Michael Waltz on Niger Ambush: We Need to Look Not at the Support Issue But at the Intelligence Issue

RUSH EXCERPT:

WALTZ: ">> So there is two things. One, that these teams are trained to operate in small groups and embed with local forces. So you can have 12 green berets trained up to by doctrine 1,000 to 2,000 local national forces whether they are army or police forces. The other thing is, you know, I can’t overstate how massive north Africa is. Niger alone is the size of twice or twice the size of Texas. It is just incredibly remote. And then the third thing is and this is what I think people are getting to where was the support and the dronessenned at close air support, I think we have gotten really accustomed to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan where have you all of those settle immediately available and highly concentrated. We can’t do that all over the world and have a medevac just an hour away all over the world, especially in a place as big as Africa. These guys are trained to operate in highly remote, highly dangerous situations. Sometimes the enemy scores against us. And I think in this case what we really need to look into is not the support issue but the intelligence issue. How did we miss the indicators that we were going to be hit here?"