The CIA’s new timeline of events in Benghazi is not holding up.
Both American and British sources say multiple roadblocks set up by fighters believed to be with Ansar al-Sharia were in place in Benghazi several hours before the 9:40 p.m. timeline and that communications also alluded to “heavily armed troops showing up with artillery.” Fox News was told by both American and British contacts who were in Benghazi that night that the CIA timeline rolled out this past week is only “loosely based on the truth” and “doesn’t quite add up.”
The safe room to which Ambassador Christopher Stevens retreated during the assault was far from safe.
One former Special Op now employed by a private company in Benghazi said that even the safe room wasn’t properly set up. He said “the safe room is one of the first measures you take” and that he is “not sure how you can set a safe room without fire suppression and ventilation in case of fire.” He also said, “Ambassador Stevens would likely be alive today if this simple and normal procedure was put into place.”
As details emerge of serious security issues before the attack on Sept. 11, Fox News is also beginning to hear more frustration from sources both on the ground in Benghazi and in the U.S. Multiple British and American sources insist there were other capabilities in the region and are mystified why none were used. Fox News was told there were not only armed drones that monitor Libyan chemical weapon sites in the area, but also F-18′s, AC-130 aircraft and even helicopters that could have been dispatched in a timely fashion.
British intelligence sources said that unarmed drones routinely flew over Benghazi every night in flight patterns and that armed drones which fly over chemical sites, some a short flight from Benghazi, “were always said to be on call.” American sources confirmed this and questioned “why was a drone armed only with a camera dispatched?”
Another source added, “Why would they put a ragtag team together in Tripoli as first responders? This is not even what they do for a living. We had a first responder air base in Italy almost the same distance away.” Despite the team arriving from Tripoli that night, sources said sufficient American back-up never came.
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The lefties are still holding out for the Obama story but they seem dispirited.
Roger Simon at Politico is now calling this “swift boating” of Obama ignoring that the swift boaters stories were true in 2004.
Perhaps he’s calling it “swift boating” BECAUSE it’s accurate?
– dripping blood.
Whenever we talk of “swift boating”, we must remember the noble work of Wade Sanders, the one veteran who defended John Kerry against the allegations of the swift boaters.
Since then, Sanders has been arrested for child pornography and was stripped of his Silver Star. But it’s mean of me to mention this. It’s akin to “swift boating” him.
Swift Boating = Using facts confirmed by a large number of people to discredit a political opponent. Such an unfair tactic.
The more that comes out, the uglier it gets. This time, the crime is worse than the cover-up.
That Kerry had one dysfunctional co-confabulator is another sad comment on his falsified life.
Wasn’t there a large reward offered for anyone concretely refuting what Kerry’s own squadron mates said in afidavits? No takers so far. I’d still like to know how he got away negotiating the the N Vietnamese. Unfortunately there’s a new generation seeking to make friends with those who hate us. Which rings us back to Benghazi.
These allegations seem credible. Given the seven hour duration of the assault on the U.S. “consulate” or whatever it was and then the “annex,” with NO military defense of the of the installations, it is evident that the practicability of a military response was not the issue which determined the outcome.
The conclusion is ineluctable that Obama made the decisions which resulted in the deaths of the Americans. He was in the situation room – he was informed, he is responsible, not just nominally, but viscerally.
The only remaining question, then, is Obama’s rationale for his decisions. In my opinion, there are no considerations which might obtain which would justify Obama’s decisions. But I am willing to be proven wrong. Obama does not seem to want to talk about it.
The principal issue cannot have been concern for Libya’s “sovereignty.” Libya’s government had already admitted that it did not have the capability of enforcing its sovereignty. Moreover, if the U.S. was already overflying Liby’s air space with drones, and perhaps other planes, then the U.S. was already violating Libyan air space rather willy nilly.
Another putative argument set forth is that Obama did not want to risk the wrath of Islamists by taking military action against Ansar al-Sharia and whoever else might have been involved by seeming “imperialistic” and possibly risking “collateral damage.” If that was the basis for his decision, Americans would certainly be interested in knowing that.
