Fordham Law professor and retired Navy captain and military lawyer, Lawrence Brennan, was quoted in a New York Times exposé detailing the ongoing investigation into the alleged war crimes committed by Navy Special Operations Chief, Edward Gallagher.
Members of the platoon hoped the chief would be reprimanded when they returned home from Iraq in August 2017, according to the report. It didn’t happen. The report said they spoke repeatedly to the lieutenant’s superior, Commander Breisch, and to Chief Alazzawi and another Team 7 master chief, but were told to “decompress” and “let it go.”
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Each member of the SEAL team had a duty to report wrongdoing as soon as possible, said Lawrence Brennan, a retired Navy captain and military lawyer who now teaches law at Fordham University. But he added, “The willingness of an institution to turn a blind eye is common.”“It’s especially true in warfare communities,” he said. “And in the SEALs, you don’t just keep it in the family, you keep it in the immediate family.”