A Russian Plot to Kill U.S. Soldiers

[0] From the New York Times, I'm Michael Babaro.

[1] This is a daily today.

[2] A Times investigation has revealed evidence of a secret Russian operation to kill American soldiers in Afghanistan and the failure of the Trump administration to act on that evidence.

[3] I spoke with my colleague, Eric Schmidt, one of the reporters who broke the original story about what we know now.

[4] It's Wednesday, July 1st.

[5] Eric, how is it that the U .S. first learned that Russia was up to something in Afghanistan?

[6] So, Michael, about six months ago or so, U .S. commandos working with Afghan allies, carried out a raid on a Taliban safe house.

[7] And they made a remarkable discovery.

[8] They found some $500 ,000 in a military.

[9] American money inside this safe house.

[10] Now, to be sure, from time to time, when they do these kind of raids, you find weapons and you find other kinds of things, even some money.

[11] But the military sources that we've talked to said they've never seen such a large hall.

[12] What would these guys be doing with $500 ,000?

[13] How did they get it?

[14] And what was it going to be used for?

[15] Right.

[16] So this set off a lot of questions.

[17] And as they conduct other raids, the commandos, CIA, other authorities, and Afghanistan, they seize the cell phones of different fighters, Taliban fighters.

[18] And they start exploiting that to see if there's any clues in the cell phones that might lead them back to the source of this money.

[19] But perhaps one of the most important things that happens is when they seize a couple of very important senior Taliban.

[20] and Taliban -related figures.

[21] And, of course, that's one of the first things they want to ask these operatives is, do you know anything about this money?

[22] And what do the militants say?

[23] They had a remarkable story to tell that this was money that they had been paid, that they'd been paid by a secretive Russian military intelligence unit for the express purpose of killing American, British, and other coalition forces in Afghanistan.

[24] But these investigators, they were searching around for other proof, how to link all this together because, of course, how do you assess that these Taliban guys weren't telling lies or some kind of disinformation?

[25] And then investigators learned of something else that sealed the deal, that seemed to kind of be the glue that pieced all these disparate parts together.

[26] And that was intercepts, basically electronic intercepts of the financial transactions themselves from this Russian military intelligence unit down to the Afghans on the ground, who were the intermediaries, who were basically managing this program for them there, and then on to the killers themselves before they were dispatched to target the American forces there.

[27] Essentially, it was an electronic paper trail.

[28] receipts, if you will, for services asked and services rendered.

[29] This became a very compelling argument that the military, CIA, and other authorities in Afghanistan started putting together.

[30] And a very serious conclusion, because from what you're describing, U .S. intelligence officials are not just putting together a theory that this money was offered to Taliban fighters, to go after Americans to basically kill them for hire, but that money had actually been paid out to them, suggesting that such killings had occurred.

[31] That's right.

[32] This wasn't just in theory, but there was the idea that they'd actually recovered some of the proceeds that the Russians had paid the Afghans to carry out this mission.

[33] So obviously the next task was to figure out what deaths may have been actually the result of this campaign.

[34] And do we have an answer?

[35] So the military and the intelligence officers, working with Afghan officials, started looking back over different attacks to see which looks suspicious.

[36] And their attentions focused on one in particular, three Marines who were killed on a patrol just outside of Bagram Air Base.

[37] They were patrolling on a normal day on a large car bomb, basically blew up.

[38] And this is something that the military is still determining, just what the links were.

[39] or if any, to this program of this attack.

[40] But it was suspicious.

[41] And it may have had the hallmarks of this program and some of the receipts tying back to it.

[42] And, Eric, in the minds of these intelligence officials who are starting to piece this Russian bounty system together, why would Russia do this?

[43] I mean, why would they pay the Taliban to kill U .S. soldiers?

[44] Well, Michael, I think you have to go back in the history of the U .S. and Russia and Afghanistan.

[45] Afghanistan, essentially to the very end of the Cold War, where in the late 1980s, the CIA secretly armed the Mujahjin resistance against the Soviet Union, which had invaded and occupied Afghanistan for nearly a decade.

[46] And the United States helped accelerate the departure of Soviet soldiers from Afghanistan.

[47] Fast forward to after 9 -11, when it's the U .S. that invades Afghanistan.

[48] Russians want a stable government there.

[49] They don't like the al -Qaeda anymore than the United States does.

[50] And so for some years, there's actually some cooperation between Moscow and Washington.

[51] Until a few years ago, when President Putin of Russia starts to become disillusioned with the U .S. plan in Afghanistan doesn't believe it's going to work and begins behind the backs of the U .S. to support the Taliban.

[52] to provide weapons, arms, the Taliban, who are still fighting the United States.

[53] Mm -hmm.

[54] And so we start to see this break where Russia is basically looking for ways to inflict pain on the United States and maybe even accelerate the U .S. departure from Afghanistan just as decades before the U .S. had done to the Soviet Union.

[55] Hmm.

[56] So if you put that framework where Russia is, is now looking for a way to replace the United States as the power inside of Afghanistan and humiliate the United States at the same time.

[57] This bounty program starts to make a little bit of sense.

[58] If this secretive military intelligence unit can put bounties on the heads of American soldiers and increase the number of casualties, presumably that would also stir unrest back in the United States, already war -weary after two decades of conflict in Afghanistan.

