CNN on Benghazi committee: Immediate headline "GOP committee finds no wrongdoing by Clinton"

[Juan de Fuca]

You mean this report you couldn't even the get the date right on?
http://intelligence.house.gov/sites/intelligence.house.gov/files/documents/Benghazi Report.pdf

As well as, your interpretation is not accurate. And it also did not include all the witnesses, communcations the latest one does, yet still found fault. Thanks for helping.

Wrong. Lie all you want. It doesn't change the facts.

More for others that care-



The following facts are among the many new revelations in Part II:

Five of the 10 action items from the 7:30 PM White House meeting referenced the video, but no direct link or solid evidence existed connecting the attacks in Benghazi and the video at the time the meeting took place. The State Department senior officials at the meeting had access to eyewitness accounts to the attack in real time. The Diplomatic Security Command Center was in direct contact with the Diplomatic Security Agents on the ground in Benghazi and sent out multiple updates about the situation, including a “Terrorism Event Notification.” The State Department Watch Center had also notified Jake Sullivan and Cheryl Mills that it had set up a direct telephone line to Tripoli. There was no mention of the video from the agents on the ground. Greg Hicks—one of the last people to talk to Chris Stevens before he died—said there was virtually no discussion about the video in Libya leading up to the attacks. [pg. 28]The morning after the attacks, the National Security Council’s Deputy Spokesperson sent an email to nearly two dozen people from the White House, Defense Department, State Department, and intelligence community, stating: “Both the President and Secretary Clinton released statements this morning. … Please refer to those for any comments for the time being. To ensure we are all in sync on messaging for the rest of the day, Ben Rhodes will host a conference call for USG communicators on this chain at 9:15 ET today.” [pg. 39]Minutes before the President delivered his speech in the Rose Garden, Jake Sullivan wrote in an email to Ben Rhodes and others: “There was not really much violence in Egypt. And we are not saying that the violence in Libya erupted ‘over inflammatory videos.’” [pg. 44]According to Susan Rice, both Ben Rhodes and David Plouffe prepared her for her appearances on the Sunday morning talk shows following the attacks. Nobody from the FBI, Department of Defense, or CIA participated in her prep call. While Rhodes testified Plouffe would “normally” appear on the Sunday show prep calls, Rice testified she did not recall Plouffe being on prior calls and did not understand why he was on the call in this instance. [pg.98]On the Sunday shows, Susan Rice stated the FBI had “already begun looking at all sorts of evidence” and “FBI has a lead in this investigation.” But on Monday, the Deputy Director, Office of Maghreb Affairs sent an email stating: “McDonough apparently told the SVTS [Secure Video Teleconference] group today that everyone was required to ‘shut their pieholes’ about the Benghazi attack in light of the FBI investigation, due to start tomorrow.” [pg. 135]After Susan Rice’s Sunday show appearances, Jake Sullivan assured the Secretary of the State that Rice “wasn’t asked about whether we had any intel. But she did make clear our view that this started spontaneously and then evolved.” [pg. 128]Susan Rice’s comments on the Sunday talk shows were met with shock and disbelief by State Department employees in Washington. The Senior Libya Desk Officer, Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, State Department, wrote: “I think Rice was off the reservation on this one.” The Deputy Director, Office of Press and Public Diplomacy, Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, State Department, responded: “Off the reservation on five networks!” The Senior Advisor for Strategic Communications, Bureau of Near East Affairs, State Department, wrote: “WH [White House] very worried about the politics. This was all their doing.” [pg. 132]The CIA’s September 13, 2012, intelligence assessment was rife with errors. On the first page, there is a single mention of “the early stages of the protest” buried in one of the bullet points. The article cited to support the mention of a protest in this instance was actually from September 4. In other words, the analysts used an article from a full week before the attacks to support the premise that a protest had occurred just prior to the attack on September 11. [pg. 47]A headline on the following page of the CIA’s September 13 intelligence assessment stated “Extremists Capitalized on Benghazi Protests,” but nothing in the actual text box supports that title. As it turns out, the title of the text box was supposed to be “Extremists Capitalized on Cairo Protests.” That small but vital difference—from Cairo to Benghazi—had major implications in how people in the administration were able to message the attacks. [pg. 52]

Quit your lies.
The following facts are among the many new revelations in Part I:

Despite President Obama and Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta’s clear orders to deploy military assets, nothing was sent to Benghazi, and nothing was en route to Libya at the time the last two Americans were killed almost 8 hours after the attacks began. [pg. 141]With Ambassador Stevens missing, the White House convened a roughly two-hour meeting at 7:30 PM, which resulted in action items focused on a YouTube video, and others containing the phrases “f any deployment is made,” and “Libya must agree to any deployment,” and “[w]ill not deploy until order comes to go to either Tripoli or Benghazi.” [pg. 115]The Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff typically would have participated in the White House meeting, but did not attend because he went home to host a dinner party for foreign dignitaries. [pg. 107]A Fleet Antiterrorism Security Team (FAST) sat on a plane in Rota, Spain, for three hours, and changed in and out of their uniforms four times. [pg. 154]None of the relevant military forces met their required deployment timelines. [pg. 150]The Libyan forces that evacuated Americans from the CIA Annex to the Benghazi airport was not affiliated with any of the militias the CIA or State Department had developed a relationship with during the prior 18 months. Instead, it was comprised of former Qadhafi loyalists who the U.S. had helped remove from power during the Libyan revolution. [pg. 144]

That isn't new and was covered in many other reports. The airbase in Italy was too far and they had a refueling problem they could not respond for lack of logistical support.

