Patterico's Pontifications

5/8/2013

Cheney on Benghazi

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 7:50 am



I like the way this guy does not pull his punches:

‘They should have been ready before anything ever happened,’ Cheney told MailOnline exclusively during a party in Georgetown celebrating the launch of a new book by former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.

‘I mean, it’s North Africa – Libya, where they’ve already had major problems,’ Cheney said. ‘You know that al-Qaeda is operating there, and you have some of the other al-Qaeda-affiliated groups there like Ansar al-Sharia and others.’ …

‘When we were there, on our watch, we were always ready on 9/11, on the anniversary,’ he recalled. ‘We always anticipated they were coming for us, especially in that part of the world.’

‘I cannot understand why they weren’t ready to go,’ the former two-term vice president said of the Obama administration.

‘You’ve got units in the Defense Department that are superb. They practice for this contingency. And they didn’t have anybody in the area[.]‘

Indeed.

114 Responses to “Cheney on Benghazi”

  1. I’ll bet Cheney’s old heart is still beating, and kicking a**. Compare Biden and Cheney on any issue just for a good laugh.

    dfbaskwill (ca54bb)

  2. Cue the “Cheney lied aboud WMDs” crowd on 5. . . 4. . . 3. . . 2. . . .

    JVW (4826a9)

  3. Meant “in” instead of “on.” Damn iPad.

    JVW (4826a9)

  4. You’ve got units in the Defense Department that are superb.

    ^_^ He should know. Rumsfeld is credited for the autonomous super-seekrit special forces units directly under the Secretary of Defense, but even if Cheney did not form them as SOD under Bush 41 I’m certain he had a hand in them as VP and as a member of the NSC under Bush 43.

    nk (875f57)

  5. Well I don’t believe that incompetence explains anything beyond the coverup.

    They relied on the Lamestream to make one unnecessary.

    gary gulrud (dd7d4e)

  6. “Obama chilled after people were killed.” — Greg Gutfeld

    Diffus (48ae73)

  7. Cummings starts off with a monologue politicizing the hearings.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  8. ‘I cannot understand why they weren’t ready to go,’ the former two-term vice president said of the Obama administration.

    Liar. You know EXACTLY why. Just like the rest of us knows why.

    Say it with me…….INCOMPETENCE.

    © Sponge (8110ec)

  9. I cannot help but wonder how many of these bureaucracts and even the CIA and military operatives grew up in safe nieghborhoods. I learned personal security in the 1st grade and on up to full adulthood because I lived in a rough nieghborhood. It is clear to me that regardless of Obama’s and Clinton’s failures (of which I have no doubt) that those on the ground were very poorly prepared for surviving the nieghborhood they were in. I would say that at a minimum Stevens should have had 6-12 fully armed bodyguards to protect him in this location AND more importantly a backup plan to get more help there within minutes of an attack. There should have been a “real” safe house not a storage closet to hide in. And this attack should have been anticipated and if it were it could have been prevented or stopped before it got serious. Everything I have seen on this is outright stupidity with the exception of the bravery of those who were there.

    GoneWithTheWind (f8c7ee)

  10. Incompetence I can believe, but it’s so incompetent it reeks of malice… like the folks there were made expendable.

    SarahW (b0e533)

  11. This coming from the guy who missed 9-11. LMAO!

    Alfred Tumnus (0c85c7)

  12. Incompetence? Or “PC Uber Alles”?

    mojo (8096f2)

  13. I just want to know what happened.

    SarahW (b0e533)

  14. At 8:12 I said:

    Cue the “Cheney lied aboud WMDs” crowd in 5. . . 4. . . 3. . . 2. . . .

    Then at 9:30 Alfred Tumnus said:

    This coming from the guy who missed 9-11. LMAO!

    It took an hour and eighteen minutes longer than I had expected.

    JVW (4826a9)

  15. This lawyerly b.s. going on in the hearing is crazy.
    I can’t believe we the people take this shit. This building should be cordoned by the people of this country, and the committee members tarred and feathered.
    Fricken attorney double speak.
    Bastards, the lot of them.

    mg (31009b)

  16. I hadn’t thought about this before, but the two killed defending the annex were CIA people coming from Tripoli after the attack had started. Something has been said about evacuating people from the annex. Is it at all possible that the CIA who went against orders to help out did not know that the people staffing the annex were being evacuated rather than helping the ambassador?

    Hopefully today will be just the start of the dam breaking.

    MD in Philly (3d3f72)

  17. From my standpoint, they made a simple and cynical decision. Do we want the folks to see a terrorist attack on our watch in the throes of a heated election or do we ignore it and rely on media compliance to drag us over the finish line? It was a calculated risk and all it cost was 4 lives. No brainer.

    Gazzer (a8245c)

  18. Rep. Mike Turner (R-OH) takes over, notes that there were two stand-down orders given to Benghazi rescue teams. Both orders were given to Lt. Col. Ed Gibson’s Special Forces team, which wanted to go to Benghazi and bring the Americans there home.
    http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2013/05/08/benghazi-hearings-live-blog/

    Sounds like we need to hear from this Lt. Col. Gibson, likely under some subpeona or such if he is going against orders to talk.

    MD in Philly (3d3f72)

  19. I can understand why. Not approve but understand. All Obama has is ideology, and ideology is by definition based on belief, not facts. He truly believes that his anti-American multicultural relativism will solve all conflicts.

    It’s insane, but this is the first time he has tested his ideology in the real world. Unfortunately, it’s costing many lives and much destruction.

    Patricia (be0117)

  20. I just want to hear someone say, “I gave the order” and under whose authority.
    If the president tells you to, “say ‘X’, and don’t tell anyone I told you to say ‘X'”, and under oath Congress asks “Did the president tell you to say ‘X'”, I suppose he is required to do what?
    answer truthfully
    lie for the president, ’cause it’s the president
    invoke some kind of national security “I can’t tell you”
    ask to go to the bathroom, and crawl out of the window
    ???

    MD in Philly (3d3f72)

  21. Barry Obama should have run for commissioner of golf.
    Or something.

    Elephant Stone (65a34b)

  22. E-stone

    long time no hear – hope everythings okay

    EPWJ (bdd0a6)

  23. “It took an hour and eighteen minutes longer than I had expected.”

    – JVW

    Predicting the response doesn’t discredit it, unfortunately.

    But no one could have expected something like 9-11, I don’t think. Or prevented it.

    Leviticus (17b7a5)

  24. Dick Cheney said the Bush Administration was ready to respond to the Middle East on every 9/11. But Leon Panetta said it was hard for the Obama Administration to respond quickly to the Middle East, because it was just too far away.

