I heard a story today from someone inside the military that I trust entirely. The story was in reference to General Ham that Panetta referenced in the quote below.
quote:
“(The) basic principle is that you don’t deploy forces into harm’s way without knowing what’s going on; without having some real-time information about what’s taking place,” Panetta told Pentagon reporters. “And as a result of not having that kind of information, the commander who was on the ground in that area, Gen. Ham, Gen. Dempsey and I felt very strongly that we could not put forces at risk in that situation.”
The information I heard today was that General Ham as head of Africom received the same e-mails the White House received requesting help/support as the attack was taking place. General Ham immediately had a rapid response unit ready and communicated to the Pentagon that he had a unit ready.
General Ham then received the order to stand down. His response was to screw it, he was going to help anyhow. Within 30 seconds to a minute after making the move to respond, his second in command apprehended General Ham and told him that he was now relieved of his command.
How much data does it take to put aircraft over the target area? The deliveries these CIA operatives would have wanted could have been achieved with little or no risk to the pilots.
General Ham is a good ma. I have no problem believing this story.
Wow - I totally believe that! Lets hope he doesn’t get invited to a meeting @ Ft. Marcy Park
Mflr
that second in command should have been shot on the spot.
is this what you were hearing was coming down??
If it was a bunch of girl scouts I’d agree that they shouldn’t go into an area unless it was safe. But for God’s sake this is the military we’re talking about - and our people were on the ground being slaughtered. Is someone implying that taking out a target that was shooting at our people was too ‘dangerous’ for an airplane? This is bull...
“General Ham then received the order to stand down.”
Good post. Remember, Obama has taken great pride in saying that Libya was liberated without American blood being shed. Obama did not want potential voters to wake up to our uniformed military being KIA.
So, DOD assets were told to stand down as CIA subcontractors, whose presence could be concealed, were tasked with extracting diplomatic assets from the Mission. Also, those operators were familiar with the battlefield and were leveraged with local friendly militia.
As the battlefield was so unshaped and on/off and populated by hostiles of unknown strength and unknown weapons, this was a reasonable tactical choice anyway.
Other rapid response units that could have gotten there would have been too little and too late.
General Ham and Africom, were frustrated that in this theater of their responsibility, they were not in position to act effectively.