Miami Herald Reporter Opens Up About Interview With Slain Navy SEAL's Father
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MIAMI (CBSMiami) – The Miami Herald reporter who got an exclusive interview with the father of a slain Navy SEAL is opening up about their conversation.
William Owens wants to know how and why his son, Chief Petty Officer William "Ryan" Owens, died.
"He has some concerns that this was done more for political reasons," Julie Brown explained.
The Miami Herald's Julie Brown got the exclusive interview with Bill Owens.
Owens insists that the raid went down too soon into Donald Trump's presidency, even though it had been planned for months during the Obama administration.
"The president had only been in office six days. It was a series of executive orders on at this time. A lot of chaos around the country over the Muslim ban and the travel ban and one of the countries of course that had been banned was Yemen," Brown said. "He questions whether it was prudent for the president to launch a raid against Yemen the day after he signed a travel ban with the country."
Reports are there are three separate military investigations involving the raid – one specifically on what happened to Chief Petty Officer Owens.
But his father wants more.
"He is naturally concerned that there needs to be more done to look into how this whole mission went down, the beginning to the end," Brown said.
The White House has strongly defended the raid, saying it produced valuable intelligence despite Owens' death, a number of civilians who were killed and the loss of an aircraft.
"I think anybody who undermines the success of that raid does owes and apology and is a disservice to the life of Chief Owens," White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said.
The operation was ultra-secret and now highly controversial, so don't expect a lot of information about all this anytime soon. That is, of course, unless the right people start looking.
"There are people that probably know what happened, you know, and so we will have to leave it to people who know how to dig into these things," Brown said. "Whether it is going to get into the decision making that went into it remains to be seen."