Call Sign Extortion 17 (24 page)

None of this makes any sense.

No questions were asked about any of this in the Colt investigation—as if the military didn't want any of this on the record. Moreover, congressional investigators, who had access to all this data, asked not a single question about any of it. Why not?

The failure of anyone to ask any questions seeking clarification of this documented sequence is unbelievable—unless, of course, there is data and evidence in connection with this sequence that the military and the government were intent on covering up, information that might be embarrassing to the military and/or the Administration.

Chapter 37

Disconnect: The Pathfinders vs. the Task Force

Based upon the evidence underlying the Colt Report, there appears to have been a wild disconnect between the Pathfinders, who arrived on scene at 4:15 a.m., and the Joint Special Operations Task Force. The two groups seemed to be operating based on a different set of assumptions, and reported to different officers in the chain of command.

The biggest disconnect appears to be this: the Pathfinders were told, “Go find the black box.” Yet everyone else, from General Colt on down, is cagey at best about the black box.

Recall that the Pathfinders arrived one hour and nine minutes after the mysterious unit “1/B,” which appears to be a military unit from the Joint Special Operations Task Force.

It is clear, based upon the testimony provided by the Pathfinder leader at Exhibit 65, that the Pathfinders were told to go find the black box and, in fact, committed considerable resources over a couple of days to find it.

During the course of the Pathfinder leader's testimony, General Colt, who was there listening, never corrected the Pathfinder leader by saying, “wait a minute, there was no black box in this helicopter.” Not once was there such a correction or comment, even after there had been considerable testimony about the search for the black box.

General Colt's failure to say anything is odd, especially because just before the testimony of the Pathfinder leader, General Colt made this comment at page 11 of Exhibit 5: “We do need to talk VADRs though, because it's critical. This one didn't have one.”

If by his odd comment at page 11, General Colt was trying to say, at least peripherally, that there was no black box on this helicopter, it's interesting to note that two pages later, following the Pathfinder platoon leader's extensive comments about searching for the black box, Colt remained silent. Neither Colt nor members of his staff ever asked the platoon leaders, “Why were you searching for a black box, when you know there was not one?” There was no language like that whatsoever.

It appears that the Pathfinders, whose standing orders had been to first search for the black box and had done so every time a helicopter went down in Afghanistan, were not informed whether or not the black box had been removed from the aircraft, and committed time and man hours searching for it. Did the Special Forces unit remove the box, and if they did, why not inform the Pathfinders?

Chapter 38

The Black Box Absent from the Executive Summary

The black box did not just disappear from the wreckage of Extortion 17. It also disappeared, mysteriously, from the Executive Summary of the Colt Report.

As the black box would have provided key information about the shoot-­down, it is odd that the Executive Summary would not address it. The Executive Summary didn't say that there was no black box. It didn't say the black box could not be found, nor did it say there was no black box. It simply ignored the issue.

This glaring omission, in and of itself, is enough to raise suspicion. How can you simply ignore, and not mention, the presence or absence of the most important forensics clue in any aircraft shoot-­down investigation? Yet Colt's Executive Summary did just that—ignored any mention of the black box. If there was no black box on the aircraft, why not report that crucial fact in the Executive Summary? Or if the black box couldn't be recovered and just washed down the wadi, as appears to be the theme of the first narrative put out by the military, why not report that in the Executive Summary?

Could it be that this crucial evidence was left out of the Executive Summary because they were still trying to get their story straight on what to say about it?

When Colt was asked about the black box by family members at Little Creek, Virginia, in October 2011, he was equally vague in his answers, telling the family members to refer to his report—which, of course,
featured the Pathfinders testifying that they had searched for the black box, but could not find it. To confuse matters even further, he is reported to have told one family, the family of deceased Navy cryptologist Michael Strange, that the black box disappeared in the flood.

The first narrative that the military pushed was that the black box disappeared in the “flooding of the wadi,” the shallow, muddy riverbed. Of course it's extremely hard to believe that the US military would lose a black box from one of its helicopters in a shallow, muddy creek in a Third World country, no matter how much it rained the night before.

Chapter 39

The Crash Site: Before the Pathfinders' Arrival

What happened on the ground before the arrival of the US Army Pathfinders? First, at 3:27 a.m., just twenty-­three minutes after arriving on scene, the unidentified mystery unit began to identify FKIA, which means “friendly killed in action.” In other words, they were already identifying Americans killed on Extortion 17. There had been a report of survivors earlier, but a military coroner on site with the unidentified unit refuted that.

