US weighing brash Navy SEAL to helm special operations

ANKARA

The U.S. Department of Defense is considering recommending a former Navy SEAL who bragged about his penchant for tequila for the top civilian post overseeing special operations forces.

According to a Sunday report on Politico magazine, eight-year SEAL veteran Lou Bremer, who has formerly bragged about his tequila drinking, is now the leading contender to be the assistant secretary of defense for special operations. Bremer is a private equity investor with ties to the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump through his billionaire boss Stephen Feinberg, reported Politico.

The Pentagon's recommendation rumors of a former SEAL with a drinking issue came amid an ongoing campaign by Navy officials to fight rising problems of alcohol, drugs and sexual misconduct in the elite group of the U.S. military.

In an unprecedented move last week in the Navy's history, officials fired three top leaders of the elite SEAL Team 7 in a bid to bring ''back to basics'' discipline and ''correct the drift''.

According to a Navy statement, Rear Adm. Collin Green, the commander of Naval Special Warfare Command, dismissed Cmdr. Edward Mason, the team’s commander; Lt. Cmdr. Luke Im, its executive officer; and Command Master Chief Hugh Spangler, the unit’s senior enlisted leader over problems with leadership in the team’s ranks.

The move comes after top U.S. defense officials in July ordered a Navy SEAL unit in Iraq to return home after an investigation showed they had been consuming alcohol while on deployment.

The elite Navy SEALs, reportedly a tight-knit, secretive community, have been rocked by scandals of drug and substance abuse, suicides, and worse, homicides and war crimes.

Earlier in July, in one of the most controversial cases, a panel of Marine officers in California acquitted a chief Navy SEAL officer accused by military prosecutors of committing war crimes during his 2017 deployment to Iraq.

Nearly a year after Special Warfare Operator Chief Edward Gallagher was charged with murder, attempted murder, and other war crimes in Mosul, Iraq, including stabbing to death a wounded Daesh prisoner of war, he was released from custody.

The jurors ignored the testimony of a dozen of officers in Gallagher's Alpha Platoon, SEAL Team 7, who said he had shot at least two civilians from a sniper perch, among other crimes.