An interesting rumor. As Moe Lane says, the president should have the General debunk this immediately.
And at what point does DCI Petraeus noisily resign? A run at the presidency as a Republican would survive a stint at the CIA under a Democrat, but it won’t survive complicity, or remaining silent, in a coverup.
[Update a while later]
DrewM over at Ace says it doesn’t hold water.
That’s how many times the embattled people in the consulate and safe house were denied help.
And what’s worse, there was an AC-130 orbiting, but the administration refused to allow it to fire. This is starting to look like manslaughter.
Too bad there’s not a Republican in the White House. If there were, maybe someone other than Fox News would be covering this stuff.
[Update a few minutes later]
It’s not Blackhawk down again. “It’s worse. Recall that the major problem in BD was the UN commander was unwilling to risk casualties to protect forward US positions and troops in the city. This is the US unwilling to protect its own. It’s like we have the UN for an administration or something.”
Or something.
Is Libya Obama’s own version of it?
Investigative journalist Aaron Klein has reported that the “consulate in Benghazi” actually was no such thing. He observes that although administration officials have done nothing to correct that oft-repeated characterization of the facility where the murderous attack on Stevens and his colleagues was launched, they call it a “mission.” What Mr. Klein describes as a “shabby, nondescript building” that lacked any “major public security presence” was, according to an unnamed Middle Eastern security official, “routinely used by Stevens and others to coordinate with the Turkish, Saudi and Qatari governments on supporting the insurgencies in the Middle East, most prominently the rebels opposing Assad’s regime in Syria.”
We know that Stevens‘ last official act was to hold such a meeting with an unidentified “Turkish diplomat.” Presumably, the conversation involved additional arms shipments to al Qaeda and its allies in Syria. It also may have involved getting more jihadi fighters there. After all, Mr. Klein reported last month that, according to sources in Egyptian security, our ambassador was playing a “central role in recruiting jihadists to fight Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria.”
What could go wrong?
More, cheaper ones is better than fewer expensive ones.
This applies to space hardware as well.
It’s a shame that this is such a long story (three minutes). It would make a powerful ad.
Why didn’t they?
A few days ago, I speculated that they might have been able to provide support from Sigonella. Bing West confirms it:
In the past, presidents had taken immediate actions to protect Americans. In 1984, President Reagan had ordered U.S. pilots to force an airliner carrying terrorists to land at Sigonella. Reagan had acted inside a 90-minute window while the aircraft with the terrorists was in the air. The Obama national-security team had several hours in which to move forces from Sigonella to Benghazi.
Fighter jets could have been at Benghazi in an hour; the commandos inside three hours. If the attackers were a mob, as intelligence reported, then an F18 in afterburner, roaring like a lion, would unnerve them. This procedure was applied often in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Conversely, if the attackers were terrorists, then the U.S. commandos would eliminate them. But no forces were dispatched from Sigonella.
Someone should ask him why at the debate tonight.
…or fog of lies?
Col. David Hunt has persuaded me that the attack was followed in real time not merely by the State Department but more than a hundred people in the White House situation room as well as in similar facilities within DoD and intelligence agencies. Logs [would have been] kept noting what officials entered these facilities, when they were notified, what decisions were requested/made, what was said by officials, etc., etc.
Col. Hunt paints this picture based not on direct knowledge but on his extensive knowledge of how these government agencies conduct crisis management operations. Obviously, in a six hour crisis there was plenty of time for all the various crisis management facilities to come on line, something that Col. Hunt depicts as happening pretty much instantly.
I am persuaded by this picture, and I think it leaves a dramatic — and much more damning — impression of the alleged confusion, passivity, and disengagement of the president.
Sounds about right.
How Obama bungled it.
I agree that historians will view this with much more opprobrium than the Libya mess.