They were vindicated last September by the House Select Committee on Intelligence. Nothing new is added. You are grasping at straws and are about to drown.

People like Juana know Hillary is finished but the rats will stay aboard until the ship is going down. Such pathetic loyalty.

You ended up a two year investigation with nothing and say Hillary is finished? She's just getting started now that your pathetic, immoral, slur job is all but over.

 

[Hossfly]

Quit your lies.
The following facts are among the many new revelations in Part I:

Despite President Obama and Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta’s clear orders to deploy military assets, nothing was sent to Benghazi, and nothing was en route to Libya at the time the last two Americans were killed almost 8 hours after the attacks began. [pg. 141]With Ambassador Stevens missing, the White House convened a roughly two-hour meeting at 7:30 PM, which resulted in action items focused on a YouTube video, and others containing the phrases “f any deployment is made,” and “Libya must agree to any deployment,” and “[w]ill not deploy until order comes to go to either Tripoli or Benghazi.” [pg. 115]The Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff typically would have participated in the White House meeting, but did not attend because he went home to host a dinner party for foreign dignitaries. [pg. 107]A Fleet Antiterrorism Security Team (FAST) sat on a plane in Rota, Spain, for three hours, and changed in and out of their uniforms four times. [pg. 154]None of the relevant military forces met their required deployment timelines. [pg. 150]The Libyan forces that evacuated Americans from the CIA Annex to the Benghazi airport was not affiliated with any of the militias the CIA or State Department had developed a relationship with during the prior 18 months. Instead, it was comprised of former Qadhafi loyalists who the U.S. had helped remove from power during the Libyan revolution. [pg. 144]

That isn't new and was covered in many other reports. The airbase in Italy was too far and they had a refueling problem they could not respond for lack of logistical support.

Air assets were close enough to arrive in Benghazi hours before the fight was over. Troops were close enough to get there before the fight was over. Tactical aircraft were at Aviano and Airborne quick response troops in Vicenza. Less than 2 hours away and guess what? The military had time to get there in 13 hours Add that to the fact that a drone was filming the fight in real time. They could have launched the aircraft and troops and sit there and watch the Cavalry come to the rescue. All they had to do was stock up on popcorn and candy. But they chose to sit on their sorrowful dead asses and watch Americans die.

Wrong, wrong, wrong, Chris Stevens was dead within four hours, there was nothing that anyone could do and the fact that you are still holding on to this factoid after being debunked two years ago, merely displays your ignorance of the subject. Read up or go home.

Of course Stevens and another was dead but the response team could have been there toot sweet. And for 20 years I was on emergency response teams with several successful missions so don't even try to educate me on what the fuck the military can or can't do, Peaches.

Stop right there. You were not in the middle of Syria in bumfuck Benghazi, so you have no idea what the military could do or when they could do it. This subject was the main item in a number of reports and was thoroughly investigated and debunked.
“Quite the contrary: the safe evacuation of all U.S. government personnel from Benghazi twelve hours after the initial attack and subsequently to Ramstein Air Force Base was the result of exceptional U.S. government coordination and military response,” the independent Accountability Review Board concluded in its Dec. 18, 2012, report.

The “U.S. military performed well in responding to the attacks,” the House Armed Services Committee said in a February 2014 report. Separately, the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence said in its November 2014 report that the CIA — which was first on the scene of the attack — responded in a “timely and appropriate manner.”

Extremists armed with small arms, machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades and mortars attacked the diplomatic facility at about 9:42 p.m. Benghazi time on Sept. 11, 2012, according to a Defense timeline. In about 17 minutes after the attack, the Defense Department diverted an unmanned surveillance drone to Benghazi, the timeline says. At about the same time, the chief of a CIA annex near the Benghazi diplomatic facility was making preparations to send a team of seven to assist in a rescue operation.

At 10:04 p.m., the CIA team departed in two armored vehicles, arriving at the facility at 10:25 p.m. and immediately engaging in a 15-minute firefight with the extremists, according to abipartisan report issued December 30, 2012, by the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.

The House intelligence committee report said that “some Annex team members wanted urgently to depart the Annex for the TMF to save their State Department colleagues,” but the Annex chief “ordered the team to wait so that the seniors on the ground could ascertain the situation at the TMF and whether they could secure heavy weaponry support from local militias.”

This order to wait has been described by some as a “stand down” order, but it was not. The Republican-controlled House intelligence committee said that based on all the evidence, “the Annex leadership deliberated thoughtfully, reasonably, and quickly.”

House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Nov. 21, 2014: The evidence from eyewitness testimony, ISR video footage, closed-circuit television recordings, and other sources provides no support for the allegation that there was any stand-down order. Rather, there were mere tactical disagreements about the speed with which the team should depart prior to securing additional security assets.