Then, twenty minutes later, at 3:47 a.m., as documented in Enclosure H, the unidentified unit (Lima Bravo) reported that Coalition elements (meaning US forces or a US ally) “had entered a field, surveyed the aircraft, and then headed back to an unspecified road.”

So who were these Coalition elements? Why did they come in and “survey the aircraft”? Did they remove anything from the aircraft? Could they have removed the black box from the aircraft? Where did they go? They just disappeared to an “unspecified road”?

What road?

Why is nothing else said about this group of “coalition elements” that entered the field and “surveyed” the aircraft? Why weren't members of this group of coalition elements interviewed in the Colt Report? Now keep in mind that this group of “Coalition elements” was the
second unidentified
group (this group plus the unidentified task force that landed at 3:04 a.m.) to arrive before the Pathfinders, who would not even take off for the site until 3:59 or 4:00 a.m. Naturally, not only were these “Coalition
elements” not identified in the Colt Report, but they weren't interviewed. Neither was the unidentified unit from the Joint Special Operations Task Force. Nothing else was mentioned about them.

The next sequence is equally interesting. Why did the Pathfinders wait so long to take off? Only after these unidentified “coalition elements” conducted their “survey” of the aircraft and then disappeared onto an “unspecified road” at 3:47 a.m. were the Pathfinders permitted to launch.

In fact, the unidentified task force on the ground actually had to approve the launch of the Pathfinders helicopter, which they did at 3:50 a.m., three minutes after these “coalition elements” had finished their “survey of the aircraft.”

Here, again, is the notation directly from the official chronology at Enclosure H, showing the Task Force approving the Pathfinders' launch: “0350 TF [Task Force] approves launch of the [Pathfinder] element to crash site.”

Each bit of information revealed in the timeline raises more questions. Why, for example, would they wait until after the “survey of the aircraft” by this unidentified group before calling in the Pathfinders? Was there any reason to delay the Pathfinders arrival? Was the goal to intentionally keep them away?

According to the chronology, the Pathfinders did not arrive until 4:15 a.m. That's a gap of one hour and eleven minutes in which the unidentified Special Forces unit, often referred to as the “task force,” is on the ground
before
the arrival of the Pathfinders.

But who exactly was this group on the ground first? And why didn't they testify in the Colt Report? And why did Colt omit them from his Executive Summary?

Chapter 40

The Mystery Unit First on the Ground

The testimony of the Pathfinders' platoon leader generated some more clues about the group that was already on the ground when the Pathfinders arrived. At page 3 of Exhibit 65, the Pathfinder platoon leader testified that when his element finally landed (approx. 4:15 a.m.), the landing zone was already starting to get light, and that his group was met by a group called the “Lima Bravo” element.

Here's part of that testimony [author's emphasis].

 

PF PLT LDR:
Just when we touched down and LZ [landing zone] was just starting to get light sir, so we were still moving [in a] period of limited visibility. I think it was 560 meters from our LZ to the crash site [which] just would have been to the southeast. We moved parallel in the Wadi up to the khalat. The
Lima Bravo element was already on scene,
I think they beat us [by] about 30 minutes. So . . . from there I talked to [name deleted] [who] was the GFC [ground forces commander] at the time. Establish security with them. We [Pathfinders] took security on the north end of the Wadi. They [Lima Bravo] took it on the south and also had an OP [outer perimeter] set up on the high ground to the Southwest of the crash site.

 

When the Pathfinder platoon leader speculated, “I think they beat us about 30 minutes,” his estimate was way off. This unidentified element had already been on the ground for one hour and eleven minutes, had already begun to identify American bodies, and had already permitted a
“coalition element” to conduct a “survey of the aircraft” in the field, and then disappear on an “unspecified road,” all before the Pathfinders arrived.

Once again, it should be emphasized that no one from this mysterious Lima Bravo element was interviewed in the Colt investigation and there was no testimony from anyone associated with that unit in the Colt Report.

Why not? Why would Brigadier General Colt not want to interview the first element on the ground after the shoot-­down?

Only the Army can answer that question.