Which other possibilities might there be? My own opinion is that Obama took this opportunity to demonstrate to the Muslim world that their concerns were worth more than the blood of his countrymen. That would be consistent with his previous behavior. Not surprisingly, however, Muslims do not take such symbolic gestures to be of any consequence.
Was the ‘annex’ over run?
We know they never secured the consulate, as evidenced by the diary and other documents that were obtained by passers by.
What was in the ‘annex?’ Small arms? RPGs? artillery? SAMs? Chemical weapons?
What happened to those goodies?
Has anyone seen documentation that Obama actually did anything the day of the attack, much less dispatch all available resources to the scene?
I suspect that the assets weren’t committed, because Mr. Stephens was supposed to be taken hostage…to be traded for the Blind Sheik…who is in prison here for the 1st WTC attack. But it went wrong…
this possibility isn’t going away.
Captain’s Journal reports, [Pentagon Spokesman] Little disclosed that Panetta also ordered another team from the United States to head to Sigonella. Little refused to describe what kind of unit was sent from the U.S., though it was presumably a special operations team trained for hostage rescues.
Little said both the units “did not arrive until after the entire sequence of events was complete. … They were in Sigonella many hours after the attacks.”
The Pentagon spokesman said that it can take hours for troops to be organized and transported to where they might be used. He added that at the time they were ordered to move, policy makers ”did not know when the attacks would end.” Little said that, in theory, a hostage situation in Benghazi could have lasted for days.
There are two things I have thought about I haven’t seen discussede elsewhere. First, Bengazi is located on the Mediterrian Sea, and if the consulate was located within a mile or two of the shore, any attackers could have been taken under fire from a properly positioned US warship. A US warship could have been positioned over the horizon and still arrived within an hour to commence defensive fire. Second, if President Obama is reelected, and a subsequent investigation is completed that confirms what has come out, his credibility will be zilch. He will be able to get nothing done or passed. It would be as if Nixon had not resigned but couldn’t be impeached. The country will have real problems.
His credibility is already zilch. He has already shown himself to be willing to ignore the Congress and to be uninterested in passing anything or getting anything done. The country has real problems now, and he doesn’t care; that’s the way he wants it.
I also think Stevens was set up, and it was not to have been for a hostage-taking or a prisoner swap. The only thing that went wrong was that Woods and Doherty disobeyed orders to stand down, and instead went to provide aid–which expanded the event’s scope and attracted attention. But for that, it would have been a little-noticed mishap in a chaotic area of North Africa. The real question is what is was supposed to have been about in the first place.
You’re on the right track with your saying that this seems to have been a setup for our Ambassador.
But, all of these ‘drips’ taken together raise still more questions as to why our Military power in varying forms, which we’re learning was in fact located somewhat nearby, was not on “standby-hot-alert” to be utilized and employed promptly ….even if…. the Ambassador was to be a player in some sort of “set up” to be a “trade” in some prisoner exchange. Why so close and not immediately scrambled from hot-alert as it became known that a tragedy was developing ‘right now!’? No “worst scenario”… what if’s?…. considered? I simply don’t believe that.
Personally, I’ve ordered “scrambles” of aircraft within a three minute allowed period against a “flash track” in USAF air defense exercises, and this is out of date information, from years ago.
So, simply put, some one individual has forced this tragic conclusion to come to its inevitable and calculated head…..aware that as the situation rapidly got out of control nothing would be done to literally lift that Ambassador away from harm. Someone, then, did not permit our military rescue forces to be “scrambled”.
I can’t believe our Military would permit this to happen if they had, in fact, the final say. So, I lay this tragedy squarely on the plate of our current civilian political establishment and their amateurishness. They should “hang”, as we used to say.
As a sort of post script, this would emphasize the heroism of those C.I.A. guys who acted out of inherent human nature, in vain.
Further “post script”…
Refresh your memories by searching for that famous photograph of that Air America Huey helicopter loading those desperately lined up folks at that ladder on the rooftop of the Pittman Building in Saigon during the collapse of the city.
cf:Fall+of+Saigon.jpg
Excuse me for being too lazy to do any research, but I seem to remember that right after the government of Mali was overthrown, the US Gov got excited about it and stationed Spec Ops around the area to respond to an extremist threat. Did this not occur? And if it did, were those troopies not available to help in Benghazi?