A bipartisan Senate intelligence committee report released on Jan. 15, 2014, reached the same conclusion.

Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Jan. 15: The Committee explored claims that there was a “stand down” order given to the security team at the Annex. Although some members of the security team expressed frustration that they were unable to respond more quickly to the Mission compound, the Committee found no evidence of intentional delay or obstruction by the Chief of Base or any other party.

At about midnight Benghazi time, a little more than two hours after the attack began, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta gathered top military leaders at the Pentagon to discuss military options, according to the Defense timeline. (We will get back to Panetta’s decisions later.)

While military leaders convened at the Pentagon, a six-man security team from the U.S. embassy in Tripoli, including two military personnel, departed for Benghazi at about 12:30 a.m. Rear Adm. Brian Losey, commander at the time of Special Operations Command Africa, did not send all the security forces stationed in Tripoli. He ordered Army Lt. Col. S.E. Gibson’s team to remain in Tripoli to protect the U.S. embassy in the event of an attack there, according to the House Armed Services Committee report.

Gibson was initially “visibly upset” that his team was not dispatched to Benghazi along with the other team from Tripoli, the House report said. A colleague described Gibson as being “furious” at the time at having been ordered to “stand down.” But “Gibson made it clear to the committee that ‘in hindsight’ he believes remaining in Tripoli was appropriate,” the House report said.

“I was not ordered to stand down. I was ordered to remain in place,” Gibson told the House Armed Services Committee. ” ‘Stand down’ implies that we cease all operations, cease all activities. We continued to support the team that was in Tripoli.”

The Tripoli team arrived in Benghazi in about an hour, but it was delayed at the airport “for at least three hours,” according to the Senate homeland security committee report. The committee said the delay “merits further inquiry” to determine if it was merely part of the “chaotic environment” at the time or “was it part of a plot to keep American help from reaching the Americans under siege in Benghazi.” It turned out to be the result of the “chaotic environment,” not “part of a plot.”

The Senate intelligence committee later said in its report that the Tripoli team was trying to locate Stevens before leaving the airport. There had been reports that Stevens may have been at the Benghazi Medical Center, but Libyans were concerned about security at the hospital and feared the Americans could be lured into an ambush, the committee report said.

“After more than three hours of negotiations and communications with Libyan officials … the Libyan government arranged for the Libyan Shield Militia to provide transportation and an armed escort from the airport” to the CIA Annex, the Senate intelligence committee report said.

The Tripoli team arrived at the CIA Annex at 5:04 a.m., “about ten minutes before a new assault by the terrorists began, involving mortar rounds fired at the Annex,” according to the Senate homeland security report. That attack resulted in the deaths of Annex security team members Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty, the report said. Libyan forces arrived at the Annex at 6 a.m. with 50 vehicles and transported the remaining Americans to the airport, where they would be evacuated by plane to Tripoli in two trips at 7:40 a.m. and 10 a.m. enroute ultimately to Germany.

Where was the U.S. military?

Panetta’s midnight meeting (Benghazi time) at the Pentagon lasted until about 2 a.m. After the meeting, Panetta took several actions. He agreed to send one Marine Fleet Antiterrorism Security Team platoon stationed in Rota, Spain, to Benghazi and another to Tripoli. He also directed two special operations forces — one from Central Europe and another based in the United States — to depart for a staging base in Italy, according to the Defense timeline and the Senate homeland security report. None of those troops reached Benghazi in time.

“[T]here simply was not enough time given the speed of the attacks for armed U.S. military assets to have made a difference,” as the independent Accountability Review Board said in its report. But other rescue efforts did make a difference.

The ARB report, which was released Dec. 18, 2012, said “every possible effort was made to protect, rescue and recover Ambassador Stevens and Sean Smith.” Smith, a State Department information management officer, also died in the attack at the diplomatic mission.

Accountability Review Board: The interagency response was timely and appropriate, but there simply was not enough time given the speed of the attacks for armed U.S. military assets to have made a difference. Senior-level interagency discussions were underway soon after Washington received initial word of the attacks and continued through the night. The Board found no evidence of any undue delays in decision making or denial of support from Washington or from the military combatant commanders. Quite the contrary: the safe evacuation of all U.S. government personnel from Benghazi twelve hours after the initial attack and subsequently to Ramstein Air Force Base was the result of exceptional U.S. government coordination and military response and helped save the lives of two severely wounded Americans.

The ARB was led by Thomas R. Pickering, who was U.S. ambassador to the United Nationsunder President George H.W. Bush, and retired Navy Adm. Michael Mullen, who served as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush. Although there has been some criticism of the board in conservative circles, the State Department inspector general’s office issued a report in September 2013 that reviewed the board’s operations in general and its work specifically on Benghazi, and concluded that the ARB “operates as intended — independently and without bias.”

In a press conference on the board’s report, Mullen addressed the military’s inability to mobilize its assets quickly enough to defend the Benghazi facility. He said that “it is not reasonable, nor feasible, to tether U.S. forces at the ready to respond to protect every high-risk post in the world.”

There was, however, an increase in military protection of U.S. diplomatic facilities after the Benghazi attacks. A Congressional Research Service report dated July 30, 2014, said that “the U.S. Marine Security Guard posted detachments to 152 U.S. diplomatic facilities around the world as of September 2012; 35 new Marine Guard detachments were requested by the department after the Benghazi attacks.”

