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What Went Wrong? Inside the Yemen SEAL Raid

Feb 2 2017, 7:17 pm ET

.. this one, 2 days later, and with two of the same authors as yours ..

by William M. Arkin, Ken Dilanian and Robert Windrem

VIDEO: What Went Wrong in Yemen? New Details on Deadly Raid That Left Navy SEAL Dead 1:52

It might have been a barking dog, or a crashed drone, or overheard chatter on walkie talkies. But multiple military and intelligence sources told NBC News that something tipped off the terrorist targets of an early morning raid by the U.S. and its allies in Yemen on Sunday, and all hell broke loose.

A well-rehearsed mission that was supposed to extract computers and other intelligence from an al Qaeda camp near a mountain village turned into a massive firefight involving Harrier jets, helicopter gunships and gun-wielding jihadi women that killed one Navy SEAL, 14 al Qaeda fighters and, allegedly, non-combatant women and children.

According to a senior military official, one of the dead was an 8-year-old American girl, the daughter of U.S.-born al Qaeda leader Anwar al-Awlaki, who himself was killed in a U.S. strike in Yemen in 2011.

President Trump declared Sunday's mission a success, and the Pentagon released a statement Wednesday that said U.S. forces had captured "materials and information that is yielding valuable intelligence."

But a senior military official told NBC News "almost everything went wrong."

[...]

On December 21, the SEALs joined the Marines in a helicopter-borne training raid in Djibouti, an exercise that served as a rehearsal for Sunday's mission.

The Obama administration then had to decide whether to carry out the mission.

A former senior Obama administration official said that plans for the raid were presented to the Obama national security team before the inauguration as part of a menu of potential actions that represented a significant expansion of U.S. activity in Yemen. After a full interagency review, the official said, the Obama administration decided to pass the decision on the series of operations off to the Trump administration, since they would have to commence under the new president.

The hesitation, the official said, related to the number of troops that would be involved and that the plans represented a wider use of ground troops than the U.S. had previously considered in Yemen. The official said the specific raid mounted on Sunday was not presented for a decision.

White House spokesman Sean Spicer said Wednesday that the raid was approved in an interagency deputies meeting on Jan. 6, and that the plan called for the raid to take place on a moonless night, which meant it would occur after Trump's inauguration.

The former Obama official, however, said the interagency deputies committee of the National Security Council did not officially recommend for or against the raid.

Ned Price, a former CIA officer who was spokesman for the National Security Council during the Obama administration, said in a tweet that
Spicer was wrong and that the "specific operation in question was never presented to or considered by the Obama Admin for approval."

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/police-officer-drowns-while-trying-save-suicidal-woman-n715861

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All In with Chris Hayes 2/2/17

Sources contradict White House on Yemen raid

The Trump administration's characterization of Sunday's SEAL team raid in Yemen is evolving as
more questions have been raised about the operation and contradictions are arising. Duration: 8:34
http://www.msnbc.com/all-in/watch/sources-contradict-white-house-on-yemen-raid-869027907533