    Obviously their mindsets were completely different. The Bush Administration viewed every 9/11 as a potential threat, especially in the Middle East. The Obama Administration views it as just another day and the Middle East as just another part of the world.

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  25. Middle East, because it was just too far away.
    True DRJ, but I thought President Obama knew that our Navy was no longer like it was 100 years ago, and that we had something called air craft carriers and planes that travelled faster than the speed of sound that “make the world a smaller place”.

    That said, I feel some sympathy for anybody in a position that requires them to represent this administration, but not that much sympathy since I assume most of them were willing to take their positions.

    MD in Philly (3d3f72)

  26. “But no one could have expected something like 9-11, I don’t think. Or prevented it.”

    Spoken like a true civilian Leviticus. When I was in a hostile country I was trained to expect anything 24/7, 365 and be prepared to respond in kind.

    Now, obviously one can’t prevent someting if one does not know it will occur. Although it was not hard to “predict” something could happen on a date such as 9/11, is it? But the job is to respond with such overwhelming force and destruction the enemy will think long and hard before doing it again. IOW, make the enemy bleed and bleed hard. In order to do that it requires having the forces present to do so. We did not therefore, whoever was in charge was incompetant and irresponsable.

    Do you believe our response will deter the enemy from doing it again? I don’t.

    Hoagie (3259ab)

  27. Break in Benghazi hearings.

    From hearings so far we learn that even though Democrat talking point saying Hillary did not sign memo denying Benghazi security because her name was merely typed on memo as thousands of memos go out with her typed name, only Secretary of State can waive minimum security standards for diplomatic facilities in dangerous areas such as those in Benghazi.

    We also learn that State Department determined that FEST assets did not need to be deployed to Middle East even though deployment of FEST assets is not solely a State Department decision. Normal process was not followed.

    We learned that Aviano base in Italy did have F-16’s on base but Joint Chiefs claimed they were attached to NATO and could not be temporarily detached for mission over Libya or some bureaucratic nonsense. Plus, they claimed they could not find refueling tankers for the F-16’s.

    Stand down orders were issued to small special forces detachment in Tripoli by Africom.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  28. Last words by Abassador Stevens were “we are under attack” not “we are under protest.”

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  29. JVW shows that he understands well how many Americans believe Cheney is a war criminal for lying to Congress. But as Leviticus said, predicting this will happen does not prevent it.

    I heard what the left is saying about right wing media playing up Obama’s Benghazi cover-up for all it’s worth, They say it’s true Obama downplayed the terror attack at a point to play up the video, but not for long.

    So they think the damage will amount to nothing, even at it’s worst because there are no criminal allegations and as I’ve pointed out, these foul-ups PALE in comparison to Bush’s record of being asleep at the switch during multiple deadly embassy attacks.

    I’d add that Bush/Cheney defunding the team tracking bin Laden and giving millions to the Taliban just before 9-11 was worse, but inexcusable was Bush saying “okay, you covered your ass” as he ignored the PDB saying bin Laden would strike soon.

    On the right, we’re seeing an all-in strategy of making Benghazi seem huge. Lindsay Graham said yesterday “the dam is about to burst”, (aptly parroted by MD above). They think they can damage Obama and Hillary by saying they were unprepared, lied, and are even now intimidating witnesses. It may work, but the polling is not there. Going back to December, the public believes Obama mishandled the attacks but didn’t think there was intentional deception.

    Also, the average right-wing media watcher is fatally mistaking the partisan bickering we see in public for reality. The reason Reagan, Clinton, Cheney and both Bushes all make it through their various scandals is because they all belong to a fraternity of Presidents or VPs who have gentlemanly understandings that they do not throw each other under the bus.

    We’ll see what happens, but I see both sides viewing this only through their partisan lenses. One of the most interesting interviews I’ve heard on Benghazi was with Jack Murphy and Brandon Webb, though they appeared on Hannity, they discussed a lot of aspects. I took away that a lot the fault was due to inter-agency squabbles, the Ambassador erring on the side of optimism, and the fact that the “diplomatic” consulate was also being used as a waystation for CIA who had made enemies there conducting their various “enhanced” ops.

    Mahalia Cab (857b6a)

  30. Getting angry phone calls from Hill’s fixer doesn’t look good either.

    Time for O to go on Entertainment Tonight or a rap radio station again.

    Patricia (be0117)

  31. There has been some big news coming from the Benghazi hearing:

    1. That there was no demonstration in Libya regarding the video;

    2. That Hillary Clinton was briefed by Hicks at 2 AM on 9/11 (8 PM her time), and Hicks told her it was an attack;

    3. That the hospital Ambassador Stevens was taken to was controlled by Ansar al-Sharia, a group linked to Al Qaeda;

    4. That the military and the FEST response team were either pushed out of the loop or denied permission to respond by the Deputies committee at the White House;

    5. That the Libyan Prime Minister was so angered by the Obama Administration’s statements, he refused to let the FBI in country for weeks; and

    6. That despite many personal accomplishments and commendations, Hicks was demoted after he questioned State Department statements about what happened, and he was not allowed to be interviewed by Congress without the presence of a long-time Clinton lawyer/supporter.

    Unfortunately, Fox News is the only network to carry most of the hearing. The other networks were focused on watching the Cleveland victims to return home. The Cleveland kidnappings are a compelling human interest story so I understand the interest, but the people who died in Benghazi were humans, too.

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  32. Mahalia and Sammy remind me of each other.

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  33. “Unfortunately, Fox News is the only network to carry most of the hearing.”

    DRJ – I have been watching on youtube via gatewaypundit.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  34. “Mahalia and Sammy remind me of each other.”

    Heh! They complete each other.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  35. Watch the Left go after these 3. And, take a look at the letter from State about how they are basically hiding survivors from Congress.

    JD (283b0e)

  36. C-Span has it, too, but I was checking the other networks and they seem to be hit-or-miss. For instance, ABC News brought Jake Tapper in with updates but there wasn’t the continuous coverage that Fox News had. Maybe that will change now that the Cleveland victims are home.

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  37. Mahalia and Sammy remind me of each other.

    Their willingness to concoct bizzarro conspiracies that fly in the face of known facts?

    JD (283b0e)

  38. Um, what?!

    many Americans believe Cheney is a war criminal for lying to Congress.

    1. What lie was that? 2. Since when is lying to Congress (supposing Cheney had done so) a war crime?

    Bush’s record of being asleep at the switch during multiple deadly embassy attacks.

    When did this happen?

    Bush/Cheney defunding the team tracking bin Laden and giving millions to the Taliban just before 9-11

    This never happened. F—ing liar.

