Mattis Erupts Over Niger Inquiry and Army Revisits Who Is to Blame
Mattis Erupts Over Niger Inquiry and Army Revisits Who Is to Blame by Thomas Gibbons-Neff, Helene Cooper and Eric Schmitt – New York Times
Defense Secretary Jim Mattis was livid last month when he summoned top military officials to a video conference at the Pentagon to press them about an investigation into a 2017 ambush in Niger that killed four Americans on a Green Beret team. His anger, Pentagon officials said, came from seeing news reports that junior officers were being reprimanded for the botched Niger mission while the officers directly above them were not.
Days later, a senior officer who had largely escaped punishment was told he would be reprimanded. Another senior officer’s actions before and around the time of the mission were also under new scrutiny.
And this week, Capt. Michael Perozeni, a more junior officer who had received much of the public blame for the mission received word from the Army: His reprimand was rescinded…