Friday, November 2, 2012

Benghazi Files: State Department Never Requested DoD Support

This actually came out yesterday from the Daily Beast.  This is just a short post, because it links back to one yesterday, wherein it was revealed that the Embassy in Tripoli did attempt to notify Washington, DC immediately, but were unable to raise help.

The Military is saying the reason they didn't go in was that they were never requested to go in.  Typically, it is the duty of the Ambassador to request assistance.  In this case, he could not.  So it then fell to the deputy chief of mission- who did make the request.  However, that request has to go through State Department channels.  Considering we know that the Administration was monitoring the whole situation, that means (once again) that President Obama knew of the decision not to forward the request to DoD, and chose not to over-ride it.  As the article points out:
The president, however, would have the final say as to whether or not to send in the military. By 11 p.m. Benghazi time, 90 minutes after the assault began on the U.S. mission, Obama met with the National Security Council to discuss the attack. NSC spokesman Tommy Vietor said the president “ordered Secretary Panetta and Chairman Dempsey to begin moving assets into the region to prepare for a range of contingencies” at that meeting.

One problem with that idea, though.  We know that, during the second (actually a continuation of the first) fire-fight at the CIA compound, repeated requests for support were made.  So the military saying they weren't asked to support the actual Mission compound is technically correct, but if they are suggesting they never went to Benghazi because they never received any request, they're lying.

And notice the obfuscation: "the State Department never requested."  Not, the State Department never did, but the CIA contractors did.  And it was actively denied them three separate times.

I simply do not see how any other conclusion can be drawn.  Barack Obama issued active orders which condemned four Americans to death.

No comments:

Post a Comment