A key congressman is pressing Defense Secretary Ashton Carter to set up an independent investigation into a jihadi’s killing of three Marines in 2012, the role of a corrupt Afghan police chief in their deaths and the Navy’s decision to discharge the officer who tried to warn the base.
In a letter, Rep. Duncan Hunter, California Republican and a former Marine Corps officer, said neither the Pentagon inspector general nor the Naval Criminal Investigative Command should have any role in such a probe.
Instead, he said, the FBI needs to investigate charges of child sex abuse by Afghan police chief Sarwan Jan, whether any U.S. military commanders knew of but failed to act on the abuse, and whether the Navy’s investigation into the killings had any flaws.
“I ask that you undertake an expedited review of this case and make an immediate recommendation to the Federal Bureau of Investigation to initiate an investigation,” the House Armed Services Committee member told Mr. Carter.
According to a U.S. intelligence report, Mr. Jan showed up at Forward Operating Base Delhi with nine boys and male teens. One of them walked into the base gym and opened fire, killing three unarmed Marines. The teen proclaimed he was carrying out jihad. A judge sentenced him to 7½ years in prison.
But the massacre story quickly grew more complicated.
It came to light that Marine Reserve Maj. Jason Brezler was alerted before the killings that Mr. Jan, whom he knew to be corrupt from his work as an intelligence officer on a previous deployment, had opened a police station inside Camp Delhi.
He tried to warn Marines at the camp by sending them a classified dossier from his unsecured laptop computer while he was a graduate student in Oklahoma.
A Marine intelligence officer in Afghanistan saw the classified notation and reported him for a breach of security rules.
Maj. Brezler was punished by his reserve unit in New York but remained a reservist. In August 2013, he contacted members of Congress as a whistleblower, asserting that the Marine deaths could have been prevented.
After Commandant James Amos read about his case, senior officers put into motion a procedure to end his career. The Corps ordered a board of inquiry, which voted to discharge him for mishandling classified information.
A Navy assistant secretary recently denied Maj. Brezler’s appeal, despite the urgings of New York’s two U.S. senators for Navy Secretary Ray Mabus to let the major remain in the service.
The U.S. command in Afghanistan denied accusations from former officers who said they were told to look the other way when they learned that Afghan chieftains were sexually abusing boys on American bases.
Mr. Hunter said the Pentagon inspector general and Navy criminal investigators gave “inadequate attention” to the killings and purported reprisal against Maj. Brezler, who is now a firefighter living in Brooklyn, New York.
The inspector general concluded that Maj. Brezler, who is due to be discharged around March, was not the victim of reprisal. But its report did say that the general who ordered the board of inquiry was not altogether truthful about events.
In his letter, Mr. Hunter told Mr. Carter, “As I am sure you understand, based on these concerns, an independent and thorough investigation is now required — and it is my belief that this must now occur outside the control of the Department of Defense. And given the latest attention on cases of either unreported or unaddressed sex abuse in Afghanistan, I am confident that you recognize the obligation to ensure this matter is properly investigated.”
A spokesman said Mr. Hunter has not received a response.
• Rowan Scarborough can be reached at rscarborough@washingtontimes.com.
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