There is no question that mistakes were made prior to Sept. 11, 2012, that left the U.S. facilities in Benghazi vulnerable to attack. Multiple investigative reports document those mistakes. Boehner and Benghazi

The Senate homeland security report said the State Department made a “grievous mistake” in keeping the Benghazi facility open given the “dangerous threat environment” in Benghazi in the months leading up to the attack. The ARB report said “systemic failures” and leadership “deficiencies” caused the State Department to ignore “repeated requests” for additional security staffing in Libya, leaving the Benghazi facility “grossly inadequate to deal with the attack.” (Which goes to another of Boehner’s questions: “Why wasn’t the security for our embassy in Libya, the extra security, given to the ambassador after repeated requests?”)

But as far as the night of the attack? The consensus is that the rescue attempts were carried out in a timely manner under difficult circumstances. For Boehner to ask “why didn’t we attempt to rescue” Americans under attack and why were some U.S. personnel “told not to get involved” ignores the evidence.
Boehner and Benghazi

Old info and data. Ramstein is a hell of a lot further than Aviano. And the military can alert a response team and they can be airborne quickly. Not minutes but a couple hours. The Air Force had planes scrambled but they never got word to move. Why was that?

 

[Juan de Fuca]

Of course, unless there were charges, you could give a flying f*** about the lives lost due to gross incompetence.

Where is the part they say will put Hillary behind bars where she belongs. Without that it really doesn't matter.

The 270 Marines who lost their lives to Ronald Reagan's incompetence didn't get this kind of investigation, don't you dare tell me its non-partisan and a fair inquiry. The only people unawares are you and a loony bin of others.

 

[Juan de Fuca]

That isn't new and was covered in many other reports. The airbase in Italy was too far and they had a refueling problem they could not respond for lack of logistical support.

Air assets were close enough to arrive in Benghazi hours before the fight was over. Troops were close enough to get there before the fight was over. Tactical aircraft were at Aviano and Airborne quick response troops in Vicenza. Less than 2 hours away and guess what? The military had time to get there in 13 hours Add that to the fact that a drone was filming the fight in real time. They could have launched the aircraft and troops and sit there and watch the Cavalry come to the rescue. All they had to do was stock up on popcorn and candy. But they chose to sit on their sorrowful dead asses and watch Americans die.

Wrong, wrong, wrong, Chris Stevens was dead within four hours, there was nothing that anyone could do and the fact that you are still holding on to this factoid after being debunked two years ago, merely displays your ignorance of the subject. Read up or go home.

Of course Stevens and another was dead but the response team could have been there toot sweet. And for 20 years I was on emergency response teams with several successful missions so don't even try to educate me on what the fuck the military can or can't do, Peaches.

Stop right there. You were not in the middle of Syria in bumfuck Benghazi, so you have no idea what the military could do or when they could do it. This subject was the main item in a number of reports and was thoroughly investigated and debunked.
“Quite the contrary: the safe evacuation of all U.S. government personnel from Benghazi twelve hours after the initial attack and subsequently to Ramstein Air Force Base was the result of exceptional U.S. government coordination and military response,” the independent Accountability Review Board concluded in its Dec. 18, 2012, report.

The “U.S. military performed well in responding to the attacks,” the House Armed Services Committee said in a February 2014 report. Separately, the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence said in its November 2014 report that the CIA — which was first on the scene of the attack — responded in a “timely and appropriate manner.”

Extremists armed with small arms, machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades and mortars attacked the diplomatic facility at about 9:42 p.m. Benghazi time on Sept. 11, 2012, according to a Defense timeline. In about 17 minutes after the attack, the Defense Department diverted an unmanned surveillance drone to Benghazi, the timeline says. At about the same time, the chief of a CIA annex near the Benghazi diplomatic facility was making preparations to send a team of seven to assist in a rescue operation.

At 10:04 p.m., the CIA team departed in two armored vehicles, arriving at the facility at 10:25 p.m. and immediately engaging in a 15-minute firefight with the extremists, according to abipartisan report issued December 30, 2012, by the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.

The House intelligence committee report said that “some Annex team members wanted urgently to depart the Annex for the TMF to save their State Department colleagues,” but the Annex chief “ordered the team to wait so that the seniors on the ground could ascertain the situation at the TMF and whether they could secure heavy weaponry support from local militias.”

This order to wait has been described by some as a “stand down” order, but it was not. The Republican-controlled House intelligence committee said that based on all the evidence, “the Annex leadership deliberated thoughtfully, reasonably, and quickly.”

House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Nov. 21, 2014: The evidence from eyewitness testimony, ISR video footage, closed-circuit television recordings, and other sources provides no support for the allegation that there was any stand-down order. Rather, there were mere tactical disagreements about the speed with which the team should depart prior to securing additional security assets.

A bipartisan Senate intelligence committee report released on Jan. 15, 2014, reached the same conclusion.

Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Jan. 15: The Committee explored claims that there was a “stand down” order given to the security team at the Annex. Although some members of the security team expressed frustration that they were unable to respond more quickly to the Mission compound, the Committee found no evidence of intentional delay or obstruction by the Chief of Base or any other party.

