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Groton Daily Independent
Friday, May 17, 2018 ~ Vol. 25 - No. 3088 ~ 39 of 55
that it would have unleashed the president’s wrath.
Trump has long prided himself on never apologizing, believing it shows weakness, and has often displayed
enmity for McCain. During the election campaign, he declared that McCain, who was a prisoner of war for more than five years, was not a war hero, and he has publicly and privately blamed the Arizona senator, who is battling cancer, for submarining the Republican health care bill last year.
Trump’s White House has followed that lead, avoiding apologies while defending some of Trump’s most incendiary remarks like his comments about Mexican immigrants.
One time a White House staffer did acknowledge a mistake was in February, when deputy press secre- tary Raj Shah admitted that “we all could have done better” when discussing the White House’s handling of Rob Porter, the staff secretary who was accused of abusing two ex-wives.
Trump, who watched the briefing that day from his private dining room just off the Oval Office, was incensed by the remark and later chewed out Shah for making it, according to two White House officials.
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Associated Press writer Catherine Lucey contributed reporting.
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Follow Lemire on Twitter at http://twitter.com/@JonLemire and Colvin at http://twitter.com/@colvinj
New Niger video shows harrowing escape of US forces By LOLITA C. BALDOR, Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — Dramatic new drone video of the Niger ambush that killed four American soldiers shows U.S. forces desperately trying to escape and fighting for their lives after friendly Nigerien forces mistook them for the enemy.
It describes how the fleeing troops set up a quick defensive location on the edge of a swamp and -- thinking they were soon to die -- wrote messages home to their loved ones.
The video, released by the Pentagon with explanatory narration, includes more than 10 minutes of drone footage, file tape and animation that wasn’t made public last week when the military released a portion of the final report on the October attack. The video depicts for the first time the harrowing hours as troops held off their enemy and waited for rescue.
There were 46 U.S. and Nigerien troops out on the initial mission in the west African nation, going after but failing to find a high-value militant, then collecting intelligence at a site where the insurgent had been. The team was heading home when it was attacked by more than 100 militants just outside the village of Tongo Tongo. During the firefight, a number of the Nigeriens escaped by truck, but four U.S. and four Nigerien troops were gunned down.
The video depicts seven American forces and four Nigeriens fleeing on foot, under heavy mortar and small arms fire. They crossed through a swamp, and at about 12:50 p.m. on Oct. 4, they hunkered down at the edge of a clearing.
“They wrote short messages to loved ones on personal devices, believing they would soon be overrun,” the video narrator says. Just 21 minutes later, two unarmed U.S. drones arrived overhead and established contact with the team, and after another seven minutes, two French Mirage aircraft screamed across the sky at a low altitude, in a show of force to frighten the enemy. A number of militants can be seen moving quickly away.
After nearly three hours of waiting, French helicopters arrived, and an American soldier can be seen on the video moving out into the clearing, waving a U.S. flag to help the aircraft locate them.
The video shifts to an overhead view near the team waiting at the clearing, and two trucks can be seen moving into the frame. The drone video zooms in on them, and flashes of gunfire light up the screen.
A friendly Nigerien response force had arrived to help, and mistook the team for enemy insurgents. For 48 seconds they fired on the team with automatic weapons, until they were able to confirm their identity. No one was injured in that brief gunfight.
During the same time, U.S. Africa Command had launched a search and recovery mission for the one