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The U.S. military acted properly on the night of the deadly 2012 attacks in Benghazi, Libya, according to leaked testimony from a retired, three-star Army general who served as chief lawyer for Republicans on the House committee investigating the attacks. Retired Army Lt. Gen. Dana Chipman “repeatedly commended the military’s actions on the night of the attacks during closed interviews with Defense Department officials,” including a Jan. 8 interview with former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, Democrats on the committee say. […] The Democrats’ letter quotes Chipman as telling Panetta: “I think you ordered exactly the right forces to move out...

His squadron got the alert: a “real world mission was going down.” The team – at Aviano Air Base in northeastern Italy – raced to the field and was briefed, as planes were armed and prepared to launch. Hundreds of miles away, fellow Americans were under attack in Benghazi. "There were people everywhere. That flight line was full of people, and we were all ready to go” to Benghazi, he said. Only they were waiting for the order. It never came. “The whole night we were told that we are waiting on a call,” he told Fox News. This account...

The House Intelligence Committee, led by Republicans, has concluded that there was no deliberate wrongdoing by the Obama administration in the 2012 attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans, said Rep. Mike Thompson of St. Helena, the second-ranking Democrat on the committee. The panel voted Thursday to declassify the report, the result of two years of investigation by the committee. U.S. intelligence agencies will have to approve making the report public. Thompson said the report “confirms that no one was deliberately misled, no military assets were withheld and no stand-down...

The attack on the U.S. diplomatic post in Benghazi, Libya that left four Americans dead, including Ambassador Chris Stevens, continues to be a line of political attack against the Obama administration, but a new report from the Republican-led House Armed Services Committee belies at least one aspect of the popular conservative criticism, that U.S. forces were ordered to “stand down” when they could have saved lives in Benghazi. The Republican-authored report’s findings are, by no means, a love letter to President Obama or then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. For example, the report concludes that U.S. personnel in Benghazi were woefully...

Testifying before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Admiral Mike Mullen said that the direction given to Special Operations Command Africa commander Lt. Col Gibson was to "hold in place" on the night of the attacks. SNIP Mullen also said that U.S. aircraft were not at the ready while the attack was ongoing. He claimed there was a "physics problem" in addition to a "time and distance problem" that prevented the United States from providing immediate air cover.

Below is from my FNC colleague Justin Fishel: Subject: Fox First: General Carter Ham to testify on Benghazi for first time next week Fox News has learned that the House Armed Services Committee will hold a classified briefing next Weds June 26 at 9:00 on Benghazi. Briefers will include: Gen. Carter Ham (ret.) He was head of AFRICOM during Benghazi attack. LTC Gibson RADM Brian Losey – Special Operations Command Africa This is being coordinated by the Oversight and Investigations subcommittee of the HASC. It will be closed door but will be the first time Ham has been questioned by...

JERUSALEM – In a bombshell admission that has until now gone unreported, Martin Dempsey, chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff, conceded that highly trained Special Forces were stationed just a few hours away from Benghazi on the night of the attacks but were not told to deploy to Libya. In comments that may warrant further investigation, Dempsey stated at a Senate hearing Wednesday that on the night of the Sept. 11, 2012, attack, command of the Special Forces – known as C-110, or the EUCOM CIF – was transferred from the military’s European command to AFRICOM, or the United States...

Despite the challenges of Syria, National Security Agency leaks, sexual assaults in the ranks and the fiscal vise of sequestration, the death of four Americans in Benghazi, Libya, last Sept. 11 continues to preoccupy some lawmakers. The terror attack killed U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens, Glen Doherty, Sean Smith and Tyrone Woods. The latest example took place Wednesday before the Senate Budget Committee, generally not viewed as a center of national-security thinking. Nonetheless, if every senator sees herself or himself as a President, he or she also can pretend to be chair(wo)man of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. It’s the way...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said Wednesday that four members of Army special forces in Tripoli were never told to stand down after last year's deadly assault on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, disputing a former top diplomat's claim that the unit might have helped Americans under siege. Army Gen. Martin Dempsey said timing and the need for the unit to help with casualties from Benghazi resulted in orders for the special forces to remain in Tripoli. Four Americans, including U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens, died in two separate attacks several hours apart...

What if the personnel responding to the assistance requested by those on the ground in Bengazi on September 11, 2012, were assembled and loaded on transports, just waiting for the green light from Washington and then no green light came from Washington? Not a “no go,” but no “go” or “no go.” How could that be? We have a President who cannot make a tough decision, hell it took him several tries before he could give the OK to launch the bin Laden raid, so it is entirely possible that he made no decision (voted present) on the request from...

