President Joe Biden’s administration issued an apology Thursday after the White House Instagram account posted a picture Wednesday revealing the identity of multiple members of U.S. Army Special Forces in Israel.
The White House Instagram photo clearly showed the faces of U.S. Army Special Forces members shaking hands with Biden during his trip to Israel. The photo was uploaded to Instagram for roughly an hour before the White House eventually deleted it.
Discussing the security incident, a White House spokesperson told Fox News Thursday, “As soon as this was brought to our attention, we immediately deleted the photo. We regret the error and any issues this may have caused.”
Sam Shoemate, an intelligence analyst, tweeted an edited version of the original photo Thursday, which, unlike the Biden administration’s photo, concealed the identity of the U.S. Army Special Forces service members.
“The Whitehouse media team shared this picture last night (I added the black boxes) without blurring or censoring the faces of the ‘Delta Force’ (CAG) operator’s faces,” he stated. “They deleted it an hour later after hundreds of thousands had already viewed it. This is a massive failure on the Biden admin.”
The original White House photo, which was viewed hundreds of thousands of times before being removed, revealed the faces of four U.S. Army Special Forces soldiers near the president. The photo was posted with the caption, “In Israel, President Biden met with first responders to thank them for their bravery and the work they’re doing in response to the Hamas terrorist attacks.”
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According to Fox News, the Department of Defense typically blurs the images of elite U.S. military forces in order to protect the identities of the service members due to operational security and safety concerns.
The Biden administration’s accidental doxing of U.S Army Special Forces members has generated sharp backlash, especially from Republicans. Alec Sears, a member of the Republican National Committee, tweeted, “So funny that the ‘Adults in charge’ are so on top of things they doxxed one of our most elite fighting forces in the midst of their deployment to the Middle East.”
Additionally, conservative journalist Jack Posobiec highlighted that the Biden administration’s photo revealed the identities of the U.S. Army Special Forces that were deployed to Israel to help free U.S. hostages that were captured by Hamas terrorists during the recent attacks against Israel.
“Biden just doxxed the special forces team he sent to Israel to help free the hostages,” he tweeted.
