Chief as Evil and Toxic Anguished SEALs Recall · 2019-12-27 · relatives, reshaping their care....
Transcript of Chief as Evil and Toxic Anguished SEALs Recall · 2019-12-27 · relatives, reshaping their care....
VOL. CLXIX . . . No. 58,554 © 2019 The New York Times Company NEW YORK, FRIDAY, DECEMBER 27, 2019
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The Navy SEALs showed upone by one, wearing hoodies andT-shirts instead of uniforms, to tellinvestigators what they had seen.Visibly nervous, they shifted intheir chairs, rubbed their palmsand pressed their fists againsttheir foreheads. At times theystopped in midsentence and brokeinto tears.
“Sorry about this,” Special Op-erator First Class Craig Miller,one of the most experiencedSEALs in the group, said as helooked sideways toward a blankwall, trying to hide that he wasweeping. “It’s the first time — I’mreally broken up about this.”
Video recordings of the inter-views obtained by The New YorkTimes, which have not beenshown publicly before, were partof a trove of Navy investigativematerials about the prosecution ofSpecial Operations Chief EdwardGallagher on war crimes chargesincluding murder.
They offer the first opportunityoutside the courtroom to hear di-rectly from the men of Alpha pla-toon, SEAL Team 7, whose blister-ing testimony about their platoonchief was dismissed by PresidentTrump when he upended the mili-tary code of justice to protectChief Gallagher from the punish-ment.
“The guy is freaking evil,” Spe-cial Operator Miller told investi-gators. “The guy was toxic,” Spe-cial Operator First Class JoshuaVriens, a sniper, said in a separateinterview. “You could tell he wasperfectly O.K. with killing any-body that was moving,” Special
Operator First Class Corey Scott,a medic in the platoon, told the in-vestigators.
Such dire descriptions of ChiefGallagher, who had eight combatdeployments and sometimes wentby the nickname Blade, are inmarked contrast to Mr. Trump’sportrayal of him at a recent politi-cal rally in Florida as one of “ourgreat fighters.”
Though combat in Iraq barelyfazed the SEALs, sitting down totell Naval Criminal InvestigativeService agents about what theyhad seen their platoon chief doduring a 2017 deployment in Iraqwas excruciating for them.
Not only did they have to relivewrenching events and describegrisly scenes, they had to break apowerful unwritten code of silencein the SEALs, one of the nation’smost elite commando forces.
The trove of materials also in-
Anguished SEALs RecallChief as ‘Evil’ and ‘Toxic’
Platoon Members Who Turned In GallagherBroke Code of Silence on Grisly Acts
By DAVE PHILIPPS
Edward Gallagher has drawnpraise from President Trump.
JOHN GASTALDO/ZUMA WIRE
Continued on Page A11
MASAYA, Nicaragua — DianaLacayo never imagined that ahunger strike held in a churchwould turn into a nine-day siege,with the police outside and theelectricity and water cut off in-side.
But to the Nicaraguan authori-ties, even this modest protest wasa challenge to be crushed.
For nearly two years,
Nicaraguans have been rising upagainst the grip of one family, theOrtegas, who are accused of turn-ing the country into a personalfief: The president has no termlimits, the first lady is the vicepresident and their children holdtop posts in industries like gas and
television.In the face of unrest, the gov-
ernment has used uncompromis-ing measures to silence public dis-sent. And despite a collapsingeconomy, American sanctions andmass emigration, President Dan-iel Ortega and his wife, Vice Presi-dent Rosario Murillo, still holdpower firmly.
Once seen as a national hero forhis leadership of the leftist Sandi-nista Front that overthrew the dic-
Where Even a Hunger Strike Is Met by Riot PoliceBy FRANCES ROBLES
and CESAR RODRIGUEZNicaragua Wields Force
to Stamp Out Dissent
Women in Managua, Nicaragua, who are seeking the release of relatives jailed by the government.CESAR RODRIGUEZ FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
Continued on Page A8
CAIRO — In the months since amissile and drone attack widelyseen as the work of Iran left twoSaudi oil facilities smoldering, theSaudi crown prince has taken anuncharacteristic turn to diplo-macy to cool tensions with his re-gional enemies.
The prince, Mohammed binSalman, has stepped up directtalks with the rebels he has beenfighting in Yemen for over fouryears, leading to a decline in at-tacks by both sides.
