If Ham says he was never ordered to send support, I have a number of questions: who screened the requests for assistance that came in from Benghazi; who made the decision not to forward those requests to the military commander in the region (Ham); if Ham was aware of the requests for assistance from those trapped in Benghazi, why did he need a specific order to come to their assistance? If he was aware of the requests for assistance, did he take it upon himself to seek permission from those above him in the chain of command?
Are the American military commanders so neutered that they have to wait for orders from on high before responding to Americans in immediate danger? Did Ham have to go up through the head of the US Army, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Secretary of Defence and the President, before he could respond? Was there an existing protocol where he did not have authority to respond in this type of situation without approval? If so, who was it that had the authority and why didn’t that person authorize intervention? If this was an ad hoc situation, who in the chain of command took responsibility for ordering those in the CIA annex to stand down?
The congressional committee needs to start at the bottom and work their way up through the entire chain of command. Find out who gave the CIA annex the order to stand down. Find out who gave that person the order, and so on. Find out what each individual knew, when they knew it, and to whom in the chain of command that they conveyed the information. A competent congressman with prosecutorial experience could get to the truth if he or she could question each of these individuals for 30 minutes.
See #21. This is Obama’s tar baby, 100%.
Yes our Commanders are neutered. There have been several situations where are troops have been killed unnecessarily because help was denied.
Remember also, on Aug. 6, 2011 we had the largest loss of life in Afghanistan when the chopper carrying SEALs and other SF. There was a AC-130 gunship there but was not allowed to fire on the “Painted” Taliban position, resulting in the chopper being shot out of the sky!
I really doubt there are a lot of General officers who are going to order an attack on foreign soil without confirmation from the White House.
“Are the American military commanders so neutered that they have to wait for orders from on high before responding to Americans in immediate danger?” - LH
To lawfully cross a border for combat action the POTUS MUST sign-off on the order.
Ham likely had assets in motion, waiting for the approval...then we know for a fact that order from the POTUS never came. (Panetta confirmed.) In spite of the statement from Obama that he made 3 directives when he first heard of the attack. The first of these was supposedly to do everything possible to secure our personnel.