Navy SEAL platoon sent home from Iraq over rape allegation and drinking while deployed

A platoon of Navy SEALs — some of the most elite fighters in the US military — are being sent back home early from fighting ISIS in Iraq after the platoon members all refused to cooperate with an investigation into allegations of a sexual assault and reports that some members had been drinking alcohol while deployed.

US Special Operations Command, the military organization that oversees America’s special forces missions around the world, made that stunning announcement Wednesday night on Twitter.

It stated that the head of special operators fighting ISIS in Iraq, Air Force Maj. Gen. Eric Hill, had ordered the SEALs’ early return to their San Diego base “due to a perceived deterioration of good order and discipline within the team during non-operational periods.”

Reports since that somewhat cryptic statement was released have provided more details. Evidently, members of Foxtrot Platoon, which is part of SEAL Team 7, were drinking alcohol during an Independence Day celebration in Iraq. That’s a major no-no, as official orders say that troops can’t drink while deployed, even in their downtime.

And on Thursday night, the New York Times reported that a senior member of the platoon had been accused of raping a female service member attached to the unit. When commanders asked platoon members about the drinking and the alleged assault, the entire platoon reportedly chose to invoke their right to remain silent and refused to cooperate with the investigation.

That prompted leadership to take the extraordinary step of sending the entire platoon — the only SEALs operating in Iraq — home.

As of Thursday, the 19 SEALs and four support troops were in Kuwait waiting to head back to their home base in California; the unit is now under investigation.

Geoffrey Corn, a 21-year Army veteran and military justice expert at South Texas College of Law Houston I spoke to before the new rape allegations emerged, told me that it’s hard to know what the next steps in the probe will be, but that some of the unit leaders may end up being relieved of their command and that other members of the platoon could face reprimands or judicial punishment.

It’s a bad look for a group of warriors that over the past decade has achieved almost celebrity status in America for their daring exploits, many of which have been glamorized by Hollywood.

What’s worse, the troubling development adds to a growing list of scandals the SEAL community has found itself embroiled in recently that have begun to tarnish the image of the elite fighting force.

SEAL scandals are piling up

The elite, counterterrorism-focused SEALs gained international fame when they rescued Capt. Richard Phillips from a pirate hijacking in 2009 and killed Osama bin Laden in 2011. Scores of movies and books — some of them written by SEALs themselves — recount their clandestine, often violent missions, turning the group’s members into national celebrities and pop culture icons.

But that sterling reputation has taken several blows recently.

Two members of SEAL Team 6 — the group that killed bin Laden — were implicated in the June 2017 murder of Army Staff Sgt. Logan Melgar along with two other Marine special operators.

Chief Special Warfare Operator Edward Gallagher, a SEAL from the same team as those disgracefully returning from Iraq, recently faced a court martial for committing war crimes — including murder.

And earlier this week, the independent Navy Times reported that six members of SEAL Team 10 tested positive last year for cocaine use and other drugs while serving. What’s more, they found ways to cheat drug tests, such as swapping out tainted urine samples for clean ones, on the rare occasions they actually had to go through a test.

“I never once got piss-tested on deployment or on the road, where I was using most often,” one caught SEAL told the Navy Times.

He was cleared of most charges, but he was found guilty for posing next to an enemy’s dead body. He wasn’t alone; other SEALs joined him in those photos. Making matters worse, it was revealed that members of his unit had also been drinking alcohol on the battlefield.

There’s more — including the conviction of a SEAL in early 2018 for recording images of child abuse on his phone — but you get the idea.

These instances have raised concerns that there’s a systemic behavioral problem inside the SEAL community. “Something seems off,” Corn told me. He and others want Congress to hold hearings on this issue and ask commanders what, specifically, they’re doing to end the problems.

But many officials and experts say there’s no deeper problem and that these cases are merely outliers. They note that hundreds of SEALs do their jobs professionally and ably despite the Pentagon constantly calling on them to serve in the world’s most treacherous places.

“We do not have a systemic problem,” Air Force Chief Master Sgt. Gregory Smith told reporters at the Pentagon on Wednesday, just hours before the announcement about the returning SEALs came out. “We have a pretty large population of Navy special warfare [operators] and overwhelmingly the vast majority — 99.8 percent — are at the top of the line.

“Do we have an issue? No, we have challenges, we have fraying, but are these things systemic? No, after a hard look,” he continued. ”Is there room for improvement? Is any one ethical breach too much? Yes.”