Pentagon Revises Timeline of Deadly Niger Ambush
RYAN BROWNE, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: And now of course this attack left four U.S. soldiers dead and two wounded as well as five Nigerian troops killed. But even after providing this timeline General Dunford acknowledged that there were additional questions that remained unanswered.</s>GEN. JOSEPH DUNFORD JR., CHAIRMAN, JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF: Did the mission of U.S. forces change during the operation? Did our forces have adequate intelligence, equipment and training? Was there a pre- mission assessment of the threat in the area accurate? Did they decide to do something different than the original patrol with their partner forces? Those are the -- those are some of the key questions that the investigation is looking to uncover.</s>BROWNE: Now one of the biggest unanswered questions is how Sergeant La David Johnson became separated from the rest of his team by up to a mile officials tell CNN. So this is something that will be looked at in the investigation as it unfolds and there are additional questions as well. But remains to be seen exactly what happened during that fire fight that left four U.S. soldiers dead and two wounded -- John.</s>JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Ryan Browne at the Pentagon, thanks so much. Joining me now to discuss, CNN military analyst, retired Colonel Cedric Leighton, and Jason Beardsley, former U.S. Army Special Operations. Jason, I want to start with you. You were deployed under both CENTCOM and AFRICOM, you've done similar operations in West and Central Africa. You know, what are the biggest unanswered questions you have?</s>JASON BEARDSLEY, FORMER U.S. ARMY SPECIAL OPERATIONS: Well, we're going to get -- thank you, by the way, John. We're going to get some of those answered questions after the investigation is done and we've got the soldiers there. Remember, we've got Green Berets that are in contact, we've got these support soldiers. This was a chaotic ambush out in a remote austere environment. So these guys were operating at some level of risk anyways. This is kind of a continuation of a mission that we've run relatively routinely. So I'm not sure that right now we have anything to really be concerned about except that when that information comes in, we'll know precisely how our forces were dispositioned and what the enemy forces were there. This was a chaotic scene so it's going to take a little bit of time but we will get there.</s>BERMAN: Colonel Leighton, talk to me about the investigation right now. The investigators on the ground, what are they doing?</s>COL. CEDRIC LEIGHTON, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: So right now, John, what they're doing is they're looking at what they can possibly see from the standpoint of why, what types of weapons were used against the U.S. Special Forces, they're looking at what the angle of attack was, where did the ISIS fighters or alleged ISIS fighters come from. And also they're going to be piecing together things such as the intelligence picture. What did the special forces team actually know? How were they prepared from an intelligence perspective? And then how were they trained to handle these various types of missions? The other thing that they'll do, John, is they'll look at exactly how the Nigerian forces were dealing with this and how much of a partnership there really was between the forces involved.</s>BERMAN: Well, and to that point, Jason, one of the concerns might be that the village that the servicemen were meeting in, that the villagers somehow stalled the soldiers to give the insurgents more of a chance to stage their attack. That would be a cause for serious concern if the people that U.S. soldiers are working amongst can't be trusted.</s>BEARDSLEY: Right. This is a very difficult area. Again it's an austere environment on the border of Mali. You've got Boko Haram in the south, you've got Islamic State elements in the north. It's</s>BERMAN: You know, Colonel Leighton, you're an Air Force guy, talk to me about what the air support concern or lessons might be a better word, might be going forward. There was a drone on the site very, very quickly. We don't know if it even had the capacity to fire. There were French Mirages, French air support but they did not fire for whatever reason. So how can you change or address this concern going forward?</s>LEIGHTON: Well, part of it I think would be how you engage the air forces involved and what kinds of air forces do you have that are at the disposition of troops like these special forces units. So in this particular case, you've got a drone like you said, John, that was overhead, and very quickly overhead, and that tells me that they could very easily have positioned the drone if they had known that there was a troop in contact, troops in contact type situation. The French forces, they clearly responded. Perhaps there's a way to make that response quicker, although the distances involved are very, very large.</s>BERMAN: And, of course, the most important thing here is to make sure something like this does not happen again to improve --</s>BEARDSLEY: Don't forget those troops in contact --</s>BERMAN: -- the situation. Go ahead.</s>BEARDSLEY: -- were very close to the enemy forces.</s>BERMAN: Absolutely.</s>BEARDSLEY: So, you know, getting close air support, requires a little bit of distance between our forces and theirs. We don't think they had that in this incident. That's something we'll find out.</s>BERMAN: As you said, though, the facts are what's so important here and learning is what's so important here to make sure again things like this can be prevented if they can be prevented. Colonel Cedric Leighton and Jason Beardsley, thanks so much for being with us. Appreciate it.</s>LEIGHTON: You bet, John.</s>BEARDSLEY: Thank you.</s>BERMAN: So this could be awkward, the president heading to Capitol Hill for a big meeting with Republican senators, but all morning long he's been in a brutal, bitter feud with a very powerful Republican senator.