He has made gestures to ease, ifnot end, the stifling blockade heand his allies imposed on his tiny,wealthy neighbor, Qatar.
He has even engaged in indirecttalks with the kingdom’s arch-nemesis, Iran, to try to dampenthe shadow war raging across theregion.
Fueling the shift from con-frontation to negotiation, analystssay, is the sobering realizationthat a decades-old cornerstone ofAmerican policy in the MiddleEast — the understanding that theUnited States would defend theSaudi oil industry from foreign at-tacks — can no longer be taken forgranted.
Even though American andSaudi officials agreed that Iranwas behind the Sept. 14 attacks onthe petroleum processing plantsat Abqaiq and Khurais, temporar-ily halving Saudi Arabia’s oil pro-duction, President Trump re-sponded with heated rhetoric butlittle else.
For the Saudis, the tepid re-sponse drove home the realitythat despite the tens of billions ofdollars they have spent on Ameri-can weapons — more than $170billion since 1973 — they could nolonger count on the United Statesto come to their aid, at least notwith the force they expected.
Worried about having to fendfor themselves in a tough and un-predictable neighborhood, ana-lysts say, the Saudis have quietlyreached out to their enemies to de-escalate conflicts.
“I think we will look at Sept. 14as a seminal moment in gulf his-tory,” said David B. Roberts, ascholar of the region at King’s Col-lege London. With the presump-tion shattered that the UnitedStates would protect the Saudis,Dr. Roberts said, “they realize theneed to be more accommodating.”
For the United States, the shift
Saudis TurningTo Direct Talks
With Enemies
By DECLAN WALSHand BEN HUBBARD
Continued on Page A7
It’s Dec. 17 and a customer atthe Old Navy on 18th Street andSixth Avenue in Manhattan has aproblem: She’s looking to getmatching Jingle Jammies for herfamily but can’t find a size 3T forher son.
Daisy Tecotl has a solution. Shechecks the In Stock on Shelf appon her store-issued mobile deviceto see if there’s a 3T in the stock-room. There isn’t, so she opens theOrder in Store app and arrangesto ship it to the woman beforeChristmas.
The sale is reflected in yet an-other app, the Sell app, that pingsMs. Tecotl, a 24-year-old mer-chandising manager, with hourlyfigures on sales and credit cardsign-ups and several other met-rics, which she uses to broadcastguidance to “refocus” her sales as-sociates, who, like her, are outfit-ted with earpieces and walkie-talkies.
“Maybe our focus is gettingmore customers that come in topurchase more,” Ms. Tecotl saidby way of example, “so maybe therefocus is handing out mesh bags”— the store’s branded shoppingbags — “and saying hello a littlebit more.”
This is the job of a retail clothingworker at the end of 2019: dashingback and forth between stock-room and fitting room and salesfloor, online and in-store, jugglingthe hats of cashier and cheer-leader and personal shopper andvisual merchandiser and data-base manager.
As brick-and-mortar storesscramble to justify their continuedexistence, they’re trying to be allthings to all customers, to blendinstant gratification and infiniteselection. And it falls upon theworkers on the front lines to make
Workers JuggleApps and HatsAs Retail Sinks
By ANDY NEWMAN
Continued on Page A17
GARNER, Iowa — Dawn Small-foot put up a Bernie Sanders signin her yard after hearing himspeak in spring 2015. It’s beenthere ever since.
“Why take it down?” she said ona recent Monday evening, duringa break from making calls to po-tential Sanders supporters. “I waswaiting for his return.”
His campaign is counting onthat kind of devotion.
With less than six weeks untilvoting begins, the loyalty Mr.Sanders commands has turnedhim into a formidable contenderin the 2020 race. Despite having aheart attack in October thatthreatened to derail his secondquest for the Democratic nomina-tion, he remains at or near the topof polls in Iowa and other earlystates, lifted by his near ubiqui-tous name recognition and an en-viable bank account.
His anti-establishment mes-sage hasn’t changed for 50 years,and it resonates with working-class voters and young peoplewho agree the system is corruptand it will take a revolution to fixit.
The scenario seemed unlikelyjust months earlier. As Mr. Sand-ers, 78, lay recovering in a hospitalin Las Vegas, two new stents inone of his arteries, some of hisstaff members were unsure if hewould continue his campaign.With Mr. Sanders, Vermont’s ju-nior senator, already slumping inthe polls, even some allies thoughthe should drop out and throw hissupport behind Senator ElizabethWarren of Massachusetts, a fellowprogressive who was surging.
