With covered a lot of back and forth this week surrounding a controversial prisoner exchange, in order to bring home army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, the last American captive from the wars in Iraq Afghanistan, the Obama administration ok'd the release of 5 high ranking members of the Taliban. Afghanistan's former ruler who has ties to terrorists, and a new video from the Taliban shows the moment when Sgt. Bergdahl was released. He's taken from a truck, walked over to US special forces who were seen shaking hands with Taliban members, and put board in black helicopter, a US senator says the video will likely be used as propaganda by the Taliban. 

 

That group has called the exchange a big victory, the Obama administration which's been criticized by democrats and republicans over the exchange says needed to act fast because Bergdahl's health was in jeopardy, as debate over that continues, Randy Kay looks into the history of prisoner exchanges. 

 

Prisoners swaps in America are resolved the country itself, think back to the American revolutionary war, president Georgia Washington exchanged prisoners for Americans, this letter from the national archives, written by Washington himself lays out the terms of one such exchange. President Madison swapped prisoners too, during the war of 1825, trading the enemy for an American military personnel. Abraham Lincoln also traded enemy fighters for American soldiers.

 

Fast forward to 1962, when Francis Garry Power in American pilot, was released by Russia in exchange for a convicted Soviet spy named Rudolph Abel, Power's plane was down in 1960 during a reconnaissance fly over to Moscow, the two work exchange in middle of a bridge between east Germany and west Germany, Power's family was informed just 5 minutes before the White House announced it. In March 1991, at the end of the first Gulf war, Iraqi accepted the terms of ceasefire, that led to exchanges of POWs, including 35 Americans, which were freed in center Riyadh, as many as 20 prisoners from allied forces were handed over too. everyone was a hero, they looked happy to be home, happy to be. but what about in on-going conflict when US soldier is being held by a designated terrorist organization, on that score, there dose not seem to be any precedent, Randy Kay, CNN, NY.