At about midnight Benghazi time, a little more than two hours after the attack began, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta gathered top military leaders at the Pentagon to discuss military options, according to the Defense timeline. (We will get back to Panetta’s decisions later.)

While military leaders convened at the Pentagon, a six-man security team from the U.S. embassy in Tripoli, including two military personnel, departed for Benghazi at about 12:30 a.m. Rear Adm. Brian Losey, commander at the time of Special Operations Command Africa, did not send all the security forces stationed in Tripoli. He ordered Army Lt. Col. S.E. Gibson’s team to remain in Tripoli to protect the U.S. embassy in the event of an attack there, according to the House Armed Services Committee report.

Gibson was initially “visibly upset” that his team was not dispatched to Benghazi along with the other team from Tripoli, the House report said. A colleague described Gibson as being “furious” at the time at having been ordered to “stand down.” But “Gibson made it clear to the committee that ‘in hindsight’ he believes remaining in Tripoli was appropriate,” the House report said.

“I was not ordered to stand down. I was ordered to remain in place,” Gibson told the House Armed Services Committee. ” ‘Stand down’ implies that we cease all operations, cease all activities. We continued to support the team that was in Tripoli.”

The Tripoli team arrived in Benghazi in about an hour, but it was delayed at the airport “for at least three hours,” according to the Senate homeland security committee report. The committee said the delay “merits further inquiry” to determine if it was merely part of the “chaotic environment” at the time or “was it part of a plot to keep American help from reaching the Americans under siege in Benghazi.” It turned out to be the result of the “chaotic environment,” not “part of a plot.”

The Senate intelligence committee later said in its report that the Tripoli team was trying to locate Stevens before leaving the airport. There had been reports that Stevens may have been at the Benghazi Medical Center, but Libyans were concerned about security at the hospital and feared the Americans could be lured into an ambush, the committee report said.

“After more than three hours of negotiations and communications with Libyan officials … the Libyan government arranged for the Libyan Shield Militia to provide transportation and an armed escort from the airport” to the CIA Annex, the Senate intelligence committee report said.

The Tripoli team arrived at the CIA Annex at 5:04 a.m., “about ten minutes before a new assault by the terrorists began, involving mortar rounds fired at the Annex,” according to the Senate homeland security report. That attack resulted in the deaths of Annex security team members Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty, the report said. Libyan forces arrived at the Annex at 6 a.m. with 50 vehicles and transported the remaining Americans to the airport, where they would be evacuated by plane to Tripoli in two trips at 7:40 a.m. and 10 a.m. enroute ultimately to Germany.

Where was the U.S. military?

Panetta’s midnight meeting (Benghazi time) at the Pentagon lasted until about 2 a.m. After the meeting, Panetta took several actions. He agreed to send one Marine Fleet Antiterrorism Security Team platoon stationed in Rota, Spain, to Benghazi and another to Tripoli. He also directed two special operations forces — one from Central Europe and another based in the United States — to depart for a staging base in Italy, according to the Defense timeline and the Senate homeland security report. None of those troops reached Benghazi in time.

“[T]here simply was not enough time given the speed of the attacks for armed U.S. military assets to have made a difference,” as the independent Accountability Review Board said in its report. But other rescue efforts did make a difference.

The ARB report, which was released Dec. 18, 2012, said “every possible effort was made to protect, rescue and recover Ambassador Stevens and Sean Smith.” Smith, a State Department information management officer, also died in the attack at the diplomatic mission.

Accountability Review Board: The interagency response was timely and appropriate, but there simply was not enough time given the speed of the attacks for armed U.S. military assets to have made a difference. Senior-level interagency discussions were underway soon after Washington received initial word of the attacks and continued through the night. The Board found no evidence of any undue delays in decision making or denial of support from Washington or from the military combatant commanders. Quite the contrary: the safe evacuation of all U.S. government personnel from Benghazi twelve hours after the initial attack and subsequently to Ramstein Air Force Base was the result of exceptional U.S. government coordination and military response and helped save the lives of two severely wounded Americans.

The ARB was led by Thomas R. Pickering, who was U.S. ambassador to the United Nationsunder President George H.W. Bush, and retired Navy Adm. Michael Mullen, who served as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush. Although there has been some criticism of the board in conservative circles, the State Department inspector general’s office issued a report in September 2013 that reviewed the board’s operations in general and its work specifically on Benghazi, and concluded that the ARB “operates as intended — independently and without bias.”

In a press conference on the board’s report, Mullen addressed the military’s inability to mobilize its assets quickly enough to defend the Benghazi facility. He said that “it is not reasonable, nor feasible, to tether U.S. forces at the ready to respond to protect every high-risk post in the world.”

There was, however, an increase in military protection of U.S. diplomatic facilities after the Benghazi attacks. A Congressional Research Service report dated July 30, 2014, said that “the U.S. Marine Security Guard posted detachments to 152 U.S. diplomatic facilities around the world as of September 2012; 35 new Marine Guard detachments were requested by the department after the Benghazi attacks.”

