Before I get to the story, let’s walk through President Obama’s obnoxious bragging that his opponent is “new to foreign policy.”
Barack Obama was “new” to foreign policy four years ago. He opposed the Iraq surge that turned that war around. He chose a man for his running mate who has gotten just about every foreign policy question wrong over the last 30 years. Obama never familiarized himself with foreign policy. He gives speeches and calls it a day.
After the attack in Benghazi, he and his team lied to the American people about what happened.
Now, to the story:
Lt. Col. Andy Wood, the former head of a Special Forces “Site Security Team,” said in a pair of interviews that the embassy staff, including slain Amb. Chris Stevens, had wanted his group of 16 special operations soldiers to stay in Libya.
“[The] first choice was for us to stay,” Wood told ABC News.“That would have been the choice of the embassy people in Tripoli.”
Wood told CBS News that when he found out his team was being removed in August, he felt, “like we were being asked to play the piano with two fingers. There was concern amongst the entire embassy staff.”
The State Department’s response? Pulling special forces out of a war zone didn’t matter.
In a statement to ABC News, the State Department said that there was not a net loss of security personnel on the ground in Libya when Wood’s unit was pulled out. “The SST was enlisted to support the re-opening of Embassy Tripoli, to help ensure we had the security necessary as our diplomatic presence grew. They were based in Tripoli and operated almost exclusively there. When their rotation in Libya ended, Diplomatic Security Special Agents were deployed and maintained a constant level of security capability. So their departure had no impact whatsoever on the total number of fully trained American security personnel in Libya generally, or in Benghazi specifically.”
No impact?
Reality disagrees.
Here’s the part where the Clinton State Department throws a career military officer under the bus.
The State Department also noted that Wood was deployed in Tripoli and said he was unfamiliar with the security situation in Benghazi, where the terrorist attack ultimately occurred.
Yes, some State Department official in Washington just said that Foggy Bottom knew better about the security situation in Libya than a career military officer who was in Libya, after the US ambassador there was killed, and after the revelation that State pulled special forces from the country just a month before the assault.
More: Jake Tapper reports on the story today on GMA.
If the Civil Service wishes to be an auxiliary for the Democratic Party, the matter can be addressed one day.
“The State Department also noted that Wood was deployed in Tripoli and said he was unfamiliar with the security situation in Benghazi, where the terrorist attack ultimately occurred.”
If true, then it was the fault of State for not informing him. State had the intelligence information, it was incumbent upon them to pass it on to those who needed it.
This is another scandal that, like Fast and Furious, would have caused the demise of this administration
if we had a free press.
Felons protected by slaves (which is always the definition of any totalitarian regime).
Hey, after Black Hawk Down incident in Somalia Les Aspin resigned because he turned-down increased security (armor) for the dudes there, but now it’s “nothing to see here, move on.”
Much as I’d like to pile on the Administration, on its face (assuming they’re not lying … ah, well…), they’re not blowing smoke, unless this team’s presence at the Tripoli embassy allowed more security people to attend the Ambassador, especially when he visited a facility like the one in Benghazi which wasn’t even a consulate.
The issue is Benghazi security, not security elsewhere in Libya. But as I note above to a degree it might be fungible.
Well at least we caught that movie producer. There’s that right? We need to acknowledge who’s really at fault here. Of course, we cannot tolerate people who offend the Prophet (PBuH).
Clearly, there was no failure of security in Benghazi. Who could have predicted that the attacks would take place on September 11th? Especially, with all the warnings we were going to be attacked from every intelligence service. That had to be disinformation.
We know that the peaceful and entirely spontaneous demonstration was only caused by the evil movie producer (probably part of the 1%). Who hasn’t been to a town meeting, decided to protest some offense against Mohammed (PBuH) and wound up dropping mortar rounds on someone? I know most people keep RPGs, mortars, light machine guns, and grenades around for just such emergencies.
Wait, sorry that’s in bizzaro world where normal Americans act like Muslim whack-jobs. In the civilized world, the real world no one owns heavy military weapons and attacks an unarmed embassy. A ten year old kid riding the short bus could have (and probably did) predict these attacks.
First, we still haven’t been told the cause of death for the three men who were murdered in Benghazi, and I’m not sure that the cause of death given for Ambassador Stevens (suffocation) is correct. We’ve all heard horrifying stories about the jihadist’s favorite methods of torture and beheading. I don’t want to know the gory details about how these men were actually killed, but I think the American people deserve to know what happened to our fellow citizens. I do believe that the truth about the cause of deaths would finish off Obama completely.
Second, we’ve all slammed Obama for blaming everything on a stupid video, and we’ve criticized the government’s midnight interview and subsequent imprisonment of the film-maker, as well as the intrusive and abusive media exposure he and his family endured. I have NOT seen widespread condemnation for the release of the film-maker’s identify and address, which provoked so many death threats that his family was forced to go into hiding. This is much worse than Spike Lee’s publication of George Zimmerman’s address (which, through his incompetence, forced an entirely innocent elderly couple to leave their home out of fear for their lives, thanks to all the death threats).
I think that placing a private citizen in danger of his life is an even more egregious abuse of presidential power than the use of a scapegoat to distract from Obama’s own failures. Whatever anyone thinks about the content of the film trailer, it did not lead to the murder of four Americans in Libya, and making the film-maker a target for violent retribution is not in any way excusable. The leader of the free world singled out a private individual for blame and put that man’s life at risk, all to protect his own re-election prospects. Where is the outrage?
I simply don’t understand this story. The only thing I can think is WHY? Why did State pull the special ops team, and leave it up to Libyan militias to provide security? Why did they ignore all the intelligence and warnings and Ambassador Stevens’ own request for help? Was there an agenda? If so, what was it?
Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have a hell of a lot of explaining to do, but I don’t think they ever will. They will lie and obfuscate, and good luck ever getting any documentation out of them.
Another element of the story: the SF security team was on temporary active duty (TDY, or TAD if you’re from the naval service). These terms typically end at no later than the 6-month mark, because any extension would have to bring other funding to bear. I’ve been in the middle of these situations before — no matter what the situation is on the ground, some bean-counter bureaucrat (and there are many in the military too), like lawyers, will end up making decisions that affect the operation.
I also firmly believe that the “no boots on the ground” declaration made last year, even though the situation has drastically changed, is still holding sway in the area. This is another example of the bureaucratic inertia that is endemic to higher commands — ‘no one told me to stop, so it must still be in effect’. I’m sure that the State Dept was very antsy about any military presence in Libya at all, which would be typical anywhere but particularly so there.
I hope that Mitt Romney elevates this story in the next debate as I fear that Obama’s incompetence and polticization of this attack is not being covered in the media. Imagine how different things would be if a Republican were in the White House.