On Friday afternoon, President Donald Trump denied any knowledge of an alleged failed 2019 Navy SEAL Team 6 operation in North Korea, telling a reporter who requested his comment that this was the first time he had heard of it.
Why It Matters
This alleged mission would demonstrate the failure of the United States to achieve an intelligence objective against a country with which officials have engaged in sensitive diplomatic discussions.
The Pentagon and the White House rarely, if at all, comment on SEAL Team 6 missions.
Trump has continued talks with North Korea since returning to power for his second term, but has found the country less receptive than during his first. North Korean officials have rejected Trump’s message of paving the way for dialogue.
The stated goal of the negotiations is to move toward a peace agreement between North and South Korea, ending decades of tensions between the two neighbors.
What To Know
The New York Times reported Friday on a 2019 operation to plant a listening device that would have allowed the United States to intercept North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s communications, while the United States was holding high-level nuclear negotiations with North Korea.
According to the newspaper, the operation went awry when a boat began drifting, raising concerns that the Navy SEAL team had been spotted en route to shore. The team opened fire, killing all passengers on board, then withdrew without completing its mission, the report said.
The New York Times reported that due to the mission’s extreme sensitivity, it would have required Trump’s direct approval.
Asked about the mission during a press conference in the Oval Office on Friday, Trump said, “I don’t know anything about it.”
The president replied, “I had to check, but I don’t know anything about it,” adding, “This is the first time I’ve heard of it.” The reporter also asked whether Trump had spoken or communicated with North Korea since the alleged incident, a question he did not respond to.
Contacted by email by Newsweek Friday afternoon, the Pentagon declined to comment.
Navy SEAL Team 6’s Red Squadron 6—the same unit that killed Osama bin Laden, the founder of al-Qaeda and mastermind of 9/11—was selected for the mission, and the team had trained for months beforehand.
What Is SEAL Team 6?
SEAL Team 6 is the nickname given to Navy SEAL Team 6, a unit of the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC). This unit often undertakes secret missions that are generally not commented on by the Pentagon or the White House.
This group is the Navy SEALs’ equivalent of Delta Force and gained notable notoriety after the death of Bin Laden.
In 2015, journalist Sean Naylor, a national security correspondent for 20 years for Army Times, published a book detailing the history of JSOC and some of its missions, such as the 2008 raid in which SEAL Team 6 launched a raid from Afghanistan into Pakistan to hunt down al-Qaeda leaders.
The Times also covered the publication of the book, which proved to be the most comprehensive, if unknown, analysis of the operations of a team “engaged in fighting so fierce that its members emerged drenched in blood not their own.”
“Around the world, they operated spy stations disguised as commercial ships, posing as civilian employees of front companies, and working undercover in embassies as male-female couples, hunting down those the United States wanted to kill or capture,” the Times wrote.
Trump Sought Nuke Deal With North Korea
During his first administration, Trump attempted to conclude the same type of agreements he had promoted throughout his second term. During those first four years, he achieved significant progress, including the Abraham Accords between Israel and several Middle Eastern countries.
The president initially sought a nuclear arms deal with North Korea, but ultimately settled for a 2018 joint statement setting four objectives for Kim: a commitment to establish a new relationship with the United States; a commitment to establish a lasting and stable peace regime on the Korean Peninsula; a commitment to work toward the complete denuclearization of the peninsula; and the recovery and repatriation of the remains of prisoners of war and those missing in action.
These talks could have been a turning point in the negotiations, but the coronavirus pandemic radically altered the course of those discussions. After Trump left office, the possibility of a deal with an increasingly isolated North Korea – which had suffered greatly during the pandemic – became less likely.