There is no question that mistakes were made prior to Sept. 11, 2012, that left the U.S. facilities in Benghazi vulnerable to attack. Multiple investigative reports document those mistakes. Boehner and Benghazi

The Senate homeland security report said the State Department made a “grievous mistake” in keeping the Benghazi facility open given the “dangerous threat environment” in Benghazi in the months leading up to the attack. The ARB report said “systemic failures” and leadership “deficiencies” caused the State Department to ignore “repeated requests” for additional security staffing in Libya, leaving the Benghazi facility “grossly inadequate to deal with the attack.” (Which goes to another of Boehner’s questions: “Why wasn’t the security for our embassy in Libya, the extra security, given to the ambassador after repeated requests?”)

But as far as the night of the attack? The consensus is that the rescue attempts were carried out in a timely manner under difficult circumstances. For Boehner to ask “why didn’t we attempt to rescue” Americans under attack and why were some U.S. personnel “told not to get involved” ignores the evidence.
Boehner and Benghazi

Old info and data. Ramstein is a hell of a lot further than Aviano. And the military can alert a response team and they can be airborne quickly. Not minutes but a couple hours. The Air Force had planes scrambled but they never got word to move. Why was that?

You didn't read it dum dum they were evacuated to Ramstein 12 hours after the attack.

 

[depotoo]

Deflection once again. That was almost 40 years ago. Today it is about Benghazi.

Of course, unless there were charges, you could give a flying f*** about the lives lost due to gross incompetence.

Where is the part they say will put Hillary behind bars where she belongs. Without that it really doesn't matter.

The 270 Marines who lost their lives to Ronald Reagan's incompetence didn't get this kind of investigation, don't you dare tell me its non-partisan and a fair inquiry. The only people unawares are you and a loony bin of others.

 

[Hossfly]

Of course, unless there were charges, you could give a flying f*** about the lives lost due to gross incompetence.

Where is the part they say will put Hillary behind bars where she belongs. Without that it really doesn't matter.

The 270 Marines who lost their lives to Ronald Reagan's incompetence didn't get this kind of investigation, don't you dare tell me its non-partisan and a fair inquiry. The only people unawares are you and a loony bin of others.

Different times, different places, different circumstances and it's apples and watermelons from you.

 

[Juan de Fuca]

That isn't new and was covered in many other reports. The airbase in Italy was too far and they had a refueling problem they could not respond for lack of logistical support.

Air assets were close enough to arrive in Benghazi hours before the fight was over. Troops were close enough to get there before the fight was over. Tactical aircraft were at Aviano and Airborne quick response troops in Vicenza. Less than 2 hours away and guess what? The military had time to get there in 13 hours Add that to the fact that a drone was filming the fight in real time. They could have launched the aircraft and troops and sit there and watch the Cavalry come to the rescue. All they had to do was stock up on popcorn and candy. But they chose to sit on their sorrowful dead asses and watch Americans die.

Wrong, wrong, wrong, Chris Stevens was dead within four hours, there was nothing that anyone could do and the fact that you are still holding on to this factoid after being debunked two years ago, merely displays your ignorance of the subject. Read up or go home.

Of course Stevens and another was dead but the response team could have been there toot sweet. And for 20 years I was on emergency response teams with several successful missions so don't even try to educate me on what the fuck the military can or can't do, Peaches.

Stop right there. You were not in the middle of Syria in bumfuck Benghazi, so you have no idea what the military could do or when they could do it. This subject was the main item in a number of reports and was thoroughly investigated and debunked.
“Quite the contrary: the safe evacuation of all U.S. government personnel from Benghazi twelve hours after the initial attack and subsequently to Ramstein Air Force Base was the result of exceptional U.S. government coordination and military response,” the independent Accountability Review Board concluded in its Dec. 18, 2012, report.

The “U.S. military performed well in responding to the attacks,” the House Armed Services Committee said in a February 2014 report. Separately, the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence said in its November 2014 report that the CIA — which was first on the scene of the attack — responded in a “timely and appropriate manner.”

Extremists armed with small arms, machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades and mortars attacked the diplomatic facility at about 9:42 p.m. Benghazi time on Sept. 11, 2012, according to a Defense timeline. In about 17 minutes after the attack, the Defense Department diverted an unmanned surveillance drone to Benghazi, the timeline says. At about the same time, the chief of a CIA annex near the Benghazi diplomatic facility was making preparations to send a team of seven to assist in a rescue operation.

At 10:04 p.m., the CIA team departed in two armored vehicles, arriving at the facility at 10:25 p.m. and immediately engaging in a 15-minute firefight with the extremists, according to abipartisan report issued December 30, 2012, by the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.

The House intelligence committee report said that “some Annex team members wanted urgently to depart the Annex for the TMF to save their State Department colleagues,” but the Annex chief “ordered the team to wait so that the seniors on the ground could ascertain the situation at the TMF and whether they could secure heavy weaponry support from local militias.”

This order to wait has been described by some as a “stand down” order, but it was not. The Republican-controlled House intelligence committee said that based on all the evidence, “the Annex leadership deliberated thoughtfully, reasonably, and quickly.”

House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Nov. 21, 2014: The evidence from eyewitness testimony, ISR video footage, closed-circuit television recordings, and other sources provides no support for the allegation that there was any stand-down order. Rather, there were mere tactical disagreements about the speed with which the team should depart prior to securing additional security assets.

