Benghazi: Military Readiness Lacking, WH Knew It Was a Terror Attack, Pres Up For Dinner and Fundraising

Posted by Tina

Thousands of pages of classified military transcripts and records reveal a disturbing lack of readiness or preparedness on the night of 911 in Benghazi according to James Rosen of FOX News:

Minutes after the American consulate in Benghazi came under assault on Sept. 11, 2012, the nation’s top civilian and uniformed defense officials — headed for a previously scheduled Oval Office session with President Obama — were informed that the event was a “terrorist attack,” declassified documents show. The new evidence raises the question of why the top military men, one of whom was a member of the president’s Cabinet, allowed him and other senior Obama administration officials to press a false narrative of the Benghazi attacks for two weeks afterward.

Gen. Carter Ham, who at the time was head of AFRICOM, the Defense Department combatant command with jurisdiction over Libya, told the House in classified testimony last year that it was him who broke the news about the unfolding situation in Benghazi to then-Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Gen. Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The tense briefing — in which it was already known that U.S. Ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens had been targeted and had gone missing — occurred just before the two senior officials departed the Pentagon for their session with the commander in chief.

More from Gennifer Griffin of FOX News:

For example, no attack aircraft were placed on high alert on Sept. 11, and the closest F-16 fighter planes to any of the trouble spots in North Africa were in Aviano, Italy. None were armed, and the closest air refuellers were positioned 10 hours away at a base in Great Britain.

No Defense Department AC-130 gunships were within a 10-hour flight to Libya, according to committee members who heard commanders’ testimony over the past 15 months. And the commander’s in-extremis force, which included a unit of 23 special operators who are used at the commander’s discretion, were training in Croatia that day. They did not make it to a staging base in Sigonella, Italy, for another 19 hours after the attack began, according to committee members.

Rep. Martha Roby, the Republican chairwoman of the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, concluded: “It does not appear that U.S. military forces, units, aircrafts, drones, or specific personnel that could have been readily deployed in the course of the attack in Benghazi were unduly held back, or told to stand down, or refused permission to enter the fight. Rather, we were so badly postured, they could not have made a difference or we were desperately needed elsewhere.”

However, the commander of AFRICOM’s Joint Special Operations Task Force for the Trans Sahara region, Col. George Bristol, admitted to the subcommittee on July 31 of last year that he believed there was an increased threat on Sept. 11 and was not comfortable with the military’s force posture in North Africa.

Please read the remainder of these reports. Young men and women are in harms way every day on our behalf and they deserve to know that we will hold this administration to account for this egregious failure.

It’s sickening to recall the cavalier response of leadership on that night and the politicking in the days that followed but it is even more disturbing, right down to the toes, that Americans are not being adequately supported and equipped as they are shipped off to dangerous lands in service of the country.

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7 Responses to Benghazi: Military Readiness Lacking, WH Knew It Was a Terror Attack, Pres Up For Dinner and Fundraising

  1. Peggy says:

    Sorry, not buying anything this administration says. There weren’t planes within range because election results were more important than providing security. Don’t need security if the war on terrorist is over. They were on the run remember?

    Also, we now know there was a link with 2012 Benghazi attack and the 2001 9/11 attack through a released Gitmo released detainee.

    Trey Gowdy spells it all out on On the Record.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sre99dem2cU

    • Post Scripts says:

      Well, well, well…imagine that, the White House knew it was a terrorist attack apx 17 minutes after it began? Wow…. They had the right story from the start and somewhere along the timeline they concocted this rediculous story about the video being the motivation for people to attack the US installation…what a crock. What deception…how could any American trust this administation? You would have to be a-moral, un-American, or an idiot. This is so offensive and so outrageous on so many levels, it’s by far…WORSE than Watergate, which is more like a college prank compared to deceiving the American public.

  2. Tina says:

    Peggy I’m not sure why you write, “Sorry, not buying anything this administration says.” These documents are damning to the President and Hillary Clinton and back up what Gowdy and others have said.

    The administration shows no leadership…has been AWOL, The anniversary has always signaled a need for greater readiness and yet there was none. The inadequacy seems widespread and at least to me shows dereliction of duty to a spectacular degree.

  3. Peggy says:

    Tina, I should have left the “sorry” out or been clearer I was addressing anything this administration says.

    I’m just amazed at the 24/7 news coverage on every channel about Christie’s BridgeGate when there was almost no coverage about all of Obama’s and his administration’s scandals. That’s what I intended with my “sorry.”

    This administration is still trying to cover up what Obama, Panetta, Clinton and Patreas were doing before, during and after the Benghazi attack. They say military help wasn’t close enough. Why not, when they knew from previous attacks, request for more security and it was the 911 anniversary that an attack WAS possible? Why did Clinton/The State Dept. deny Steven’s and others request for security? Was it political? Hard to come up with a different reason being that the Nov. 2012 election was being sold on “Al Qaida was on the run.”

    What is just now coming out on Benghazi would/could have been disclosed a year and half ago if the Lame-Stream media had been all over it like they are now with Christie.

  4. Tina says:

    Peggy I knew there had to be some explanation…it just didn’t sound like you!

    I have to admit I am angrier and more disgusted today than I’ve been for awhile. There isn’t a single solitary adult that speaks for the left. NOT ONE!

  5. Libby says:

    “… when there was almost no coverage about all of Obama’s and his administration’s scandals.”

    But there was, quite a bit of coverage, for weeks, until all the people with brains what work came to grips with the fact that we’d been caught out again, and would have to do better, … and we are.

    It’s you who are trapped in this bubble you’ve contructed for yerselves.

    Tell me, seriously, what would these planes in Italy have been able to do? What? I want you to try hard to think of an answer to this, and maybe the bubble will burst.

  6. Peggy says:

    Libby, I’m not the brain-dead one around here you are.

    The minimal coverage by the liberal media didn’t provide anywhere near the amount of coverage Christie is getting. If they had we’d have the answers and not keep trying to get them.

    My god if there’s a robbery committed the suspects picture is plastered all over. There’s videos of the Benghazi attack, that Obama won’t release, they shows the attackers. How about releasing them so arrest could be made. Why, have reports been over there asking questions and collecting evident, why I’ll gov’t sits on it’s hand and drags it’s feet.

    Come on Libby you’re smarter then that. People were killed for political gain and you find that acceptable. I find that disgusting. Just wonder how you’d feel if it was your husband or son who was left to die over there and it was a republican president trying to win his second term. Rhetorical question. I know how you’d feel and what you’d be writing here. Hypocrite!!!!

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