Lingering Questions About Benghazi (Obama's Washington Post firewall breached)

The attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi has become a political football in the presidential campaign, with all the grandstanding and misinformation that entails. But Fox News has raised some questions about the attack that deserve a clearer answer from the Obama administration.

Fox’s Jennifer Griffin reported Friday that CIA officers in Benghazi had been told to “stand down” when they wanted to deploy from their base at the annex to repel the attack on the consulate, about a mile away. Fox also reported that the CIA officers requested military support when the annex came under fire later that night but that their request had been denied.

The Benghazi tragedy was amplified by Charles Woods, the father of slain CIA contractor Tyrone Woods. He told Fox’s Sean Hannity that White House officials who didn’t authorize military strikes to save the embattled CIA annex were “cowards” and “are guilty of murdering my son.”

Looking back, it may indeed have been wise not to bomb targets in Libya that night. Given the uproar in the Arab world, this might have been the equivalent of pouring gasoline on a burning fire. But the anguish of Woods’s father is understandable: His son’s life might have been saved by a more aggressive response. The Obama administration needs to level with the country about why it made its decisions.

A final, obvious point: The “fog of battle” that night was dense not just in Benghazi but in Cairo, Tunis and elsewhere. U.S. officials needed better intelligence. That’s the toughest problem to address, but the most important.

Looking back, it may indeed have been wise not to bomb targets in Libya that night. Given the uproar in the Arab world, this might have been the equivalent of pouring gasoline on a burning fire.

We need to accept that we're never going to placate these people - they're going to hate the U.S. no matter what we do.

Embassy, consulate or mission - it's still American territory, manned by our people. Far better to defend our territory and people with whatever force necessary than to leave them vulnerable to our enemies. If we're going to operate over there in such a visible manner, they need to know that they'll be smoked if they dare to attack us.

There was a caller to Rush Limbaugh’s show who detailed the protocols for what happens when there is a crisis - said he might get into trouble for saying anything but did it anyway. When the alert comes in, there is somebody who has the duty of getting in Obama’s face within 10 minutes and physically telling him that there’s been an attack and the Ambassador’s whereabouts are unknown. There is no way that Obama did not know what was going on.

If the attack began about 9pm Libya time and that was about 4pm DC Daylight time, that’s about a 5-hour difference. If Woods died at 4am Libya time that would be about 11pm DC time. During that time between 4-11pm, Obama spent at least part of that time meeting with Panetta and spent time watching the drone’s video feed. All the while refusing to let us even move our assets into the area so they would be ready if we needed them.

Although we have yet to know where the drones came from, and whether they were armed. Doesn’t make sense for Woods to be laser-painting the target and sending coordinates if there wasn’t airpower to lock in the coordinates - as I understand from what military people here and elsewhere have said. Somebody suggested that he could have painted the target to try to get the bad guys to think they were in danger and leave, but I don’t know if the bad guys would have a way of knowing they had been painted. Somebody else suggested that he painted them in case help eventually came, but especially if it was a residential area it wouldn’t make sense to paint somebody’s position in case there was help later, when the target could move in the meantime and hitting the earlier target could mean civilian casualties.

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