Page 23 - Africom News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

Forward more in africom. can you do that without sending more equipment isr over there. >> fair question. and i think i would distinguish between what does the commander africom need to do the full range of nations he believes need to be done, and what missions are being done with the equipment available? i would tell you that general walthauser may need more capability to do more mission or more expansive mission, the responsibility of commanders is to employ the force within the resources that they have available. so we shouldn't confuse the need for more capability to expand the mission wit...

Africom. can you do that without sending more equipment isr over there? >> fair question. i think i would distinguish between what does the commander africom need to do the full range of missions that he needs to be done and what missions are being done with the equipment available. i'll tell you while the general may need more capability to do more mission or more expansive mission, the responsibility of commanders is to employ the force within the resources that they have available. >> we shouldn't confuse the need for more capability to expand the mission with what capabilities are provided...

>> i don't have the details of that. you know, i don't know whether it was intended how long it was going to take or if they planned to stay overnight. to be clear, more accurate description than staying overnight was they caught a couple hours of sleep after the 3rd and before they completed their mission on the 4th. >> is there an investigation beyond the 15, 6 into the troop deaths and what's the significance of the fbi -- >> on the first case, no. an investigation being conducted by a general officer at the united states africa command into the incident itself. that's the only investigatio...

Granularity in briefings. the head of africom briefed them saying i have too little isr. that means drone overhead intelligence. he said up to a quarter of the time, he didn't have what he needed to protect his troops and feed them intelligence. he also said he didn't have enough medical support to help troops in need. we have seen that tragically play out in niger. >> in addition to that, it has been an extraordinary week, particularly hearing from former presidents, seeing all five former u.s. presidents on a texas stage last night. now, hearing, you know, former president jimmy carter and m...

Environment that military units can enter. it's safe, you walk down the street. nonpermissive is a full scale war in a place like iraq. semi permissive is every day is a calculated risk versus gain equation that forces on the ground have to think through on their own, which is why the u.s. puts its best and brightest highly trained operators in this environment, why we have special forces in this domain. >> what exactly is the u.s. mission in africa? is it at all possible these soldiers were involved in a direct action operation? >> well, africom has been clear about what the role of special o...