Here is your Morning Brief for the morning of August 22, 2014. Give me your feedback below and tune in to The Chad Hasty Show for these and many more topics from 8:30 to 11am. Remember, you can listen online at KFYO.com or on your iPhone/Android with the radioPup App.

Spencer Platt, Getty Images
Spencer Platt, Getty Images
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Law Broken

According to FOX News, the Pentagon broke the law when it traded for Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl.

A nonpartisan government watchdog agency said Thursday that the Pentagon broke the law when it swapped five Taliban leaders for Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl earlier this year.

The Government Accountability Office, in a legal opinion issued at the request of congressional lawmakers, said the Defense Department violated the law by failing to notify key Capitol Hill committees at least 30 days in advance.

Further, the report said the Pentagon broke another law by using funds that were not technically available.

Defense Department press secretary Rear Admiral John Kirby told Fox News Thursday night,  "the operation to retrieve Sgt. Bergdahl was lawfully conducted and that was also the judgment of the Justice Department. Nothing has changed about our view that this was a lawful recovery operation."

The GAO said the law in this case is "clear and unambiguous." The agency said that while the Defense Department defended the legality of the controversial swap, "in our view, DOD has dismissed the significance of the express language" in the law.

The report comes several months after the Obama administration released five senior Taliban members from Guantanamo Bay in exchange for Bergdahl, who had disappeared in 2009. Under the exchange terms, the five Taliban are to remain in Qatar for a year.

Lawmakers at the time complained about the security implications of releasing Taliban leaders from Guantanamo, but also about the late notification by the Pentagon that they were going forward with the swap.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, among the lawmakers who requested the report, said Thursday that the president “clearly defied” the law.

ISIS

According to Reuters, the Islamic State poses a huge threat to the United States. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel says that ISIS poses a threat to every interest the U.S. has.

The sophistication, wealth and military might of Islamic State militants represent a major threat to the United States that may surpass that once posed by al Qaeda, U.S. military leaders said on Thursday.

"They are an imminent threat to every interest we have, whether it's in Iraq or anywhere else," Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel told reporters at the Pentagon.

Hagel's assessment of Islamic State, which gained strength during Syria's civil war and swept into northern Iraq earlier this summer, sounded a note of alarm several days after the group posted a video on social media showing one of its fighters beheading an American hostage kidnapped in Syria.

Asked if the hardline Sunni Muslim organization posed a threat to the United States comparable to that of the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Hagel said it was "as sophisticated and well-funded as any group we have seen."

"They are beyond just a terrorist group. They marry ideology, a sophistication of ... military prowess. They are tremendously well-funded. This is beyond anything we've seen."

Hagel spoke as the United States continued attacking Islamic State targets in Iraq. In the past two weeks, U.S. drones and fighter jets have conducted 89 airstrikes against militant targets in northern Iraq.

So far, President Barack Obama has sought to limit his renewed military campaign in Iraq to protecting American diplomats and civilians under direct threat. Obama ended the war in Iraq that killed thousands of American soldiers and consumed U.S. foreign policy for nearly a decade,

Even after the gruesome killing of U.S. journalist James Foley, Obama is seen as unlikely to deepen his near-term military involvement in either Iraq or Syria as he seeks to avoid becoming embroiled in another messy Middle Eastern conflict.

So the Islamic State poses the greatest threat we have ever seen and because of polling data and politics, the President doesn't want to get more involved. Great.

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