    On the right, we’re seeing an all-in strategy of making Benghazi seem huge.

    It is huge.

    the public believes Obama mishandled the attacks but didn’t think there was intentional deception.

    Um, that was the point of the deception; evidently it succeeded!

    Milhouse (3d0df0)

  39. The Jodi Arias’ verdict is in, so the major networks will simply pivot from the Cleveland victims to the Arias’ verdict. Clearly, the Congressional hearing just doesn’t measure up to their standards.

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  40. “C-Span has it, too”

    DRJ – I couldn’t get my C-Span intertube connection to work and I’m too cheap to pay for cable so I don’t have access to Fox.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  41. Hillary birthed the Benghazi video deception the evening of 9/11/12.
    Obama echoed it it in the Rose Garden on 9/12/12.
    Hillary repeated it over the caskets.
    Rice kept it going on five Sunday news shows.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  42. 27. Last words by Abassador Stevens were “we are under attack” not “we are under protest.”

    Comment by daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 5/8/2013 @ 1:02 pm

    DoS says the compound in Benghazi was a “special” diplomatic facility so I don’t think there’s a standard operating procedure for such a beast.

    They would have reacted somehow, though, had there been a protest. It is likely they would have evacuated the facility. But whatever security precautions they would have taken, I’m 100% certain they would have notified Tripoli of what they were doing and why. As Stevens’ deputy, Hicks, has stated it’s inconceivable that Stevens wouldn’t have reported a protest. It’s equally inconceivable he wouldn’t have also told his deputy what actions they were taking in response to the protest.

    Going off on a slight tangent, the DoS has security standards for their facilities. The standards vary depending on what type of facility, but they have sets of standards in place. Things like stand-off distances from the compound walls to the embassy building itself, etc. The Secretary has to personally approve any deviation from those standards. I can not imagine the Hillary! wasn’t personally involved in approving whatever security arrangements were established for the “special” mission in Benghazi.

    But then any proof of that has now probably gone the way of the Rose law firm billing records.

    Steve57 (da9e0e)

  43. I have been listening on c-span radio.
    The democrats on this panel have made me scream, scratch my head,vomit, and wonder, will the pant suit darling look good in orange?

    mg (31009b)

  44. but inexcusable was Bush saying “okay, you covered your ass” as he ignored the PDB saying bin Laden would strike soon.

    The PDB said nothing of the sort. It said information from 1998 said that OBL wanted to attack the United States; the PDB was in August of 2001, so that’s hardly “soon”.

    Chuck Bartowski (11fb31)

  45. Steve57,

    Hicks testified that if there had been a demonstration at the Benghazi compound on 9/11/12, Ambassador Stevens would have evacuated the compound. There wasn’t so he didn’t.

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  46. I wonder if the 4th whistleblower witness whose attorney can’t get approval is Lt Col Gibson.

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  47. but inexcusable was Bush saying “okay, you covered your ass” as he ignored the PDB saying bin Laden would strike soon.

    The PDB said nothing of the sort. It said information from 1998 said that OBL wanted to attack the United States; the PDB was in August of 2001, so that’s hardly “soon”.

    Oops, my eyes glazed right over that line! Indeed, the PDB said “We just found out now that three years ago aQ decided to try to stage attacks on US soil, somewhere, some time. We have no idea whether they have developed any concrete plans, or what sort of things they might do, but based on past performance they might hijack planes for hostages to try to trade for their sheikh, or they might drive a truck bomb into a federal building somewhere.”

    I remember that about that time security was indeed tightened at the federal building in downtown Manhattan. But of course neither of those things happened. There was no attack on a federal building (unless you count the Pentagon), and there was no hostage-taking hijacking. There was nothing that could have been done as a result of this PDB that would have had any effect on what did happen.

    Milhouse (3d0df0)

  48. Mahalia Cab posts more brazen lies, I see.

    SPQR (768505)

  49. 44. Steve57,

    Hicks testified that if there had been a demonstration at the Benghazi compound on 9/11/12, Ambassador Stevens would have evacuated the compound. There wasn’t so he didn’t.

    Comment by DRJ (a83b8b) — 5/8/2013 @ 1:47 pm

    That’s precisely what one of the Libyan security guards who witnessed the attack in Benghazi told the press on 9/12/2013.

    That would have been sensible. But considering the fact that the militias affiliated with AQ had attempted to assassinate the British ambassador while he was traveling in convoy near Benghazi I wasn’t sure if there were any intermediate precautions they might take in order to avoid an ambush.

    Hicks testified that was his concern as he was preparing to evacuate the residential compound in Tripoli. Which is why he decided not to evacuate immediately when he concluded the Tripoli mission also was under threat. He decided to wait until dawn because he knew his own convoy would have to pass through militia checkpoints.

    Steve57 (da9e0e)

  50. 47. Mahalia Cab posts more brazen lies, I see.

    Comment by SPQR (768505) — 5/8/2013 @ 2:07 pm

    I especially enjoy the part where she pretends not to be a water carrier for the Obama administration by feigning even handedness. “Well, you can’t go after Obama because of his administration’s lies to Congress and the American people unless you also go after Bush/Cheney because of the lies I traffic in about their administration.”

    Steve57 (da9e0e)

  51. Yep, Steve57, she’s just a nutjob liar. Trafficking in lies debunked more than a decade ago. Heck, Scheer got fired from the LAT in part for that bizarre lie about funding the Taliban.

    SPQR (768505)

  52. Hillary was briefed at 2 AM about the attacks, and still went out in front of the coffins and blamed it on a video.

    JD (b09145)

  53. How many Dems tried to blame this on budget cuts today?

    JD (b09145)

  54. JD, all of them.

    SPQR (768505)

  55. The misinformation given by the democratic panel of perverts is a disgrace.

    mg (31009b)

  56. http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2013/05/08/benghazi-hearings-live-blog/

    1:19 pm Rep. James Langford (R-OK) asks Hicks and Nordstrom whether security was adequate at Benghazi. Answer from Nordstrom: No. They did not meet the minimum standards. Nordstrom testifies that only the Secretary of State can grant waivers for facilities that do not meet the minimum standards. That’s BIG

    I’ve been making that point since the immediate aftermath of the Benghazi attack. I spent ten years on active duty, then a few more years after 9/11/2001 when I was recalled and assigned to “Force Protection” on the staff of the regional naval commander. And I spent some time at various embassy’s because while we could military-to-military liaison on our own coordinating with non-military security and intelligence agencies required cooperation at a higher government-to-government level.

