Trump Responds to Report on Failed SEAL Team 6 North Korea Mission

Friday afternoon, President Donald Trump denied knowledge of a team 6 Botched Seal 2019 in 2019 in North Korea, telling a journalist who had asked him for a reaction that he “heard it for the first time”.

Nowsweek Contacted by e-mail to the White House for Clarification and comment more on Friday evening.

Why it matters

The alleged mission would prevent the United States from not reaching an intelligence objective against a country with which officials had engaged in sensitive diplomatic talks.

The Pentagon and the White House rarely – if not always – on all the Seal Team 6 missions.

Trump has continued to ask for interviews with North Korea since its return in office for its second term, but found the nation less receptive than during its first presidency. North Korean officials rejected a letter from Trump intended to open the door to dialogue.

The ostensible objective for talks would lead to stages towards a peace agreement between North Korea and South Korea, ending a confrontation held several decades between neighboring nations.

What to know

The New York Times Friday, a report on a 2019 operation to plant a listening system that would have enabled the United States to intercept the communications of the North Korean leader Kim Jong one at a time when the United States held high-level nuclear talks with the kingdom of hermits.

According to the TimesThe operation did not go as planned once a boat began to sweep the water, which made it fear that the SEAL team was spotted while heading for shore. The team opened fire, killing everyone on the boat, then withdrawing without finishing the mission, according to the report.

Due to the extreme sensitivity of the mission, the Times Said, it would have required Trump’s direct approval.

Asked about the mission during a press briefing in the oval office on Friday, Trump said: “I don’t know about it.”

“I should look, but I don’t know anything about it,” replied the president, adding: “I hear him now for the first time.” The journalist also asked if Trump had spoken or hired with North Korea since the alleged incident, which he did not address.

The Pentagon provided Nowsweek With “no comments” when contacted by email on Friday afternoon.

The Seal Team 6 Red Squadron – the same unit that killed the founder of Al -Qaeda and the Mastermind of September 11 Osama bin Laden – had been selected for the mission, and the team had practiced for months in advance.

What is Seal Team 6?

Seal Team 6 is the nickname given to the naval Special Warfare Development Group, a component of the Special Operations Command (JSOC) joint. The team often undertakes classified missions on which neither the Pentagon nor the White House will generally offer comments.

The group is the equivalent of the Marine de la Force Delta, emerging from an eminent public opinion following the murder of Bin Laden.

Journalist Sean Naylor, journalist for national security for 20 years Army timeIn 2015, published a book detailing the history of JSOC and some of its missions, such as a 2008 mission during which Seal Team 6 launched an Afghanistan raid in Pakistan to find Al-Qaeda leaders.

THE Times Also covered the release of the book, which proved to be the most complete, although unauthorized look, the operations of a team which “signed up in combat so intimate that they have become soaked in blood which were not theirs”.

“In the world, they have led spying stations disguised as commercial boats, presented themselves as civilian employees of companies before and worked under cover in embassies like male pairs, according to those that the United States wants to kill or capture”, the Times wrote.

Trump asked Nuke to deal with North Korea

Trump, during his first administration, tried to engage in the same kind of competition which he praised throughout his second term. During these first four years, he won considerable victories – in particular, the Abraham agreed between Israel and several nations of the Middle East.

The president initially requested an agreement on nuclear weapons with North Korea, but was satisfied with a joint declaration signed in 2018, which set four goals to reach Kim: committed to establishing new relations with the United States; Build a lasting and stable peace regime on the Korean peninsula; Use yourself to work towards a complete denuclearization of the peninsula; And recover Pow / Mia left and repatriate them.

The talks would have potentially revealed a vital turning point in negotiations, but the coronavirus pandemic radically modified the trajectory of such a discourse. Once Trump has left his duties, the possibility of any agreement with North Korea increasingly recluse – which suffered greatly during the pandemic – was made more improbable.