he began working to turn other SEALs against the accusers.

"I merely got word these guys went crying to the incorrect person," Master Gallagher wrote to a fellow principal in ane of hundreds of text messages included in the written report. To another, he wrote: "The only thing nosotros can do as good team guys is pass the word on those traitors. They are non brothers at all."

Citing his texts, the Navy kept the master in the brig to look trial, saying information technology believed he had been trying to intimidate witnesses and undermine the investigation. He denies that allegation as well.

The chief'south wife, Andrea Gallagher, and his brother, Sean Gallagher, have appeared repeatedly on Trick News and other news outlets, calling the chief a hero and enervating his release. They say the allegations against Chief Gallagher were concocted by disgruntled subordinates who could non encounter his enervating standards and wanted to get rid of him.

A website soliciting donations for his defence force says information technology has raised $375,000, and a prominent veterans' apparel maker is selling "Free Eddie" T-shirts.

Spurred by the Gallagher family, twoscore Republican members of Congress signed a letter in March calling for the Navy to free the chief pending trial, and soon later, President Trump said on Twitter that he would be moved to "less restrictive confinement." Chief Gallagher was released from the brig and is at present restricted to the Navy Medical Center in San Diego, according to a Navy spokeswoman.

Ms. Gallagher did not answer to requests for comment.

Chief Gallagher, who is 39 and goes by the nickname Blade, is known as a standout fifty-fifty among the elite SEALs. Over the course of five deployments with the SEALs, he was repeatedly recognized for valor and coolheaded leadership nether fire. He is qualified as a medic, a sniper and an explosives expert, and has been an instructor at BUDS, the force's grueling training program. To hundreds of sailors he trained, he was a boxing-tested veteran who fed them war stories while pushing them through punishing workouts in the surf.

Investigators' interviews with more than a dozen members of Blastoff Platoon, included in the Navy's criminal investigation report, also as other interviews with SEALs, offer a more troubling portrait of the master.

When Chief Gallagher took over leadership of the platoon in 2015, SEALs said, he already had a reputation every bit a "pirate" — an operator more interested in fighting terrorists than in adhering to the rules and making rank.

A number of platoon members told investigators that at get-go they were excited to be led past a battle-hardened "legend," but their opinion quickly shifted afterwards they were deployed to Republic of iraq in Feb 2017 to aid retake Mosul from Islamic Land fighters.

Image

Credit... Khalid Mohammed/Associated Printing

The SEALs in the platoon did not respond to requests for interviews for this article. Their names and those of others who have not been identified publicly in courtroom take been withheld from this article at the request of the Navy, because of the covert nature of their work.

A spokeswoman for Naval Special Warfare, Cmdr. Tamara Lawrence, said that while they are commandos, SEALs are all the same expected to follow the same laws every bit all other troops, adding, "It'due south called special operations, not unlike operations."

The investigation report said several members of the platoon told investigators that Main Gallagher showed little regard for the safe of team members or the lives of civilians. Their mission was to advise Iraqi forces and provide assistance with snipers and drones, just they said the chief wanted instead to clear houses and showtime firefights.

He would order them to accept what seemed to exist needless risks, and to fire rockets at houses for no apparent reason, they said. He routinely parked an armored truck on a Tigris River bridge and emptied the truck's heavy machine gun into neighborhoods on the other side with no discernible targets, according to one senior SEAL.

Chief Gallagher's job was to programme and oversee missions for the platoon, but platoon members said he spent much of his time in a subconscious perch with a sniper burglarize, firing three or 4 times as oftentimes as other platoon snipers. They said he boasted about the number of people he had killed, including women.

Photos from the deployment that were stored on a hard drive seized past the Navy show the chief aiming sniper rifles and rocket launchers from rooftops in the city.

Two SEAL snipers told investigators that one day, from his sniper nest, Chief Gallagher shot a girl in a flower-print hijab who was walking with other girls on the riverbank. One of those snipers said he watched through his scope every bit she dropped, clutching her stomach, and the other girls dragged her away.

Another twenty-four hour period, ii other snipers said, the chief shot an unarmed homo in a white robe with a wispy white bristles. They said the man fell, a red blotch spreading on his back.

