Armed Services Dem: There has not been a lot of briefing on West Africa

Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.) said Tuesday that lawmakers have not received many briefings on West Africa, noting they are focused on other regions like Asia and the Middle East. 

“There has not been a lot of briefing of what’s been happening in West Africa,” Peters told CNN’s “New Day.”

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“We’ve been focused, and I sit on the Armed Services Committee, but a great deal of the work that we do is related to what’s happening in North Korea, what’s happening in Iraq, what’s happening in Afghanistan, so there’s no shortage of things that we have to deal with.”

Peters’s comments come as senators request more information about the deadly attack in Niger earlier this month that left four Green Berets dead. 

The Michigan senator called for a “deep dive” into the activities in West Africa.

“And I think that leads to the broader discussion that we have to have discussions about when we are deploying United States service members overseas in dangerous missions,” Peters said.

“We have to understand that and understand it is an obligation of — for all of us in Congress to be thinking about this and more important, debating it.”

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Joseph Dunford in a Monday press conference vowed to keep Congress, the media, and the public informed about the probe into the deadly Niger ambush. But the top general provided reporters with scant new details about the attack. 

“We owe the families as much information as we can find out about what happened, and we owe the American people an explanation of what their men and women were doing at this particular time,” the general told reporters during the press briefing. “The only thing I’m asking for today is a bit of patience to make sure what we provide to you, when we provide it, is factual.”