Chapter 41

The Executive Summary: Whitewashing the Real Chronology

In view of the very clear chronology as laid out in Enclosure H, which shows the Predator drone securing the site from overhead at 2:55 a.m., and then the unidentified unit (presumably Lima Bravo) arriving at the crash site by 3:04 a.m., and then considerable other activity taking place on the ground, including identifying potential Friendly Killed in Action and the “coalition elements” who entered the field to “survey” the craft, it is surprising that General Colt's Executive Summary (Enclosure C) simply left all that out. Instead, Colt's summary dated September 9, 2011, curiously omitted all that.

Nothing was mentioned about the Predator drone securing the airspace over Extortion 17 at 2:55 a.m. Nothing was mentioned at all about Lima Bravo arriving at 3:04 a.m. Nothing was revealed about identifying dead American service members, or Coalition forces entering the field and surveying the aircraft at 3:04 a.m.

The revisionism of the Executive Summary at subchapter 6, Recovery Operations, is perplexing. The fact that Colt would (1) leave out the Predator drone's early arrival, thus securing the airspace minutes after the shoot-­down, (2) omit the mysterious Lima Bravo group arrival by 3:04 a.m., and (3) omit that “coalition elements” entered the field and “surveyed” the aircraft at 3:47 a.m., makes no sense. These crucial omissions smack of cover-­up.

Chapter 42

The Little Creek Briefing and Other Reports: More Questions on the Box

In October of 2011, a little over sixty days after the shoot-­down, and just over thirty days after the completion of the Colt Report, the Joint Special Operations Task Force conducted a briefing of SEAL team family members at the US Navy's Amphibious Base in Little Creek, Virginia. That meeting was presided over by Brigadier General Jeffrey Colt.

After confirming that Extortion 17 was flying 100–150 feet above the ground at the time of the shoot-­down, General Colt started getting questions from family members about the black box.

General Colt did not directly answer these questions. Curiously, he did not say, “we could not find the black box,” nor did he say, “There was no black box on the chopper. Instead he referred families to “the report.”

Of course, at that time, “the report,” which we are referring to herein as the “Colt Report,” had just been released to several families of the fallen. It appears, however, that very few families had actually read the report at the time of the Little Creek meeting. One would have to know exactly where to go to look in the voluminous report to find the Pathfinders' testimony about the black box.

One Extortion 17 parent, Mr. Charles Strange of Philadelphia, put the question even more bluntly to Brigadier General Colt. Mr. Strange recounted his exchange with Colt from 2011 at a press conference that several Extortion 17 families gave on May 9, 2013, in Washington. Mr. Strange's recollection of that event is set forth below:

 

In October (2011), we went down for General Colt's assessment of the investigation. We get there. They have a projector screen. The families are there. He's going over what happened. He said it went through a chain-­of-­command for this landing site.

I raised my hand, and I said “sir? Can I have the names of that chain-­of-­command?”

His neck snaps, and he said “It's in the book, sir.”

I said “How about the black box?”

He said, “The black box got blown away by the flood.”

In Afghanistan? Come on. You can't find the black box? I looked it up in Google. T[hose] black boxes don't go away. They lose black boxes in the swamp in Florida, and they find them. And you're telling me you can't find the black box? Not acceptable.

 

Therefore, according to Mr. Strange, the “flood theory” was introduced by Colt himself in October of 2011 at the Little Creek, Virginia, briefing with families.

Other families do not have specific recollection of General Colt mentioning the flood, at least not in public, when asked about the black box in October of 2011. But all the families interviewed for this book recall him (Colt) pointing them to the report, in response to their questioning.

According to witnesses, at no time during that meeting did Colt ever say that the Chinook did not have a black box from the beginning.

Even if Mr. Strange's recollection is faulty and General Colt did not specifically mention the flood to explain the disappearance of the black box, he certainly pointed families in that direction by directing families to the report. In the period between October 2011 and February 2014, various articles were written concerning the disappearing black box. Diana West, writing in the online magazine townhall.com, reported on May 17, 2013, in an article entitled “Afghanistan's Benghazi: The Shoot-­Down of Extortion 17” that “The black box was never recovered, the military insists.”

On July 23, 2013, in an article in
The Hill
written by Bob Cusack and entitled “Congress to Probe Lethal Crash that Killed SEAL Team 6 Members,” the paper reported that, “Their bodies were later recovered,
but the helicopter's black box was not. Pentagon officials have said that it could not be recovered, citing a flash flood that happened soon after the assault.”

The Hil
l
's account seems consistent—this
the flood got the black box
narrative—with the sworn testimony of the Pathfinders, who talked about searching extensively for the black box, then returned after the flood, and found themselves unable to find the black box “for the first time.”