[59] So the Russian theory is, why not just speed that departure along?

[60] We take the U .S. place and we humiliate Washington and President Trump in the process.

[61] And I guess the reason why Russia would turn to a middleman, the Taliban, on this, is because it would never want to attack U .S. soldiers on its own in Afghanistan, just the way the U .S. didn't want to ever attack Russian soldiers directly in the next 1980s.

[62] That's right.

[63] You hire basically cutouts to do your dirty work, and it's very hard for the other side to prove that you're responsible.

[64] When it's murky like this, and you have Afghan intermediaries, criminals on the ground, and monies passing back and forth, Russians would have plausible deniability, so, oh, perhaps we were just supporting them for other aims.

[65] There's no evidence that we were behind this.

[66] But Eric, even so, even with a middleman cutout, as you just called it, I have to imagine that this kind of an operation by Russia is very risky and represents a pretty significant escalation by Russia.

[67] Absolutely, Michael.

[68] Anytime you have a foreign power, much less one like Russia, targeting American service members, American troops on the ground, that is very serious.

[69] serious thing.

[70] Right, because this is in its own way, almost a kind of act of war.

[71] Absolutely.

[72] That's the way many people would see it.

[73] Just because Russia might be using intermediaries or henchmen to do this, they're the ones responsible.

[74] They're the ones setting these killings in motion if they've happened.

[75] They're the ones that are essentially bribing the killers to carry out the attacks.

[76] And that's something that's very, very serious.

[77] And the Pentagon and the White House would have to address it.

[78] We'll be right back.

[79] So, Eric, in your reporting on this Russian bounty operation, what do you learn about how the White House, how the Pentagon decides to respond to the conclusion of the intelligence agencies that this operation exists?

[80] So this assessment that's been put together by the CIA and the military special operations forces in Afghanistan starts to make its way up the chain of command into Washington sometime in late January, early February, perhaps.

[81] And it's very closely held.

[82] This is some of the most sensitive intelligence in the American government, both because of the ramifications, if it's true, that Russia has put a bounty on American soldiers' heads and the political sensitivity that anything to do with Russia has with this administration and specifically this White House.

[83] And that assessment is serious enough that it makes its way into what's called the presidential daily briefing.

[84] This is the compendium of top intelligence and news items that's put together every day for the president to read.

[85] President Trump is not known to read it very often, very much.

[86] He relies more on verbal briefings, oral briefings.

[87] But by February 27th, sources tell us it was in that document.

[88] About a month later, at the end of March, the National Security Council, the National Security Armour, the White House holds its first meeting to discuss the intelligence assessment.

[89] It's representatives from the State Department, from the Pentagon, from the CIA, from around the government who can weigh in about the impact this might have.

[90] And most important, the options, how should the United States government respond to this?

[91] And the options that are discussed at this meeting in late March include everything from sending Moscow a stern letter, basically cease and desist or else, all the way up to sanctions, economic sanctions on top of those already imposed on Moscow that have been proven effective and damaging their economy.

[92] We don't know if President Trump was briefed on any of these options, but we do know that his administration did not authorize any kind of action in response.

[93] Nothing has happened so far as a result of this assessment.

[94] So that's the way things stood for many weeks, that this was very tightly held information at the most senior levels of the government until late last week.

[95] This is sort of stunning.

[96] Here's the lead.

[97] When the Times published a major investigation, that basically spelled out everything we've just been discussing.

[98] A New York Times report alleges Russia offered bounties to the Taliban in exchange for killing U .S. forces in Afghanistan.

[99] And what was the immediate reaction to all that information?

[100] Look, I'm sick to my stomach over this.

[101] Well, the immediate reaction was one of stunned disbelief.

[102] Sick to my stomach as a member of Congress, a patriot, but also as someone who served in Afghanistan.

[103] This is as bad as it gets.

[104] both by Democrats and Republicans in Congress.

[105] And yet the president will not confront the Russians on this score.

[106] Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, he said, quote, imperative Congress get to the bottom of recent media reports.

[107] Where is President Trump?

[108] His number one job is to protect American soldiers.

[109] There was outrage that if indeed this bounty program had existed, what was the United States government doing about it?

[110] How were they protecting their soldiers, first of all, in Afghanistan?

[111] And what steps were being taken to punish the Russians?

[112] He should have a plan.

[113] What are we doing?

[114] And above all, go after Putin.

[115] Because this is at a time when President Trump has continued to carry out conversations with President Putin.

[116] In fact, just a few weeks ago...

[117] The problem is many of the things that we talk about are about Putin.

[118] He invited Russia to join the G8 conference in Washington.

[119] And I say, have him in the room, have him in the room.

[120] Much to the disbelief of European allies and even some of his own Republican supporters here in the United States.

[121] So we have a G7.

[122] He's not there.

[123] Half of the meetings devoted to Russia.

[124] And if he was there, it would be much easier to solve.

[125] So as this information breaks, it breaks against a backdrop of the president continuing to enjoy, in his view, very warm relations with Vladimir Putin in Moscow.

[126] Mm -hmm.

[127] And how does the White House explain this?

[128] I mean, not only not responding to this Russian bounty program, but actually growing closer to Russia and to Vladimir Putin after our government had reached this conclusion.

[129] Hello, everyone.

[130] The White House's immediate response is...