A bipartisan Senate intelligence committee report released on Jan. 15, 2014, reached the same conclusion.

Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Jan. 15: The Committee explored claims that there was a “stand down” order given to the security team at the Annex. Although some members of the security team expressed frustration that they were unable to respond more quickly to the Mission compound, the Committee found no evidence of intentional delay or obstruction by the Chief of Base or any other party.

At about midnight Benghazi time, a little more than two hours after the attack began, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta gathered top military leaders at the Pentagon to discuss military options, according to the Defense timeline. (We will get back to Panetta’s decisions later.)

While military leaders convened at the Pentagon, a six-man security team from the U.S. embassy in Tripoli, including two military personnel, departed for Benghazi at about 12:30 a.m. Rear Adm. Brian Losey, commander at the time of Special Operations Command Africa, did not send all the security forces stationed in Tripoli. He ordered Army Lt. Col. S.E. Gibson’s team to remain in Tripoli to protect the U.S. embassy in the event of an attack there, according to the House Armed Services Committee report.

Gibson was initially “visibly upset” that his team was not dispatched to Benghazi along with the other team from Tripoli, the House report said. A colleague described Gibson as being “furious” at the time at having been ordered to “stand down.” But “Gibson made it clear to the committee that ‘in hindsight’ he believes remaining in Tripoli was appropriate,” the House report said.

“I was not ordered to stand down. I was ordered to remain in place,” Gibson told the House Armed Services Committee. ” ‘Stand down’ implies that we cease all operations, cease all activities. We continued to support the team that was in Tripoli.”

The Tripoli team arrived in Benghazi in about an hour, but it was delayed at the airport “for at least three hours,” according to the Senate homeland security committee report. The committee said the delay “merits further inquiry” to determine if it was merely part of the “chaotic environment” at the time or “was it part of a plot to keep American help from reaching the Americans under siege in Benghazi.” It turned out to be the result of the “chaotic environment,” not “part of a plot.”

The Senate intelligence committee later said in its report that the Tripoli team was trying to locate Stevens before leaving the airport. There had been reports that Stevens may have been at the Benghazi Medical Center, but Libyans were concerned about security at the hospital and feared the Americans could be lured into an ambush, the committee report said.

“After more than three hours of negotiations and communications with Libyan officials … the Libyan government arranged for the Libyan Shield Militia to provide transportation and an armed escort from the airport” to the CIA Annex, the Senate intelligence committee report said.

The Tripoli team arrived at the CIA Annex at 5:04 a.m., “about ten minutes before a new assault by the terrorists began, involving mortar rounds fired at the Annex,” according to the Senate homeland security report. That attack resulted in the deaths of Annex security team members Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty, the report said. Libyan forces arrived at the Annex at 6 a.m. with 50 vehicles and transported the remaining Americans to the airport, where they would be evacuated by plane to Tripoli in two trips at 7:40 a.m. and 10 a.m. enroute ultimately to Germany.

Where was the U.S. military?

Panetta’s midnight meeting (Benghazi time) at the Pentagon lasted until about 2 a.m. After the meeting, Panetta took several actions. He agreed to send one Marine Fleet Antiterrorism Security Team platoon stationed in Rota, Spain, to Benghazi and another to Tripoli. He also directed two special operations forces — one from Central Europe and another based in the United States — to depart for a staging base in Italy, according to the Defense timeline and the Senate homeland security report. None of those troops reached Benghazi in time.

“[T]here simply was not enough time given the speed of the attacks for armed U.S. military assets to have made a difference,” as the independent Accountability Review Board said in its report. But other rescue efforts did make a difference.

The ARB report, which was released Dec. 18, 2012, said “every possible effort was made to protect, rescue and recover Ambassador Stevens and Sean Smith.” Smith, a State Department information management officer, also died in the attack at the diplomatic mission.

Accountability Review Board: The interagency response was timely and appropriate, but there simply was not enough time given the speed of the attacks for armed U.S. military assets to have made a difference. Senior-level interagency discussions were underway soon after Washington received initial word of the attacks and continued through the night. The Board found no evidence of any undue delays in decision making or denial of support from Washington or from the military combatant commanders. Quite the contrary: the safe evacuation of all U.S. government personnel from Benghazi twelve hours after the initial attack and subsequently to Ramstein Air Force Base was the result of exceptional U.S. government coordination and military response and helped save the lives of two severely wounded Americans.

The ARB was led by Thomas R. Pickering, who was U.S. ambassador to the United Nationsunder President George H.W. Bush, and retired Navy Adm. Michael Mullen, who served as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush. Although there has been some criticism of the board in conservative circles, the State Department inspector general’s office issued a report in September 2013 that reviewed the board’s operations in general and its work specifically on Benghazi, and concluded that the ARB “operates as intended — independently and without bias.”

In a press conference on the board’s report, Mullen addressed the military’s inability to mobilize its assets quickly enough to defend the Benghazi facility. He said that “it is not reasonable, nor feasible, to tether U.S. forces at the ready to respond to protect every high-risk post in the world.”

