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Trump dodges his own Benghazi: Pentagon quietly closes investigation into Niger ambush
Two years after four U.S. soldiers were killed in Niger, Republicans have swept the whole affair into oblivion
Two years after four U.S. soldiers were killed in Niger, Republicans have swept the whole affair into oblivion
Nearly two years after the attack, the Pentagon has quietly closed its probe into the incident and declined to discipline any military commanders who ordered the troops into a danger zone with no plan and no backup. 
The Niger ambush was the largest loss of American lives in combat in Africa since the 1993 “Black Hawk Down” incident in Somalia.
(CONOPS) submitted for mission was not approved at the proper level of command.” The investigation also found that the mission was misrepresented to higher-ups by a lower-ranking officer who failed to disclose that the team’s actual plan was to go after an Islamic State leader.
Former Defense Sec Jim Mattis oversaw an initial fact-finding investigation into the incident, and was reportedly upset that no senior commanders had been disciplined for their failures. The commander who oversaw Team 3212, Lt. Col. David Painter, was not punished.
Gen. Brown has concluded that the earlier inquiries — which only led to formal punishments for eight lower-level members of the military — were sufficient.
The Pentagon has refused to comply with the mandate to provide Congress with a comprehensive account of what went wrong and the lessons learned, and to provide the families of those lost with any semblance of closure.”
“Reports that Acting Secretary Shanahan intends to let the blame for the Niger disaster lie on junior officers and enlisted personnel is a shirking of responsibility to the memory and families of the deceased," Gallego continued.
Despite clear evidence of misconduct in the midst of an unexplained and likely unwinnable military operation in a distant nation few Americans have ever heard of, there has been a notable silence from the same Republicans who spent years braying about the Benghazi tragedy.
