Posted on 10/26/2012 3:20:35 PM PDT by Snuph
Breaking news on Benghazi: the CIA spokesman, presumably at the direction of CIA director David Petraeus, has put out this statement: "No one at any level in the CIA told anybody not to help those in need; claims to the contrary are simply inaccurate. ”
So who in the government did tell “anybody” not to help those in need? Someone decided not to send in military assets to help those Agency operators. Would the secretary of defense make such a decision on his own? No.
It would have been a presidential decision. There was presumably a rationale for such a decision. What was it? When and why—and based on whose counsel obtained in what meetings or conversations—did President Obama decide against sending in military assets to help the Americans in need?
(Excerpt) Read more at weeklystandard.com ...
POTUS is in the CIA’s chain of command but is not in the CIA.
This points directly to 0bama.
You can just imagine this cold-hearted ass, saying, “Not this close to the election. They’re ‘collateral damage,’” and just walk out the door, go upstairs, do a line and go to the executive f* chamber with Reggie.
A little more far out speculation: As the attack unfolded, the CIA or other intelligence discovered or reasoned that the attack was in fact bait, designed to bring in U.S. support aircraft. An AC-130 shot down in Libya would sure blow Obama’s foreign policy narrative!!!
(By no means do I accept that this excuses the lack of action. But I do think that this bunch at the top is likely to be too incompetent and / or locked into their own view of things to respond to such a situation.)
General Haig no doubt knew and well understood the Constitutional order of who was next in line. Haig said this in relation to White House Crisis Management while VP GHW bush was entroute to The White House.
How one responds to crisis and accepts the responsibility determines ones leadership abilities and shows their character. No one in the White House or Pentagon today is anywhere close to having the character and good judgment of General Haig in time of crisis. Right or wrong the man was a leader and that's what he did.
Furthermore, if the administration was worried about downside risk, they could have deployed armed drones or airstrikes and have at least made some effort. This last especially since by all accounts the "official" Libyan authorities and most of the indigenous populace were on our side.
The truth is that Zero and his political advisers did a cynical calculation and decided that a collaborationist press would give them a complete pass on one of the flimsiest provocations concocted by a deceitful government since the Gleiwitz Incident. So far, it's not clear that they were mistaken.
Spot on.
So the CIA chain of command skips eveyone in the CIA and goes directly to the CIC?
The article specifically says the CIA chain of command told the CIA operators to stand down when they wanted to rescue Stevens et al, and also denied them military backup. Something is not adding up between Jennifer Rubin’s reporting of sources on the ground in Benghazi and the CIA denial, now, that they ever told them not to help.
I totally agree.
This is the biggest shell game in our country’s history.
The article source that contradicts Petraeus is unnamed.
I so agree!
Petreus is now “ BETRAY US”...looks like that old ad was right.How ironic!
The CIA doesn’t comment on these things. EVER. No spokesperson for the Company would have made a statement without the direction of the President, the DNI, or the DCI. Since the statement puts the military chain of command all the way to the top in the spotlight, you can bet the DNI and President did not approve it. This is as close to a statement made by the DCI as you’re going to get.
I'd be more careful before coming to that opinion.
We have an administration that is desperate to create a scapegoat, we have some unnamed sources, we have a named Rat source and we have the tradition in the CIA where the CIA doesn't comment on news reports.
All of that says to me, be careful before I start blaming Petraeus.
Exactly. Too many generals these days are politicians instead of warriors.
I'm not one to rush to judgment against General Petraeus. As I said, I was surprised by the story. Unfortunately from what we know about where this story started and what Republicans on the Committee have subsequently said, it sounds to me like Petaeus was parroting the Party line at that point.
I don't want to believe that, but I think, sadly, that it's true.
Yeah, Petreus behavior is just not making snese if he were a patriot.
Yeah Panneta said as much
After BSing that they didn’t respond because they trying get a picture of what was happening he said the terrorists had missiles that could bring down rescue flights
I think that is the real reason
They didn’t want a military loss added to the mixture
Wonder how he knew they had the missiles when they were only protesting a movie
Oh, so now it’s Romney’s fault? Fu*k Off!
Our Boys face missiles stolen from Gaddafi Surface to air weapons sold to al-Qaeda and Taliban after Libyan regime collapsed
NATO made it possible. Now they are afraid of being targeted by the same weapons in Afghanistan that they made available to the Taliban, Muslim Brotherhood/al Qaeda on the ground in Libya.
Possibly true, but there might be people still “inside” the terrorists’ organization(s). Even if not, the Administration itself can’t admit a blown op at this point. (See 3rd paragraph below.)
However, I was thinking more that there might be a follow up or parallel operation to get back or destroy some of those missiles. Come to think of it, I highly doubt that one operation, even if successful, would account for more than a decent fraction of them. So, there might be an op or ops we don’t know about, that can’t be exposed now (or at least not for the last few weeks.) Heck, if you want to get really devious, the blown operation that people have been posting about could be a decoy, and Stevens and the others just pawns, who weren’t supposed to get killed. But, I’ll admit, that’s “really out there” as an idea.
I think the main point is that the Obama Administration can’t admit to thousands of MANPADs in AQ hands, before the election, and they sure as heck politically can’t afford to have a MANPAD take down something like an AC-130 or an airliner. It’s just as they probably felt they could not politically afford to send in the cavalry. Better to say the Consulate attack was a riot caused by a video, and CYA...
I know, it’s a twisted mentality, but we’ve known that a long time. :-(
C’mon, Girlene,
It was the CIA guy, wounded, who got himself to the roof and painted the target.
DoD would have to attack.
And yes, from the Director of the CIA, POTUS—and VPOTUS—are in the CIA chain of command. So, the chain of command could deny all day long and lie their asses off.
To go after Petraeus now is not the place to go. All this. ALL OF IT. Is 0bama. All of it.
0bama, Clinton, Panetta, Petraeus, etc., would ALL have been in the Situation Room getting a sitrep at 5:05. That would have been 11:05 pm in Benghazi, after the 1st attack. This means that their security people would have told them of the first one and that they would have gotten themselves to the Situation Room for the meeting in the 1st place. That’s why they were there.
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