Dempsey is not technically in the chain of command but Panetta relied heavily on his Joint Chiefs. My suspicion is Dempsey advised that the situation did not justify military intervention and Panetta never elevated it to the President. I am confident that Obama had made it clear to Panetta that he wanted “plausable deniability” if anything went south. I do not trust Demsey any more than I trusted Mullen.
Dempsey is not technically in the chain of command but Panetta relied heavily on his Joint Chiefs. My suspicion is Dempsey advised that the situation did not justify military intervention and Panetta never elevated it to the President. I am confident that Obama had made it clear to Panetta that he wanted plausable deniability if anything went south. I do not trust Demsey any more than I trusted Mullen.
Sure. Policymakers can choose to hang embassy people out to dry and NOT attempt a rescue. But the idea that the military would say no to a rescue flies in the face of the entire purpose of special ops, rapid deployment, and all related strategies. Or, the idea that a member of the military hierarchy would go to the Hill and say, “Give us our money, but, no, we can’t even try to save Americans.”
BTW, does anyone remember the last day in Vietnam and the rooftop of our embassy in Saigon? There was an army of 10,000+ bearing down on the city. Did our military hierarchy say, “Well, too bad, we’ll just have to let the diplomats be captured, tortured or murdered.”
Some of the stuff being said by “military” leaders about Benghazi is disgraceful. They should be offering to give the American people their money back.