    Point being lots of people know that Hillary! had to be involved in approving substandard security for that facility in Benghazi. I along with what must be hundreds of thousands of other people have seen DoS security instructions, and I remember them saying only SecState can approve waivers.

    I had to allow for the slim possibility that the instructions had been modified to delegate that authority to someone other the SecState, which would be insane and feckless but then with this administration insane and feckless are two of their guiding principles.

    Any DSS agent could have testified about who can approve waivers. Thousands of people could have said what Nordstrom said. In fact I’m sure hundreds of congressional staffers as well as some Congressmen have read the instructions themselves as part of this investigation so they really didn’t need testimony on this point.

    So how in hades did Hillary! think she was going to get away with such an obvious lie about her non-involvement in security arrangements in Benghazi? Apparently William Safire was right about her. Back during the Whitewater investigation he noted she’s “a congenital liar.” She just can’t help herself.

    Steve57 (da9e0e)

  57. Steve57,

    I understood Hicks’ testimony to be that he didn’t want to evacuate the compound overnight but instead wanted to wait until dawn, because he didn’t want to pass the militia checkpoints at night. That wouldn’t have been a problem if Stevens’ had ordered an evacuation because of a protest the prior day, because it wouldn’t have been dark.

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  58. From the same blog:

    3:05 pm Rep. Patrick Meehan (R-PA) takes over, immediately debunks Horsford’s speech. Meehan asks Nordstrom how security could have been so lax on that day, Nordstrom says he is still asking that question. Meehan notes that Clinton had to sign off on any security waiver. Nordstrom says that the ARB has never answered that question.

    Meehan notes the numerous terrorist attacks in Benghazi leading up to the 9-11 attack, asks Thompson whether any reasonable security official in State should have viewed the mission in Benghazi as a likely target. Thompson: Yes.

    Nordstrom says that the decisions to deny security enhancements seemed to be part of a “script” driven by politics rather than the security situation. State had “normalized” Libya’s security profile, meaning family of staff could return to the country according to State Dept. protocol.

    The ARB was clearly part of the cover-up in the guise of an investigation. Obviously the board was made up of people the Obama administration could trust not to talk to the key people and not to ask the relevant questions. But the cover-up is undoubtedly much larger.

    http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/02/21/us-denied-direct-access-to-benghazi-suspect-held-in-egypt/

    US denied direct access to Benghazi suspect held in Egypt

    By Catherine Herridge

    Published February 21, 2013

    FoxNews.com

    The U.S. has been denied direct access to the only publicly known suspect in custody in connection with the Benghazi terror attack, Fox News has learned, with U.S. interrogators still unable to sit in the same room as the Egypt-held prisoner to ask questions.

    …Ahmed is not suspected of directly taking part in the attack which left four Americans, including Ambassador Chris Stevens, dead. But this is at least the second time U.S. interrogators have been denied access to a suspect held by a foreign government.

    After the Muslim Brotherhood-controlled government refused to allow US investigators access to the suspect Obama refused to delay or cancel a military aid package that had been signed by Mubarak and then had Kerry give them additional millions in financial aid.

    At the time some people objected that aid to Egypt should be tied to their cooperation with the Benghazi administration.

    What they failed to recognize is that from Obama’s perspective this aid was tied to their cooperation.

    Steve57 (da9e0e)

  59. Abu Ahmed, is a Zarquawi type, who offered up training camps in the Libyan desert, as part of AQAP franchise operations,

    narciso (3fec35)

  60. A summary of what we learned today during the Benghazi hearing.

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  61. DRJ @57, that’s how I understood Hicks’ testimony as well. Which is why I wondered if there was a plan to fall back to some sort of redoubt. A stronghold other than the one Stevens died in but one where all the personnel would assemble.

    I doubt the local guards would have been privy to that portion of the plan, if it existed, as the embassy personnel clearly were concerned about their reliability. The Army types in the ‘stan call these strongholds “Alamos” and they keep them secret because they are intended to protect them from their Afghan counterparts that they’re training.

    Steve57 (da9e0e)

  62. All Obama has is ideology, and ideology is by definition based on belief, not facts. He truly believes that his anti-American multicultural relativism will solve all conflicts.

    It’s insane, but this is the first time he has tested his ideology in the real world. Unfortunately, it’s costing many lives and much destruction. — Comment by Patricia

    I think you get to the nub of the matter. Benghazi is far, far worse than a case of mere incompetency. Basic incompetency I could pretty much excuse. But liberals like Barack “goddamn America” Obama and Hillary “dodging-sniper-fire” Clinton are willfully foolish and dishonest about good and bad, right or wrong, in both people and situations.

    It’s their pinkie-in-the-air “sophistication” and biases of faux-compassion that have infected even the US military, referring to the way that enlistee Nidal Hasan was tolerated until the bitter end. And even after the bloody end, given the nonsense of his being labeled a case of “workplace violence.”

    Left-leaning sentiments in the 21st century are more corrupt, twisted and harmful than ever before.

    Mark (9ba6f2)

  63. One limitation of this kind of hearing is the inability to follow a line of questioning unless the Congressmen are coordinated with a common list.
    I think the issue of what Hicks meant by evacuating needs to be asked of him.

    We need to hear from the Lt. Col. who ordered him to not go, and follow that chain of command to see how high it will go.

    And we need to talk to the people who were at the annex who survived.

    It’s clear that people at least at the cabinet level and down have been actively inhibiting the investigation. Obama needs to know this, though maybe only by an untraceable wink and nod.

    Hewitt keeps talking about getting a “Select Committee”, some of y’all may know all about it, but from what I gather it means they can really have a coordinated cross-examination by capable trial attorneys.

    And we are still searching for a dem in Congress who deserves to be an American citizen.

    MD in Philly (3d3f72)

  64. Toensing, was pointing how they blocking one witness, on issues of security clearances, who would establish how the talking points were changed.

    narciso (3fec35)

  65. “We need to hear from the Lt. Col. who ordered him to not go, and follow that chain of command to see how high it will go.”

    MD in Philly – It seems like the common talking point on military assets now is that they would not have made it there in time to make a difference which completely misses the point IMHO. Nobody was in a position to know how long the shooting and evacuation process at the Annex would take the night of September 11/12 and it is only questionably with the benefit of hindsight people can say other military assets could not have arrived on scene to make a difference. The larger point to me is nobody made the attempt or that those who did made attempts were told to stand down.

    Why was that?

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  66. Yes, DRJ, Preston has been doing a great job on Benghazi.

