Posted on 10/28/2012 8:41:57 AM PDT by Qbert
On Friday Barack Obama told Denver’s WUSA TV that on 9-11 he gave the directives to “make sure that we are securing our personnel and doing whatever we need to” to ensure their safety in Benghazi.
Late on Friday former Assistant Defense Secretary Bing West told FOX News that if the directive was made to secure our personnel there would be a paper trail.
Today Ohio Senator Rob Portman told the FOX News Sunday that we need to find out if this order was ever issued.
There was a shocking breakdown operationally not having the security there in the first place. And not to respond to these guys and their pleas for help for seven hours during a firefight. It’s unbelievable. And, now we’re hearing that the President of the United States, based on his own words, issued a directive immediately after he found out about the firefight saying he wanted to be sure the people on the ground were safe and they were getting what they needed. It didn’t happen. This means that either the president’s order was not followed. Which would be a breakdown in terms of the White House procedure or it means the order wasn’t issued. We need to find out about this. It’s not about politics.
Retired Army Lt. Col. Tony Shaffer said Saturday he has sources saying President Barack Obama was in the room at the White House watching the assault on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya unfold.
“We are seeking, by the help of Allah, to capture others and to incite Muslims to capture the citizens of the countries that are fighting Muslims in order to release our captives,” he said, praising the kidnapping of Warren Weinstein, a 71-year-old American aid worker in Pakistan last year...”
NewsNax
(Did our Seals inadvertently disrupt a planned “kidnapping” of our Ambassador? Why... Perhaps to exchange him for the blind Sheik. It would explain the order to stand down.)
Never mentioned on ABC,CBS,NBC or CNN. Means nothing when only we see it on Fox.
Juam is a porch stoolie for the libs.
The One and Panetta are working on that order right now.
That's CRAP!! The battle lasted for 7 hours! 1-2 hours at the most to reach target. These people died in the 7th hour. From what evidence we have about the Laser target on the mortar position alone would have prevented some of these deaths.
The most important question right now is WHO gave the ORDER to stand down! This needs to be answered by the president!
I think Juan Williams is honest. He only on FOX so they can have a liberal pinata on set to spout of their talking points so that the other 5 “conservatives” on set can give their immediate rebuttals. If Juan Williams was on MSNBC not only would he be the smartest person they had each night, he would have more integrity than all of them combined.
“that we did everything we could to secure those Americans who were still in harm’s way”
“everything we could” Exactly my point, CIA operators were all that we could do, given the unshaped and rapidly evolving battlefield there.
We have a number of rapid response units worldwide, some are more quickly deployed than others, largely depending on air assets for deployment, ground support, and overwatch.
We had three units deployed that were tactically capable of relieving the Benghazi mission. However, two were committed to relief of the embassies in Cairo and Khartoum and the third committed to AfPak.
We were stretched too thin. Africom wanted to send the unit staged for Khartoum but was denied, hence General Ham’s disagreements.
"Unfortunately, it’s on FNC, not CNN, CBS, or other outlets."
A prime example of why those other "news" outlets continue to lose viewers month after month...
“That’s CRAP!! The battle lasted for 7 hours!”
You are correct, it was “CRAP”. There was no “7 hour” battle, but three distinct firefights in that 7 hour period.
By the third firefight, hostiles brought up a mortar, set up about 2,000 yards away and began firing. Any laser painting that far downrange is unreliable.
However, had any of the UAV’s overhead been armed, they could have used IR targeting and easily degraded the mortar(s). Having no armed overwatch on those several and very valuable Benghazi assets on 9/11 was a mistake.
Poor threat assessment beforehand. Again, it’s easy to call ‘em from the bench.
The list, Ping
You can give all of the reasons for not lifting a finger that you like. And you may be correct in your assessment.
But this was the anniversary of 9-11 for cripes sake. We should have been prepared for anything & everything on that day.
The fools in the white hut were not & are not prepared.
I agree, as I previously stated:
“Poor threat assessment beforehand.”
Stevens was known to travel without any security, using local drivers with unknown loyalties. In fact, at the time we were advertising for hire of an American citizen driver for Stevens.
With all the well known threats to our diplomatic locales worldwide, Stevens chose to leave the protection of our Tripoli embassy and drive to Benghazi, to talk business, on 9/11.
Hubris.
Obama’s statement of , “We’ll do what ever it takes” is bullsh!t. Any five year would say something as lame. A real CIC would have said we would commence operational plans that we have in place to address these types of emergencies.
We have personal and equipment standing ready all around the world to handle these types of problems. It’s not like we have to gather together in a meeting to figure out what to do!
Obama....Coward
BTW, Stevens, to his credit, did arrange to have 5 local security agents meet him at the Mission. At least 4 of the 5 abandoned Stevens at or before the shooting began.
Every foreign diplomat is trained not to rely on only locals for security. You always have at least a mixed group from at least two separate cities, agents that don’t know each other.
Because of the anarchy in Libya and distances involved, this problem was forced onto Stevens and became the status quo.
ping
This denial of help is zero’s MO, going all the way back to denial of air or artillery support because of his rules of engagement.
To me that’s totally B.S. In Europe they are whining about the numerous CIA flying into their air space with captured prisoners from Afghanistan!!!
He went to bed before the fight was over because he had to go to Nevada next morning. It’s very tactical that it’s the Senator and not Romney ringing the bell!!!
Don’t forget Clint Eastwood’s later comment: “This is the biggest hoax ever perpetrated on the American People”???
Yes, he has, I sent him a link to the “fired” Rear Admiral which also links to firing of Genera Ham and Drudge posted it yesterday!!!
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