Exclusive: SEALs ousted from Iraq for allegations of sexual assault received glowing internal reports

ASHINGTON — This year, an entire platoon of commandos from SEAL Team Seven was ousted from Iraq after allegations of unauthorized alcohol consumption and sexual assault; Chief Edward Gallagher, a Team Seven member, was court-martialed for war crimes; the Navy Times revealed that members of SEAL Team Ten had tested positive for cocaine. Could Navy brass have known there were problems?

"I don't know yet if we have a culture problem," Navy Rear Admiral Collin Green wrote in a letter to his forces in late July as reported by CNN. The "command climate" surveys that the military uses to gauge organizational issues should have provided an answer—but didn't. Newsweek has obtained the surveys conducted just months earlier and found a startling disconnect between what those teams' service members reported and what seems to have been true.