Two more points that I read on other threads:
1. The alert would have gone out on the highest priority network. It would have been immediately received in DC. The Ambassador in danger requires that the message is immediately delivered to the President.
2. The contingency plans for the military are to scramble immediately and head out to protect the Ambassador and the others. Should they fail to get a response, they are to follow preestablished plans for rescue. Which means that a NO GO from the President was needed to stop the operation.
Not exactly. All correct to my understanding until the end when you make the leap to “Which means that a NO GO from the President was needed to stop the operation.”
Not quite. Yes, the rescue begins, at full speed. Planes, jets and helos are scrambling, commando teams embarking, ships moving into position, all as if they are going full speed ahead to Behghazi.
But on the way, they need to punch the “cross border authority” ticket. No way around it....only POTUS can authorize a cross-border mission with armed forces. Hillary can’t do it and Panetta can’t do it and Dempsey can’t do it.
Only the POTUS.
My belief is that after hearing the “lull” report around 5pm DC time, Obama made a “no cross border military action” decision with Dempsey, Panetta and Hillary in the Oval Office, as reported.
If he was going to “take charge of the crisis,” reports would say he met them down below in the Situation Room, the bridge of the “American Eagle Global War And Diplomacy Machine, INC.”
That is the bridge of the Starship Enterprise. Why did Capt. Kirk meet Spock and the others in the side office, and then disappear, while the Klingons are attacking Earth just below?
I have not seen one report stating that Obama ever went to the Situation Room, where he would have been sucked into the command vortext by proximity to dozens of people reporting new messages, requests, reports etc. Once in there, he would have stayed, just by being pulled into that power vortex, even though it’s not his style.
So he never took the elevator down, but instead hit the button for up, to the family quarters, where he could hide out with his Ipad watching ESPN, while Axlerod and Jarrett ran interference until he was down asleep for the night.
At any rate, he went to bed with a missing ambassador, in Alquedaville, and it sure looks like his “no outside military intervention” standing orders held for the rest of the night while he slept. So the CIA in Tripoli could send what motley crew they had, but all of the other external military QRF then streaming toward Behghazi from all points had to turn around in the end.
Because only the POTUS could authorize them to cross the international border, and he didn’t, or couldn’t, or wouldn’t.
If the quick reaction force was already in country, then I would agree with you. If not, then it at least used to take a positive order from the Commander-in-Chief to cross the border unless that permission was in a standing order. I imagine the general had half his men coordinating the preparations for that operation and the other half combing through all relevant previous orders (and calling Sixth Fleet to see if the Navy had a loophole) to find something he could plausibly pretend counted as permission to cross that border in order to rescue American military and State Department personnel from armed foreign terrorists.