WASHINGTON – A team ordered by the president to review U.S. hostage policy is interviewing hostages’ families for input, a spokeswoman for the government’s Hostage Policy Review Team said Wednesday.
U.S. hostage policy came under scrutiny last year after the government traded five Taliban prisoners for the release of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, an American soldier who was held hostage in Pakistan.
The president was widely criticized for the deal, and he directed the National Counterterrorism Center to conduct a review of hostage policy in November. In December, the interagency Hostage Policy Review Team was formed with officials from the Departments of Defense and State, the FBI and members of the intelligence community.
“They are in the middle of examining all aspects of policy review, with exception of the non-concessions policy,” said Kathleen Butler, the review team’s spokeswoman.
The mother of James Foley—an American journalist who was held hostage for nearly two years and then beheaded by ISIS in August —met with the Hostage Policy Review Team on Tuesday in response to a request for her input.
Foley’s mother said she doesn’t think the U.S. did enough to save her son.
“The government just wasn’t interested in negotiating,” Diane Foley said. “Apparently their hands were tied.”
When Foley received a message from the captors asking for a hundred million euros or the release of all Muslim prisoners, Foley said the FBI’s response was “cavalier” and directed her to write back denying the captors’ requests.
“We did just what the FBI said. But what the captors wanted was to talk to the government to negotiate,” Foley said. “The captors could tell after a few emails that it wasn’t government… they got angry, and by the end of December they said, ‘This is the last time you’re going to hear from us,’ and they cut us off.”
After being told that ransom was “off the table” by a government official, Foley said, she and her family started an online campaign to raise the money but were later threatened with prosecution for raising ransom funds.
Foley said she hopes the Hostage Policy Review Team will establish an interagency group that could better manage hostage crises and declassify information to relay to hostages’ families.
The Hostage Policy Review Team is expected to give its recommendations to the president in early spring.
