White House defends mission after slain SEAL’s father questions raid
The White House responded Monday to the father of the U.S. Navy SEAL killed last month in a raid in Yemen, defending an operation it says produced valuable intelligence that will ultimately save American lives.
William Owens’ 36-year-old son, Ryan, and a number of civilians were killed in the Jan. 28 mission — the first such counterterrorist operation approved by President Trump.
“I can’t possibly imagine what he’s going through in terms of the loss of a son,” White House press secretary Sean Spicer said Monday at his daily press briefing. “I can tell him on behalf of the president that his son died a hero and the information that he was able to help obtain through that raid, as I’ve said before, is going to save Americans lives. It’s going to protect our country more.”
In an interview with the Miami Herald published Sunday, the elder Owens openly questioned Trump’s decision.
“Why at this time did there have to be this stupid mission when it wasn’t even barely a week into his administration? Why?” Owens said. “For two years prior, there were no boots on the ground in Yemen — everything was missiles and drones — because there was not a target worth one American life. Now, all of a sudden we had to make this grand display?”
Owens told the Herald that the White House owes his son an investigation into what went wrong.
Spicer said the Department of Defense would be conducting three separate reviews: one related to Owens’ death, one related to the civilian casualties and one related to damage of a military helicopter.
Earlier this month, Spicer criticized those, like Arizona Sen. John McCain, who questioned the success of the mission, saying anyone that did so owes both the White House and Owens’ family an apology. McCain argued that any mission in which an American is killed could not be called a success.
On Monday, Spicer was less forceful in responding to questions from the slain SEAL’s father.
“You can’t ever say, most importantly when there’s loss of life and people injured, that’s it’s 100 percent successful,” Spicer said. “But I think that when you look at the stated goal of that was — it was an information and intelligence-gathering mission. And it achieved its objectives.”
Spicer added that SEALs know the risks involved in military service.
“It’s something as a SEAL and someone who was deployed 12 times, he knew that this was part of the job,” Spicer said. “He knew what he was doing. So we’re very comfortable with how the mission was executed.”
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