    2. Ambassador Stevens’ reason for going to Benghazi has been cleared up. Hicks testified that Ambassador Stevens traveled to Benghazi to fulfill one of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s wishes. Despite the fact that security was worsening in Benghazi for months leading up to the 9-11 attack, Clinton wanted to make the post there permanent. …He was in Benghazi on 9-11 furthering Clinton’s goal. She had denied requests to beef up security at Benghazi and then blamed his death on a YouTube movie. Hicks’ testimony raises the question of Clinton’s competence and grasp on reality, strongly suggesting that she put political perceptions ahead of the facts on the ground in Benghazi.

    But I think he’s missing something with his conclusions about Hillary! and her grasp on reality.

    Hicks testified the US embassy took steps to minimize Stevens’ profile before and during his trip to Benghazi.

    In fact I recall DoS insiders using the term “confidential” when describing Stevens’ Benghazi itinerary.

    But Hicks also described Benghazi Medical Center as controlled by Ansar-al-Sharia, which he called the enemy. And Stevens had scheduled events there on the 12th.

    This raises a number of troubling issues. If the US embassy believed that Ansar-al-Sharia controlled BMC then that intel would have been known to State in Washington as well. So scheduling events on the morning of September 12th 2012 is tantamount to telling them he would be in Benghazi on the anniversary of 9/11.

    Then there’s this:

    http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2012/09/13/massachusetts-general-hospital-doctor-was-benghazi-time-attack/QpETpdeAUmgRNQaCloZscI/story.html

    Burke said Stevens was elated that Mass. General was working with the Benghazi hospital, and was “really happy and upbeat” when Burke’s colleagues spoke with him just before the attack. Stevens was scheduled to visit the hospital and meet with Burke the next morning.

    I’ve said before that the fact that Stevens had scheduled widely known events both on the 10th and 12th makes of mockery of applying the word “confidential” to Stevens trip to Benghazi. I knew that the militias would have eyes and ears inside BMC, but until today I didn’t know Ansar-al-Sharia actually controlled it.

    So why does Massachusetts General Hospital have any sort of relationship with a hospital controlled by an AQ affiliated militia? That relationship would have had to have been brokered by the embassy with the Tripoli government. And it’s clear that State knew that Ansar-al-Sharia controlled that hospital.

    When you boil it down, DoS was assisting an AQ affiliate and they knew it.

    Which is why I believe the administration is engaging in increasingly hysterical attempts at stonewalling. This was more than election year politics and even larger than a CIA gun-running operation. They are playing some sort of double-game on the American people and there are major aspects of their foreign policy they can not allow to come light.

    It’s also why I’ve said the aid we’ve been providing to the Muslim Brotherhood has been tied to their cooperation with the administration over Benghazi. Putting a chief suspect in a Cairo jail cell and keeping him away from US investigators is exactly the kind of cooperation Obama and his administration want.

    Like the statutorily-required Accountability Review Board, the FBI investigation into Benghazi is supposed to provide the appearance of a search for the facts for an administration that’s desperately trying to bury the truth.

    Steve57 (da9e0e)

  67. yes daley, that is the BS talking point, and it is BS for reasons as you describe.
    – second, Hicks had a small crew from tripoli go and get there in time to defend the place and be killed doing it, so not only BS but not true
    – third, “everybody” previous said “no one” ever gave an order to stand down, and that is not true, if not a deliberate lie.

    I’m starting to wonder if some of the “survivors” from the annex had actually been evacuated previously, and were not even there when the two “reinforcements” were killed

    There are military people, i’m sure, who know more and have been told they will be busted and in levenworth if they break secrecy.

    MD in Philly (3d3f72)

  68. Yes, I think Hicks may think we know the reason of why Stevens was there, but I’m thinking maybe he doesn’t really.

    MD in Philly (3d3f72)

  69. Well as a number of commentators have noticed, Diana West, most notably, Ansar Al Sharia’s bin Qumu’s outfit, (I admit, that was my first hunch, who was responsible) was a subset of the February 17th Martyr’s Brigade,

    narciso (3fec35)

  70. “But Hicks also described Benghazi Medical Center as controlled by Ansar-al-Sharia, which he called the enemy. And Stevens had scheduled events there on the 12th.”

    Steve57 – I believe Hicks was speaking about the hospital being under the control of Ansar-al-Sharia from the perspective of locating and retrieving the body of the Ambassador. In Tripoli they were having trouble confirming he was actually dead and were wary of being sucked into ambushes in Benghazi.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  71. “0 lied, people died.”

    htom (412a17)

  72. There might be some sub optimal bumps in the road to normalization after a limited duration kinetic military action in a country with large numbers of members of a mostly peaceful medieval death cult.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  73. Steve57 #61:

    I wondered if there was a plan to fall back to some sort of redoubt.

    I’m not sure I heard this correctly but I think Hicks testified that after the attack, Ambassador Stevens, Sean Smith, and Stevens’ aide were in the main building that was ultimately set on fire. The remaining staff — 55 people? — had been evacuated to a nearby building that Hicks’ called the tactical operations center. Hicks said it had been fortified in a way that enabled them to withstand the attack, something that was not the case with the building with Ambassador Stevens, Sean Smith, and the aide. My guess is they stayed there for a reason, perhaps because they wanted to destroy any information, computers, etc., in that building.

    The aide left but tried to go back and get them, but the smoke was too intense. Jake Tapper had a segment that said the fire was petroleum based and it produced cyanide gas that was lethal.

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  74. Eric Nordstrom did get emotional during his testmony today. His voice cracked several times and he had to pause to collect himself. He answered Hillary’s infamous “what does it matter?” question thusly:

    “It matters to me personally and it matters to my colleagues at the Department of State,” he said of the investigation into the deadly Sept. 11, 2012 assault. Pausing repeatedly to collect himself, he continued, “It matters to the American public for whom we serve and most importantly, it matters to the friends and family of Ambassador Stevens, Sean Smith, Glen Doherty, Tyrone Woods, who were murdered on Sept. 11.”

    video at the link.

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2013/05/08/nordstrom-has-testified-before-on-benghazi/

    elissa (320385)

  75. daley, I took his testimony to mean BMC is in an area of Benghazi where Ansar-al-Sharia and not the Tripoli government or even the local governing council is in charge, and that their control over the hospital was on a more permanent basis than just that night.

    After all, we know from letters that Stevens had written on the morning of the attack he had requested the Libyan Ministry of Foreign Affairs arrange an enhanced, 24 hour police presence at both the facility’s front and rear entrance as well as a roving patrol for the duration of his visit. Instead of that he received only an occasional police presence at the front gate. And one of the officers detailed to protect the facility was witnessed taking reconnaissance photos of the interior of the compound from the upper level of a nearby building on the morning of the attack.

