Afghanistan: Hagel discusses details of U.S. operation to exchange Taliban detainees for captive soldier --- BAGRAM, Afghanistan — The commander of the U.S. Special Operations team that retrieved Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl on Saturday was in direct contact with his Taliban counterpart as the two sides arranged and approached their rendezvous near Afghanistan’s border with Pakistan, according to senior Defense Department officials. -- As additional details of the operation began to surface Sunday, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and other officials said that every precaution was taken to reduce the margin for possible error or miscalculation. -- “In an operation like this, where there’s always uncertainty, always danger, you prepare for all eventualities,” said Hagel, who arrived here Sunday afternoon on a brief, unannounced stop, where he met privately with more than a dozen members of the team that carried out the mission. -- “They took every possible precaution we could take, through intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, through having enough of our assets positioned in the right locations, having enough helicopters, doing everything we could . . . to anticipate any violence or anything going in a different direction,” Hagel said. -- “Fortunately, no shots were fired,” he said. “There was no violence. It went as well as we not only had expected and planned, but I think as well as it could have.” -- Officials said “dozens” of Special Operations troops went to the site in helicopters for the meeting with 18 Taliban delivering Bergdahl, while additional militants waited in the distance. -- U.S. and NATO Commander Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr. said there was a sense of excitement at International Security Assistance Force headquarters as the news spread here Saturday. -- “You almost got choked up,” he said. “It was pretty extraordinary. It has been almost five years and he is home.” -- Captured in 2009 while serving in Afghanistan, Bergdahl had been held in western Pakistan for nearly five years by the Taliban-allied Haqqani network. But officials insisted Saturday that it was the Taliban, and not the Haqqanis, who turned him over. -- Initial announcements on Bergdahl’s release said only that negotiations leading up to it began several weeks ago through the government of Qatar, and indicated no direct contact between the United States and the Taliban. -- But planning for the actual operation that took place in the past week eventually put operational commanders on both sides in direct contact. Officials declined to specify the method of communication. -- Speaking to reporters aboard his aircraft en route to Bagram, Hagel rejected charges by some Republican lawmakers that the exchange of Bergdahl for five Taliban detainees held at Guantanamo prison had violated congressional requirements for advance notification on detainee transfers. He said that President Obama had used his executive power under the Constitution. -- “We believe that the President of the United States, as commander in chief, has the power and authority to make the decision that he did under Article II of the Constitution,” Hagel said. Obama has hesitated at times to assert his executive power without seeking congressional approval. -- “We believed that the information that we had, the intelligence that we had, was such that Sgt. Bergdahl’s safety and health were both in jeopardy and, in particular, his health was deteriorating,” Hagel said. “It was our judgment that if we could find an opening and move very quickly … that we could get him out of there, essentially to save his life.” -- Obama’s national security advisers were “unanimous that this was the right thing to do” and Hagel had signed the transfer order, he said. Qatar has agreed to supervise the five released men under unspecified conditions, and to keep them from leaving that country for one year. -- Hagel also confirmed that Afghan President Hamid Karzai was not informed of the operation in advance and was told afterward in a call from Secretary of State John F. Kerry. -- “This was an operation … that had to be very closely held,” Hagel said. “Very few people knew about this operation. We did not want to jeopardize [it], we couldn’t afford any leaks anywhere.” -- Hagel said he eventually hoped to meet with Bergdahl, but that all contacts were dependent on medical assessments of his condition. “The first focus is on his health and getting him the medical attention that he needs,” Hagel said. “I won’t interfere with that” until “the doctors say that it’s appropriate that I could speak with him.” -- The news of the prisoner exchange came as a surprise to Afghan peace negotiators, who have been trying fruitlessly to revive talks with the Taliban. For years, they have considered the prospect of releasing Taliban detainees a useful step toward reconciliation. But Saturday’s exchange did not appear to be a part of broader Afghan peace efforts. -- Negotiators said Sunday that they see the release as a positive sign, but they suggested that they should have played a larger role, particularly by receiving the detainees after their release. -- “We did know for a year that there were talks about this matter, but we were not aware of the actual process of it happening in the past week or so,” said Ismail Qasimyar, the Afghan High Peace Council’s director of foreign relations. “We hope the releases can lead to peace. We expected the handover of the Afghan prisoners to the government, because legally that is an international principle and our right.” -- On Saturday, the Taliban posted several photos of the released detainees meeting with other Taliban officials in Qatar. The images showed men with long, graying beards in emotional embraces. -- The Taliban also released a rare public statement from its leader, Mohammad Omar. -- “I extend my heartfelt congratulations to the entire Afghan Muslim nation,” the statement said. -- Omar also thanked the government of Qatar “for their mediation and for hosting them.”