“The one thing that our forces are noted for is planning and preparation before we send people in harm’s way, and there just wasn’t time to do that.”
Right there he makes his own counter argument and I wonder whether he knows it. Ambassador Stevens and the 30+ people had been sent into harms way, but there was insufficient planning for security. There was plenty of time to beef up security before sending Steven and the others into Benghazi.
The argument I heard on the talk shows today that made the most sense is that the available planes were in the north of Italy, and that while they could have gone, they would have needed refueling planes and there was not time to get them available. So my question is why don’t we have an arrangement with Italy to base in the south of Italy or Sicily, why don’t we have an aircraft carrier available? To what extent is the sequester involved in insufficient resources vs. other reasons for poorly positioned resources. Also listening to another aspect, I forget now what exactly, I found myself thinking was Petraus too distracted to be thinking as clearly and strategically as he needed to given the facts on the ground?