I haven’t read the real documents either, but some former military guy said that those 450 miles could be travelled by military jet in 20 minutes, not hours, and another 10 minutes to get the planes in the air.
I’m glad you said that. It makes perfect sense to me. Really puts to shame earlier comments you posted from officials unidentified that said there was no time to get to them. Its not out of the realm to think that we have 1,000 mph planes.And these guys are trained to move quickly I would think.
Let me jump in on this to dispel some misunderstandings and maybe add something else useful. I do so, having spent a lot of years in the past in this business.
Unless armed military aircraft or forces were very close or immediately overhead at the time of the FLASH warning traffic of the attack, it is unlikely any could have been on the scene and ready to participate within 20 minutes.
On the other hand, an airborne armed drone which was close enough could have done it - and apparently did. Drones usually have a very long loiter time over station unless they are at the end of their mission.
There still would have been the difficult problems of identifying the friendlies, identifying the enemy, and getting clearance to engage the target.
There were apparently no combat air controllers or forward air controllers either on the ground or in the air. This would have complicated the problem of identifying friend/foe and getting permission to engage using deadly force. After all, the missiles on the drones are area weapons with a good chance of collateral damage to friendlies especially if their exact positions were not identified. From the State Department briefing, there was a lot of fluidity in the situation.
If there was a ship in the Gulf with prepped aircraft (likely helicopters) and a fast reaction force on board, they could have been in the engagement, likely within an hour or two depending on their location. If armed aircraft were on a quick reaction alert (either at sea or in Tripoli) they might have been airborne within 20 minutes and engaged quickly - providing they could positively identify the targets and if they had the proper ordnance on board to use. So far as I have heard, nothing has been revealed about what capabilities in Tripoli or closeby at sea or what status they were in.
Frankly, given the events of the day throughout the Middle East and the signal day it was, we should have had forces available and on alert both at the nearest military bases, like Sigonella on Sicily, as well as at sea and in Tripoli.
Sigonella is about 450 miles away. If a C-130 gunship were on a strip alert, with aircrew available and standing by, they could have been airborne within an hour (unless they were actually sitting in a cockpit alert status, which is unlikely, and then it would be less). It would then take them under three hours to be on station at Benghazi and ready to go.
Again, the problem would be identifying targets and friendlies in a fluid situation, and Benghazi is a rather major city and not a free fire zone.
If fighter aircraft were on strip alert at Sigonella, they could be airborne within 15 minutes and depending on the type, on station within an hour or two.
So, the best option would have been to have fast reaction combat teams in helicopters backed up by air support available, on a quick reaction alert, and either close at sea or in Tripoli where they could react to any place in the country. Backup C-130 gunships in Sigonella would have been very useful in the force mix.
Apparently this was not done, and the opportunity to do anything because of this was strictly ad hoc as illustrated by the long firefight without coordinated relief or support.
We are very lucky we didn't lose everybody in Benghazi instead of just those four we admitted we lost. It was a total political f*ck*p and we were unprepared.