    So the cops were working for Ansar-al-Sharia. The press has also reported that among other activities Ansar-al-Sharia claims to run a medical clinic in one of the poorer areas of Benghazi. According to the Mass. General surgeon blogging from Benghazi on the night of the attack medical supplies as well as health care workers are in very short supply there. It seems logical that Ansar-al-Sharia would get both of those scarce resources from BMC, which to me would imply some pretty hefty influence over the hospital if they could make them part with them.

    So when Hicks used the word controlled I put two and two together. But maybe you’re right and those dots shouldn’t have been connected. Congress may want to call Hicks back and have him clarify what he meant.

    Steve57 (da9e0e)

  76. And he took a drink of water.

    elissa (320385)

  77. There’s an area of Benghazi, where one of the midlevel figures who was on site, Abu Khattalah,
    was living in the open, called ‘Little Kandahar’
    that gives you a notion of what we’re dealing with.

    narciso (3fec35)

  78. elissa, that quote from Hillary! is going to haunt her for the rest of her days. It was an incredibly stupid thing to say, and there are so many ways to answer it it boggles the mind that even a half-wit would let cross her lips.

    Let alone the smartest woman EVAH!

    Of course the media won’t report the parade of individuals responding to that question in their testimony.

    Steve57 (da9e0e)

  79. elissa —

    That was a very moving and effective statement, and it saddens me that so few Americans will see it. I also thought about Rubio’s sip of water when I saw it. It’s so foolish how culture issues can take on a life of their own.

    Steve57,

    I also thought Hicks meant the hospital was in the control of Ansar al Sharia because it is located within the group’s sphere of influence, but that was an assumption rather than something he said.

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  80. The Times piece is halfway decent, they tuck the spin into the jump;

    http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/09/us/politics/official-offers-account-from-libya-of-benghazi-attack.html?hp&_r=2&

    narciso (3fec35)

  81. PBS Newshour actually did air Eric Nordstrom’s statement. Of course to “balance” it, Elijah Cummings and Jay Carney got in their say, too, about the evil politicizing Republicans. But I don’t think most people would find those two tools to be either compelling or persuasive.

    elissa (320385)

  82. A summary of what we learned today during the Benghazi hearing.

    pjmedia.com: Hicks’ testimony raises the question of Clinton’s competence and grasp on reality, strongly suggesting that she put political perceptions ahead of the facts on the ground in Benghazi.

    Well, that’s certainly surprising.

    I often mention the following, per below, because to me it truly is a window into Hillary Clinton’s mind. It’s a bright light cast over the way she thinks and acts, and it reveals a lot of rust and corrosion. It illustrates how intrinsically dishonest she is. Which is surprising considering the guy she’s married to. [snerk]

    BTW, I recall reading another news report on this particular matter back in 2008. It noted that even after — AFTER — her dishonesty about “sniper fire” had become public knowledge and was full aired, she still gave a speech (I believe it was somewhere in New York) where she repeated the same Balkans BS all over again. The woman ain’t got no shame, and 4 years later we now have Benghazi to prove that beyond a shadow of a doubt.

    washingtonpost.com, March 2008: Hillary Clinton has been regaling supporters on the campaign trail with hair-raising tales of a trip she made to Bosnia in March 1996. In her retelling, she was sent to places that her husband, President Clinton, could not go because they were “too dangerous.” When her account was challenged by one of her traveling companions, the comedian Sinbad, she upped the ante and injected even more drama into the story. In a speech earlier this week, she talked about “landing under sniper fire” and running for safety with “our heads down.”

    There are numerous problems with Clinton’s version of events. As a reporter who visited Bosnia soon after the December 1995 Dayton Peace agreement, I can attest that the physical risks were minimal during this period, particularly at a heavily fortified U.S. Air Force base, such as Tuzla. Contrary to the claims of Hillary Clinton and former Army secretary Togo West, Bosnia was not “too dangerous” a place for President Clinton to visit in early 1996. In fact, the first Clinton to visit the Tuzla Air Force base was not Hillary, but Bill, on January 13, 1996.

    According to Sinbad, who provided entertainment on the trip along with the singer Sheryl Crow, the “scariest” part was deciding where to eat. As he told Mary Ann Akers of The Post, “I think the only ‘red-phone’ moment was: ‘Do we eat here or at the next place.'” Sinbad questioned the premise behind the Clinton version of events. “What kind of president would say ‘Hey man, I can’t go ’cause I might get shot so I’m going to send my wife. Oh, and take a guitar player and a comedian with you.”

    Replying to Sinbad earlier this week, Clinton dismissed him as “a comedian.”

    Mark (9ba6f2)

  83. Andrew McCarthy has an excellent post up over at PJ Media.

    http://pjmedia.com/andrewmccarthy/2013/05/07/clintons-republican-guard/?singlepage=true

    It’s all good and I suggest everyone read it, but I’ll just excerpt a couple of parts.

    Even on Fox News, which has been admirably dogged covering a scandal the Obamedia has done its best to bury, the refrain is heard: How could the ARB report be a whitewash when its investigation was run by such Washington eminences as Ambassador Thomas Pickering and Admiral Michael Mullen?

    The answer is simple: Pickering and Mullen were not chosen by accident; then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton tapped them because, to insulate herself, she needed a pair of Beltway careerists held in high esteem by the progressive-friendly Republican establishment. As night follows day, Pickering and Mullen produced exactly the shoddy, politicized report that was expected of them – bleaching away the malfeasance of Clinton, a central figure in the scandal whom they did not even bother to interview.

    …Recall that her top advisor at State was Huma Abedin, a longtime associate of Omar Abdullah Naseef, a rabid Islamic supremacist and financial backer of al Qaeda.

    …Abedin had begun working for then-First Lady Hillary Clinton in the nineties, while a member of the executive board of the Muslim Students Association (MSA) at George Washington University. Founded in the early sixties, the MSA is first building block of the Brotherhood’s American infrastructure, and its GWU chapter has quite a history: In 2001, its “spriritual guide” was Anwar al-Awlaki, the al-Qaeda operative who was then ministering to some of the eventual 9/11 suicide-hijackers.

    …Pickering is one of those Washington insiders whose public record is less a matter of what he’s done than what he’s been…

    …It’s not just that Pickering serves as chairman of the board of trustees of the International Crisis Group, a George Soros group that, for example, advocated engagement with the Shariah-supremacist Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. Pickering has personally explored opening relations with Hamas; pushed peace talks with the Taliban; argued for getting rid of, or removing to the U.S., all tactical nuclear weapons in Europe (and moving Russia’s to east of the Urals); and promoted bilateral talks with Iran without preconditions. And speaking of Iran, Pickering sits on the boards of two pro-Tehran groups, the American Iranian Council and the National Iranian American Council….

