AMERICAN officials passed up a chance to secure the release of Warren Weinstein, an aid worker kidnapped by al-Qaeda, a year before he was killed in a US drone strike in January, it has emerged.
The potential deal would have seen Weinstein, 73, freed alongside the US soldier Bowe Bergdahl and four other American and Canadian hostages held in Pakistan’s tribal areas in return for just one Afghan prisoner.
Instead, because of inter-agency rivalries and bungling, America swapped Bergdahl for five dangerous Taliban members in Guantanamo — leaving behind the other hostages including Weinstein and an American mother and baby.
“Warren Weinstein did not have to die,”said Congressman Duncan Hunter, a Republican and former soldier who serves on the House Armed Services Committee and has