CIA director David Petraeus was surprised when he read the freshly rewritten talking points an aide had emailed him in the early afternoon of Saturday, September 15. One day earlier, analysts with the CIA’s Office of Terrorism Analysis had drafted a set of unclassified talking points policymakers could use to discuss the attacks in Benghazi, Libya. But this new version​—​produced with input from senior Obama administration policymakers​—​was a shadow of the original. The original CIA talking points had been blunt: The assault on U.S. facilities in Benghazi was a terrorist attack conducted by a large group of Islamic extremists, including...

A source with intimate information about the events that happened on the ground in Benghazi the night the U.S. Consulate and the CIA annex was attacked by terrorists told Breitbart News that, ultimately, only the President of the United States, or someone acting on his authority, could have prevented Special Forces either on the ground or nearby from helping those Americans who were under deadly assault. According to the source, when the attack on the Consulate occurred, a specific chain of command to gain verbal permission to move special-forces in must have occurred. SOCAFRICA commander Lieutenant Col. Gibson would have...

"'The truth has got to come out as to why we let these people die'"With almost three months elapsed since the September terrorist attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, a group of special operations veterans is tired of the delay in answers from the Obama administration and is demanding action. “We view the events in Libya as sort of a jigsaw puzzle that’s been dumped out of the box on to the table, and there’s a heck of a lot of pieces that need to be put together to reveal the big picture,” said retired U.S. Air Force Col....

It has been claimed that CIA agents on the ground during the deadly attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi twice asked for permission to help Ambassador Chris Stevens and twice were told to stand down. Furthermore sources present during the deadly six-hour assault have said that a desperate last request for military assistance once the CIA themselves came under attack was denied, even though elite counter-terrorism units were only two hours away.

There are some large disconnects between Obama administration explanations concerning security and response actions taken before, during and after the disastrous terrorist attacks on our Benghazi consulate and accounts,compared with those which continue to emerge from outside sources. Following numerous White House claims now known to be inaccurate and intentionally misleading,we are repeatedly assured that we will get the real scoop in due time after full investigations are complete. One perplexing issue,among many, evolves around conflicting accounts regarding requests and denials of military aid which might have saved American lives.Further delays only increase wide-spread suspicions that there are no legitimate...

Who gave the stand down order to the two ex-SEALs? Woods’ (one of the two killed) father said on Megyn’s show that his son helped save THIRTY PEOPLE. "My son violated his orders in order to protect the lives of at least 30 people. He risked his life to be a hero. I wish that leadership in the White House had that same level of moral courage and heroism that my son displayed with his life." http://foxnewsinsider.com/2012/10/26/transcript-megyn-kellys-interview-with-father-of-former-navy-seal-killed-in-libya-attack/ The implication of that has not been reported. Stand down order in effect which he ignored. Because he and his friend in arms...

That according to a National Security Council spokesman. Rick Moran breaks down the past few days (via Doug Ross): The CIA is denying. The Pentagon is denying. And now the White House is denying that anyone refused to send help to our embattled CIA and State Department personnel engaged in a seven hour running firefight with more than 150 jihadists.It just doesn’t get any lamer than this: The White House on Saturday flatly denied that President Barack Obama withheld requests for help from the besieged American compound in Benghazi, Libya, as it came under on attack by suspected terrorists on...

Normally, I have no difficulty writing this column. I see it as a way to provide busy readers a coherent narrative of the best of the week's most important news -- largely as reported by the alternative media and ignored by its richer, fatter and lazier media opposition. This week is sadly different. The latest news coming out about the murder of our ambassador and three other brave Americans in Ben Ghazi is so horrifying and shocking I can take no pleasure in writing about it. It's still largely unreported by the legacy media. Fox News has been a leader...

It has been claimed that CIA agents on the ground during the deadly attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi twice asked for permission to help Ambassador Chris Stevens and twice were told to stand down. Furthermore sources present during the deadly six-hour assault have said that a desperate last request for military assistance once the CIA themselves came under attack was denied, even though elite counter-terrorism units were only two hours away. And it has been claimed there was full communication between the CIA annex in Benghazi and the U.S. military, casting further doubts on the Obama administration's assertion...

The attack that killed four Americans in the Libyan consulate began as a spontaneous protest against the film “The Innocence of Muslims,” but Islamic militants who may have links to Al Qaeda used the opportunity to launch an attack, CIA Director David Petreaus told the House Intelligence Committee today according to one lawmaker who attended a closed-door briefing. Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger, the top Democrat on the House Intel committee, said Petraeus laid out “a chronological order exactly what we felt happened, how it happened, and where we’re going in the future.” “In the Benghazi area, in the beginning we feel...