But then he secured the covetedendorsement of RepresentativeAlexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Demo-crat of New York, giving his cam-
Fierce LoyaltyRe-energizing
Sanders’s BidBy SYDNEY EMBER
Continued on Page A10
In an Ohio county ravaged by drugs,many children of addicts are taken in byrelatives, reshaping their care. PAGE A9
NATIONAL A9-14
Relatives to the RescueNew York City Ballet invited 4,500students to see the show. Julia Jacobshung out with third graders from GirlsPrep Bronx and talked ballet. PAGE C2
WEEKEND ARTS C1-20
The Loudest ‘Nutcracker’
In a move that angered backers, thegovernor vetoed a bill that would havelegalized electric bikes and scooters,citing safety concerns. PAGE A16
NEW YORK A16-17
Cuomo Rejects Electric BikesA growing number of men in China areusing defamation lawsuits to counterclaims of sexual harassment. As aresult, women are thinking twice aboutspeaking out. PAGE B1
BUSINESS B1-5
Accusers Become the Accused
Peter Navarro still seeks to punishChina, though a deal he opposed wasembraced by the president. PAGE A14
A Trade Hawk Remains at War
The police released a 14-year-old withoutcharging him in the death of the Barnardstudent Tessa Majors. PAGE A16
Boy Linked to Killing Is Found
Thirty-six vintage cars, one from eachproduction year between 1953 and 1989,will be part of a sweepstakes drawingnext year. They’ve languished in ga-rages for more than 25 years. PAGE B1
$3 for a Chance at a Corvette
David Brooks PAGE A19
EDITORIAL, OP-ED A18-19Colorado’s thin air may have helped hisbatting statistics, but Larry Walkermerits the honor. On Baseball. PAGE B6
SPORTSFRIDAY B6-9
Final Shot at the Hall of Fame
PROGRESO, Texas — Twodays after giving the federal gov-ernment his signature, RichardDrawe paused with his wife andmother on a levee that his familyhas owned for nearly a century towatch the cranes and roseatespoonbills.
A border wall that he reluc-tantly agreed to put on his landwill soon divide this Texan familyfrom the whole scene: the levee, alake, an onion field and all of thosebirds.
Mr. Drawe, 69, doubts the wallwill do much to stop illegal immi-gration, and though he supportsthe president who ordered it, hebelieves that the construction will“ruin” his life. But selling the land
early on seemed better andcheaper than facing the govern-ment in court, only to have it takethe land anyway, he reasoned.
The wall, the lights and theroads will be built on about a doz-en acres that his grandfatherbought in the 1920s, and that willcut him off from the pricelessviews of the Rio Grande that hecherishes.
“We just finally gave up,” hesaid. “If they offered me a milliondollars to build the wall, I would
refuse it if I knew they wouldn’tbuild it. I don’t want the money.This is my life here.”
The White House is hopingmore landowners along the bor-der will make the same decision —and help President Trump deliveron his campaign promise to build450 miles of new border wall by2021.
The list of challenges still facingMr. Trump’s “big, beautiful” wallinclude an investigation into con-struction contracts, funding de-lays and a recent legal decisionblocking emergency access to De-fense Department funds to buildit. The nationwide injunction has,for now, curtailed wall work on 175miles in Laredo and El Paso,Texas; in Yuma, Ariz.; and in El
Texas Landowners Are Barrier to Trump’s WallBy ZOLAN KANNO-YOUNGS Access to Private Acres
Might Just BecomeToughest Hurdle
Continued on Page A13
The proposed border wall would divide Richard Drawe’s home, right, from his lake and his property to the south in Donna, Texas.ILANA PANICH-LINSMAN FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ofIsrael rebuffed a leadership challengedespite facing graft charges. PAGE A7
INTERNATIONAL A4-8
Netanyahu Survives Party Vote
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan saidTurkey’s Parliament would vote nextmonth on a deployment. PAGE A6
Turkish Troops May Go to Libya
Late EditionToday, mostly cloudy, light winds,high 52. Tonight, mainly clear, lightwinds, low 41. Tomorrow, mostlysunny, remaining mild, light winds,high 50. Weather map, Page A20.
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