[tet68]

The U.S. patrol was seen as routine and had been carried out nearly 30 times in the six months before the attack, the Pentagon has reported.

And there in lies the problem. Routine? These guy are professionals they don't make mistakes like that on their own.

[GreyFriar]

I concur with Tet68, either the US team and/or the Niger troops got complacent about the routine trips and didn’t plan for the ‘just in case something happens’.... “Intelligence Failure” would not be at the ‘national level’ because this was most probably a locally planned ambush and thus nothing for “intelligence” to find out about through various “intel assets.”

[Tucker39]

What REAL reason could there be for sending out the same patrol on the same route at the same time with the same weapons, over and over and over? Somebody was INVITING an attack by a larger, heavier-equipped enemy unit. Somewhere in the COC is an Obama snake. IMHO.