Hagel hails Bergdahl release

Speaking during an unannounced visit to Afghanistan on Sunday, Defense Secretary Hagel said the negotiated release of Bergdahl in exchange for five Taliban detainees served as a "powerful reminder" of the United States' "sacred commitment" to its soldiers.

"This is a happy day for our country, because we got one of our own back," Hagel said in an address to a gathering of US troops at the Bagram military base outside of Kabul.

Hagel praised the operation by US special forces to retrieve Bergdahl from a site in eastern Afghanistan, saying it had gone completely according to plan.

"Fortunately ... no shots were fired, there was no violence," the defense secretary said. "It went as well, not only as we had expected and planned, but I think as well as it could have."

He also defended the decision to exchange the 28-year-old Bergdahl for five high-ranking Taliban militants, saying the US did so after receiving intelligence that both his health and safety were in jeopardy.

"It was our judgment that if we could find an opening and move very quickly with that opening, that we needed to get him out of there essentially to save his life," he said.

Some senior Republicans in the US Congress had previously criticized the deal, saying President Barack Obama had failed to first notify Congress as required before any detainees being held at the Guantanamo Bay facility be released. Hagel said that as commander-in-chief, the president had the power to move without first informing Congress, due to the urgency of the case.

Hagel also met with the team of more than a dozen special forces who were involved in the operation.

Bergdahl to receive treatment in Germany

Officials said Bergdahl, who was captured by Taliban insurgents in 2009, has since been flown out of Afghanistan to the US military hospital at Landstuhl, Germany, where he is to receive treatment before returning home.

"That includes time for him to tell his story, decompress, and to reconnect with his family through telephone calls and video conferences," the Reuters news agency quoted a US defense official as saying.

Bergdahl was the only known missing US soldier from the war in Afghanistan.

The five released Taliban insurgents were reportedly being flown by a US military aircraft to Qatar, which acted as an intermediary in the negotiations. They are reported to be subject to a number of conditions as part of the deal, including not being allowed to leave Qatar for a period of one year.

The prisoner swap comes just days after President Obama announced plans to pull out all but around 10,000 US troops from Afghanistan by the end of the year and the rest by 2016.

pfd/msh (Reuters, dpa, AFP)