Hundreds of U.S. Soldiers Remain Isolated In Niger

(LibertySociety.com) – Florida Republican Representative Matt Gaetz sounded the alarm over the Biden administration’s alleged abandonment of U.S. servicemembers stationed in Niger. In a shocking report, Gaetz accused U.S. officials of an attempted cover-up of the unstable situation the servicemembers were in after a military junta took over the country.

Gaetz’s office said that troops stationed in Niger were “currently sitting on a powder keg” as a result of indecisiveness from the Department of Defense and the State Department. The report compared the current situation to events that led up to the Benghazi attack in 2012.

Gaetz detailed some of the issues troops were facing, including a shortage of medications and delayed replenishment of the blood supply. The servicemembers are currently deployed to three different locations in Niger, but the exact number is also in question. Gaetz’s report said that the Biden administration told Congress that 648 personnel were currently in Niger, but Gaetz believes the number is “closer to 1,100 DoD-affiliated persons” across the three locations. The threat began in late July 2023 when the Conseil National pour la Sauvegarde de la Patrie (CNSP) military junta took over the country. Eight months later, the junta canceled the military accords between the two countries following meetings with two U.S. officials.

Gaetz’s report revealed that American contractors were not allowed to come into the country to take care of the base and that others had left due to expiring visas. The report also criticized the DoD for not taking the situation seriously during a March Congressional testimony. The official seemed to take the junta at its word when it said that U.S. troops were not in any danger. Additionally, the report detailed concerns about taxpayers continuing to fund the deployments even though the troops are not performing any meaningful work. The report also revealed that Russian adversaries were allowed to freely inhabit the country with no pushback from the junta. Gaetz believes that the State Department is trying to hide another foreign policy failure of the Biden administration.