Still not clear when the order to ‘do all’ was given, and how does Panetta get to the 5pm meeting and it has to be made clear to ‘do everything possible’.
Had Panetta got an initial order and didn’t understand so it had to be explained again at the meeting? Let him get on another Sunday Morning talk show and not get questioned...again...(can’t remember what show but they had him right there to ask.)
Even if they had to wait for permission, is there an effort or as I read through I was reading excuse after excuse why different entities weren’t deploy-able.
“Do everything you can” but WITHOUT EXPLICIT CBA still means Panetta at DOD and Hillary at DOS have to get the cross-border permission from the Lib govt.
ONLY THE POTUS CAN GRANT CBA, and direct the military to move NOW, waiting for NOBODY, with external permission from NOBODY.
The fact that Panetta at DOD or Hillary at DOS are still discussing getting permission from the Lib govt after 1900 hours means NO CBA WAS GIVEN.
This is much simpler than folks realize.
And the worst aspect of all is that Obama hid, without granting CBA, while an ambassador (= to a 4 star general in rank) who was up to his eyeballs in ultra-covert int’l arms smuggling ops was MIA, and very possibly captured alive and in the hands of Ansar-Al Saharia, AKA AQ in Libya.
“Four dead Americans” is bad, but that happens every time a helo crashes or a Afghan “ally” frags us.
Amb. Stephens possibly captured by AQ was HUGE HUGE HUGE. In crass chess terms he was a Queen, far more than 4 pawns.
And Obama punted, and hid, without granting CBA, which was the only way to effect a rapid rescue attempt.