    Pickering’s politics place him squarely inside the Obama foreign policy mainstream…

    …Echoing Obama’s Muslim Brotherhood consultants, Mullen denies the nexus between Islamic scripture and the threat to the West. The jihad, he instead insists, is the result of “the humiliation, the hopelessness, the illiteracy and abject poverty which lie at the core of the attraction to extremist thought[.]” In fact, Mullen actually claims – I’m not kidding – that if we just taught illiterate Middle Easterners how to read, they would eschew violence because they would “understand the Koran for what it is.”

    …Naturally, it was during Mullen’s tenure on the Joint Chiefs that the Defense Department labeled the Fort Hood atrocity “workplace violence,” filing a lengthy investigative report that – in Benghazi ARB fashion – omitted any mention of “Islam” and “jihad” in analyzing thirteen murders carried out by a jihadist who, after consulting with al Qaeda’s Awlaki, screamed “Allahu Akbar!” as he pumped round after round into American soldiers. It was also during Mullen’s stint that the Defense Department purged intelligence training materials of information Obama’s Brotherhood consultants found to be disparaging of Islam (i.e., any information demonstrating that Islamic supremacist ideology is virulently anti-Western and leads, inexorably, to violence). Herb London hits the nail on the head: under Mullen, in lieu of “battlefield action based on lethality,” the armed forces have convinced themselves that “pop-psychology” will quell the enemy.

    The administration of Barack Obama, who famously said one of his chief responsibilities as President is to defend Islam, is up to no good. Rep. Louis Gohmert of Texas has stated that the Obama administration is advised by the Muslim Brotherhood. He is correct, and Abedin is a prime example. She sat on the board of one of the Brotherhoods main front organizations. Just about all of the advisers is connected to one or another of the groups listed as un-indicted co-conspiritors in the Holyland case.

    And Pickering and Mullen know this. As Mullen’s co-conspirator on the JCS, the Army COS, blurted after the Ft. Hood shooting, it would be a far worse trajedy than the shooting itself if the crime derailed his diversity initiatives. The Benghazi attack threatens to derail Obama’s Muslim Brotherhood derived, Muslim Brotherhood friendly foreign policy. The foreign policy he has to conceal.

    Steve57 (da9e0e)

  84. Hagel, the defense secretary, is also affiliated with all those groups, particularly the ICG which thinks one should speak with the North African AQIM
    and the elements in the Caucasus, like Umarov’s group

    narciso (3fec35)

  85. narciso, you know how Muslim leaders of countries or organizations like the MB say one thing to a US audience and another in Arabic to a foreign Muslim audience.

    This administration is doing exactly the same thing.

    Steve57 (da9e0e)

  86. it was during Mullen’s tenure on the Joint Chiefs that the Defense Department labeled the Fort Hood atrocity “workplace violence,”

    That’s enough to destroy his reputation for a long time in my book, even if that was the only thing that could be put at his feet.

    Which causes me to think about the Mafia and deals one can’t refuse. How can anybody willingly and in good conscience act as if Islamic Jihadists are the same as a bunch of Minnesota Norwegian bachelor farmers on a Wednesday night pot luck with tuna hot dish? Even if one wants to try to stick with the “Islam is a religion of Peace”, you could still point a finger at the radicals “who are perverting Islam” and not give all Muslims a bad rep.

    MD in Philly (3d3f72)

  87. Geez, It’s not the tuna fish dish MD, it’s he lutefisk that makes them dangerous.

    elissa (320385)

  88. 67. Well done. And Brennan is at the bottom of the ‘double game’, the hired gun with a license to kill was working outside State or the CIA on his own recognizance.

    I’m confused with the Lt. Col. Gibson chatter, induced by DRJ’s link of PJM summary.

    Was he Special Ops, or the highest exec willing to give ‘the order’? Seems Ham wouldn’t.

    gary gulrud (dd7d4e)

  89. Norwegian bachelor farmers don’t cook, they just open a can of beans.

    You betcha.

    gary gulrud (dd7d4e)

  90. beans–and that’s prolly why they’re bachelors.

    elissa (320385)

  91. I don’t know if Mullen is responsible for the training blaming US troops for the fact that Afghan security forces are murdering them, as the training came out a year after he retired. But it’s typical of the kind of thinking that the Pentagon he shaped would come up with.

    MD, if you haven’t viewed Stephen Coughlin’s series of lectures on national security and counterterror analysis you really should. Each module is about an hour long, but they’re very good if you can make the time. He makes the case that you can’t understand the Salafists’ stated basis for waging jihad against us unless you read the Koran and authoritative Islamic legal textss intended not for us to read but rather intended for a Muslim audience. He was fired for that, by the way, since he defied the Pentagon’s much beloved Muslim Brotherhood advisers and their pet narratives. Here’s a link to the intro.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhZe7eZK4dw

    Steve57 (da9e0e)

  92. Rep. Steve Stockman of Texas may have won the interwebs.

    https://twitter.com/SteveWorks4You/status/332230494643163137

    Righ now Jodi Arias is regretting not killing a ambassador or Philidelphia infant

    Steve57 (da9e0e)

  93. gary,

    I always thought Ham was replaced because he wanted to or did give the order but was overruled, but I admit I have no basis for that other than the hope that our senior America military leaders wouldn’t stand by while civilians die.

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  94. 91. I was 48 when I married for the first time. Coulda been the poster child had I farmed.

    gary gulrud (dd7d4e)

  95. 94. Iowahawk is tough competition.

    gary gulrud (dd7d4e)

  96. gary, Dave Burge always is tough competition.

    Steve57 (da9e0e)

  97. We need to hear from Lt. Col. Gibson and General C. Ham, AFRICOM, who was told to stand down and relieved of duty.

    gracepmc (a564d8)

  98. Steve57,

    Re: my comment 74 and after watching this report by Sharyl Attkisson, the tactical operations center Hicks talked about may have been in Tripoli where he was located.

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  99. DRJ, I understood Hicks to be discussing rallying his personnel in Tripoli as well.

    Here’s a link to the DoS background briefing on the Benghazi attack released in October 2012.

    http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2012/10/198791.htm

    It describes the US personnel holing up in three separate buildings in the compound. The ambassador in a safe haven in his villa and a couple of DSS agents in the TOC, for instance. The fact they became so widely separated appears to me due to the sudden and overwhelming nature of the assault on the compound.

    It strikes me that had there been a protest which would have given them warning they would have assembled at a single location that like the TOC and the safe haven had been hardened and consulted and made arrangements with the personnel at the embassy before attempting to depart the compound. They would have clearly worried about ambush as well.