Earlier the 2017 deployment, Main Gallagher ordered a hatchet and a hunting pocketknife, both handmade by a SEAL veteran named Andrew Arrabito with whom he had served, text messages show. Hatchets accept become an unofficial SEAL symbol, and some operators comport and use them on deployments. Principal Gallagher told Mr. Arrabito in a text message shortly after arriving in Iraq, "I'll try and dig that knife or hatchet on someone'southward skull!"

On the morning of May four, 2017, Iraqi troops brought in an Islamic State fighter who had been wounded in the leg in battle, SEALs told investigators, and Chief Gallagher responded over the radio with words to the issue of "he'southward mine." The SEALs estimated that the captive was near fifteen years old. A video prune shows the youth struggling to speak, but SEAL medics told investigators that his wounds had not appeared life-threatening.

A medic was treating the youth on the ground when Chief Gallagher walked upwards without a give-and-take and stabbed the wounded teenager several times in the neck and once in the chest with his hunting knife, killing him, 2 SEAL witnesses said.

Iraqi officers who were at the scene told Navy investigators that they did not see the convict die, but disputed the stabbing account, saying it seemed out of character for the principal.

Minutes after the death, Chief Gallagher and his commanding officeholder, Lieutenant Portier, gathered some nearby SEALs for a re-enlistment ceremony, snapping photos of the platoon standing over the body.

In recent years, photos of re-enlistment ceremonies in unusual circumstances — while scuba diving or skydiving, for instance — accept gone viral on social media. The master's variation would have reinforced his image every bit a hard-charging pirate, one SEAL said.

A week subsequently, records show, Main Gallagher texted a flick of the expressionless captive to a fellow SEAL in California, saying, "Good story behind this, got him with my hunting knife."

But his platoon did not encounter it equally a good story, according to the investigation report: The SEALs called a platoon meeting and discussed how to go along the principal away from anyone he could harm.

When senior platoon members confronted Chief Gallagher about the captive's expiry, they said, he told them, "Finish worrying about it, they practice a lot worse to united states of america."

The SEALs told investigators they reported the killing to Lieutenant Portier that night and at other times during the deployment, but the lieutenant took no activeness. They said the lieutenant had trained under Chief Gallagher at BUDS and "idolized" him.

Members of the platoon hoped the chief would be reprimanded when they returned domicile from Iraq in August 2017, according to the study. It didn't happen. The study said they spoke repeatedly to the lieutenant'south superior, Commander Breisch, and to Main Chief Alazzawi and some other Team 7 master chief, just were told to "decompress" and "permit it go."

Commander Breisch and Master Chief Alazzawi disputed that account. They told investigators that they had no knowledge of the alleged war crimes until the March 2018 meeting, and that they had encouraged anyone in the platoon who had witnessed annihilation criminal to report information technology to Navy investigators.

The Navy declined to make Commander Breisch or Master Chief Alazzawi available for interviews, citing the continuing investigation.

Each member of the SEAL team had a duty to report wrongdoing equally presently every bit possible, said Lawrence Brennan, a retired Navy captain and military lawyer who now teaches constabulary at Fordham University. But he added, "The willingness of an institution to plough a bullheaded middle is common."

"It's peculiarly true in warfare communities," he said. "And in the SEALs, you don't just keep it in the family unit, you lot keep information technology in the immediate family."

Primary Gallagher had been defendant of serious misconduct before. According to the investigation report, Army Special Forces troops serving with him in Afghanistan in 2010 reported that, as a sniper, he had shot through an Afghan girl to hit the man who was carrying her, killing them both. Commander Breisch told investigators in 2018 that the 2010 written report had been investigated and no wrongdoing had been found.

In 2014, the written report says, Mr. Gallagher was detained at a traffic end, where he allegedly tried to run over a Navy police force officer; he was released to his commander, and there is no tape of punishment in the report. Presently afterward, he was promoted to chief.

Amongst the text letters included in the investigation report are some betwixt Primary Gallagher and another SEAL chief, David Swarts, who is being prosecuted for the beating of detainees in a divide case dating from 2012.

Main Gallagher told Chief Swarts about his looming investigation and said he felt he could not trust anyone whatsoever more. When Chief Swarts responded that he never idea SEALs would report one another, Chief Gallagher replied, "Me either, those days are gone."

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Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/23/us/navy-seals-crimes-of-war.html

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