    Steve57 (da9e0e)

  100. 99. We need to hear from Lt. Col. Gibson and General C. Ham, AFRICOM, who was told to stand down and relieved of duty.

    Comment by gracepmc (a564d8) — 5/8/2013 @ 9:00 pm

    Not that I disagree but really the people who need to hear from those two would be a select committee or the investigators for a special prosecutor.

    Steve57 (da9e0e)

  101. In a good world Cheney would be president.

    Milhouse (3d0df0)

  102. 104@ Milhouse, Raising my glass in a toast to your post.

    mg (31009b)

  103. Can I just ask re Hillary’s infamous “what does it matter” rant? She immediately follows that with, “we have to make sure this never happens again.”

    Well, to me the two questions are linked. If you don’t know why the first event happened and who was responsible, how can you prevent another? So that’s what it matters, you evil woman!

    Patricia (be0117)

  104. I want to hear from Rear Admiral Gaouette and what he thinks about being relieved of duty for inappropriate leadership judgement.

    mg (31009b)

  105. And what about Petraeus, this goober knows whats going on and will not speak. I’m thinking he is a treasonous pos.

    mg (31009b)

  106. Patricia @105, it’s true that Hillary! was spouting inane, contradictory nonsense when she put on her little table-pounding act. She doesn’t need to make any more sense when covering for herself and the hand she had in this then indeed the entire pathetic obviously false Benghazi cover-story the Obama administration cooked up to conceal the truth. The MFM will protect her. Or attempt to.

    mg @107, I’m sure you’re right about Petraeus. But I suspect the Obama has more dirt or some other form of leverage on him then they let on when they hustled him out of the administration over the Broadwell affair. We’ve confirmed the administration attempted to intimidate these three whistleblowers into silence. That’s how they operate.

    via Gateway Pundit:

    http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2013/05/whoa-rep-ann-wagner-only-president-gives-the-stand-down-order-video/

    Rep. Ann Wagner (R-MO) and a former ambassador observes that only the President gives the stand-down order. Earlier today a retired three star general said exactly the same thing.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=7RW73GYjf6g

    He said it before the witnesses testified. So there are a lot of people who can impeach the obvious lies the Obama administration’s has been telling. Such as those “three orders” Obama obviously didn’t give at the time as he claimed.

    Lou Dobbs says he’s talked to a number of retired generals who he says echo exactly what General McInerney was saying.

    So you have to wonder why these generals, and the active duty generals and admirals, who are remaining silent don’t come forward. Which is sort of a rhetorical question; threaten their retirement packages by hinting they won’t retire at their current ranks and they turn into dancing bears for those who threaten them. That’s not an excuse though. They need to grow a pair and demonstrate a fraction of the courage those who work for them demonstrated and still demonstrate. People of the caliber of Woods and Doherty, who they have the gall to claim to lead.

    I can’t understand why many of these wearing stars haven’t resigned over this.

    Steve57 (da9e0e)

  107. Steve57, How can these people with medals all over their chests sit and watch this? What in heck do clinton and obama have on these traitors? One would think a future book could end this regime.

    mg (31009b)

  108. I was banned at Dollard for saying the military is full of traitors.
    Thanks for letting me rant, Mr. Patterico.

    mg (31009b)

  109. mg, I don’t know how they could sit and watch it.

    We don’t need to start by talking about what forces were available in Aviano, Sigonella, or Souda Bay. The President clearly didn’t give cross-border authorization, but DoD can argue that the couldn’t have gotten there “in time.” And probably sufficiently muddy the waters to make that appear a justifiable reaction assuming no one looks too closely.

    So we can come back to that for reasons that will soon be obvious.

    But there’s no excuse for telling the SOCAFRICA guys to stand-down.

    DoD says they were needed to defend the embassy in Tripoli? That is a decision to be made on the ground in Tripoli, and Hicks testified he was convinced that they had consolidated their security posture and had received enough Libyan government reinforcement that these men could be spared.

    But if Washington was convinced the situation was so dire they couldn’t spare these four men to Benghazi, then it’s inexcusable they didn’t deploy the FEST. Their excuse for telling the SOCAFRICA team to stand down was the situation in Libya in general was unknown. And it’s inexcusable that they didn’t prepare a military response with assets in the region for the very same reason.

    Their explanations directly conflict. They couldn’t respond militarily “in time” to Benghazi. But the situation was so precarious in Tripoli they couldn’t spare four Special Forces personnel.

    How can they claim to know with certainty when things were going to be over in Benghazi while claiming uncertainty in Tripoli as the reason for the stand-down order? They are clearly lying. Those four special forces were, in addition to the small rescue team already dispatched from Tripoli, the only forces available that couldn’t be prevented from going to the aid of the personnel in Benghazi by the President’s dereliction of duty by refusing to authorize a cross border mission.

    That lack of action from the President stopped everyone else from going to their aid without anyone actually having to get their fingerprints on anything, but these operators were already within Libya’s borders. So stopping them required action; a direct order.

    It’s a complete mystery to me how these guys who know the story can just keep their mouths shut.

    Steve57 (9b1cdb)

  110. It’s a complete mystery to me how these guys who know the story can just keep their mouths shut.
    Comment by Steve57 (9b1cdb) — 5/9/2013 @ 11:24 am

    Well, what can you tell us about the options a military person has if he wants to say something when a superior officer has told him not to? What kind of official and unofficial actions can be threatened? Can a military person go to a Congressional committee and say, “Look, my General told me the CIC said to us to not go and to never repeat that.”?

    MD in Philly (3d3f72)

  111. First of all if it’s just a senior officer who’s ordering you to conceal wrongdoing you can report it to the IG. In this case that doesn’t seem to be the smart thing to do, though.

    If you’re aware the administration is involved you can get an attorney and contact the congressional investigators at least initially through the attorney. Lawful communication with Congress is absolutely protected, but then we’re seeing in F&F and the Benghazi cover-ups just how much respect these people have for the statutes against reprisals. There are legal protections in place for someone who comes forward to speak to Congress but it would be a huge leap of fate to test them.

    Really the best option if it were the President would be to resign and go public. But that’s only a real option when you’re senior enough to credibly challenge the WH line.

    It might seem an extreme step, but retiring as a one star with pretty damned good benefits and a pretty fat pension is lot less of an extreme sacrifice than Woods and Doherty made.

    These are the people that I can’t understand why they’re not coming forward. I just couldn’t see myself enjoying the even fatter pension I could have by staying in longer and retiring at a higher permanent rank knowing it was blood money.

    Steve57 (9b1cdb)


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