There was, however, an increase in military protection of U.S. diplomatic facilities after the Benghazi attacks. A Congressional Research Service report dated July 30, 2014, said that “the U.S. Marine Security Guard posted detachments to 152 U.S. diplomatic facilities around the world as of September 2012; 35 new Marine Guard detachments were requested by the department after the Benghazi attacks.”

There is no question that mistakes were made prior to Sept. 11, 2012, that left the U.S. facilities in Benghazi vulnerable to attack. Multiple investigative reports document those mistakes. Boehner and Benghazi

The Senate homeland security report said the State Department made a “grievous mistake” in keeping the Benghazi facility open given the “dangerous threat environment” in Benghazi in the months leading up to the attack. The ARB report said “systemic failures” and leadership “deficiencies” caused the State Department to ignore “repeated requests” for additional security staffing in Libya, leaving the Benghazi facility “grossly inadequate to deal with the attack.” (Which goes to another of Boehner’s questions: “Why wasn’t the security for our embassy in Libya, the extra security, given to the ambassador after repeated requests?”)

But as far as the night of the attack? The consensus is that the rescue attempts were carried out in a timely manner under difficult circumstances. For Boehner to ask “why didn’t we attempt to rescue” Americans under attack and why were some U.S. personnel “told not to get involved” ignores the evidence.
Boehner and Benghazi

Old info and data. Ramstein is a hell of a lot further than Aviano. And the military can alert a response team and they can be airborne quickly. Not minutes but a couple hours. The Air Force had planes scrambled but they never got word to move. Why was that?

I thought you were knowledgeable about the military side of this thing. Aviano, Italy is almost the maximum distance a F-16 can fly. With most tankers committed to Afghanistan how did you expect them to find an available tanker on short notice and how did you expect to commit crew, arm the jet and be on the way in the time necessary to save Ambassador Stevens? You can't and is why this was debunked a long time ago. This is very shocking and disturbing to me that after four years you people are screaming the same original talking points. You learned nothing in all that time.

 

[Dragonlady]

So why did the US not withdraw them as the Brits and Red Cross had their people? And if they wouldn't do that then why did they not have a plan in place because things were so deteriorating? Why deny them the additional security that was requested?

Because the US has "interests" in Libya. The Red Cross and the Brits do not.

As to your second question, maybe they did, but it all went to hell too quickly. I really have no idea what plans were in place or how that would work in terms of responsibility. I have read that Ambassador Stevens was very well liked among the Libyan people he worked with and considered a great friend of Libya. Perhaps he felt that would give him some measure of protection in the country.

Not all additional security requests were denied. State Department records show that the walls/fences surrounding the Benghazi compound were reinforced, and other work was done on the structures to improve security, but the Republican Congress cut embassy security funding by 1/3 so there wasn't enough money to do all the requested improvements.

 

[Juan de Fuca]

Deflection once again. That was almost 40 years ago. Today it is about Benghazi.

Of course, unless there were charges, you could give a flying f*** about the lives lost due to gross incompetence.

Where is the part they say will put Hillary behind bars where she belongs. Without that it really doesn't matter.

The 270 Marines who lost their lives to Ronald Reagan's incompetence didn't get this kind of investigation, don't you dare tell me its non-partisan and a fair inquiry. The only people unawares are you and a loony bin of others.

Oh fuck you if you think the stink of Marine deaths is too long ago to bring up. Its closer to thirty years and those boys wouldn't even be 50 years old now.

 

[daws101]

This dead horse has been beaten to a fine mist .
What next, splitting it's atoms?

 

[Hossfly]

Air assets were close enough to arrive in Benghazi hours before the fight was over. Troops were close enough to get there before the fight was over. Tactical aircraft were at Aviano and Airborne quick response troops in Vicenza. Less than 2 hours away and guess what? The military had time to get there in 13 hours Add that to the fact that a drone was filming the fight in real time. They could have launched the aircraft and troops and sit there and watch the Cavalry come to the rescue. All they had to do was stock up on popcorn and candy. But they chose to sit on their sorrowful dead asses and watch Americans die.

Wrong, wrong, wrong, Chris Stevens was dead within four hours, there was nothing that anyone could do and the fact that you are still holding on to this factoid after being debunked two years ago, merely displays your ignorance of the subject. Read up or go home.

Of course Stevens and another was dead but the response team could have been there toot sweet. And for 20 years I was on emergency response teams with several successful missions so don't even try to educate me on what the fuck the military can or can't do, Peaches.

Stop right there. You were not in the middle of Syria in bumfuck Benghazi, so you have no idea what the military could do or when they could do it. This subject was the main item in a number of reports and was thoroughly investigated and debunked.
“Quite the contrary: the safe evacuation of all U.S. government personnel from Benghazi twelve hours after the initial attack and subsequently to Ramstein Air Force Base was the result of exceptional U.S. government coordination and military response,” the independent Accountability Review Board concluded in its Dec. 18, 2012, report.

The “U.S. military performed well in responding to the attacks,” the House Armed Services Committee said in a February 2014 report. Separately, the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence said in its November 2014 report that the CIA — which was first on the scene of the attack — responded in a “timely and appropriate manner.”

Extremists armed with small arms, machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades and mortars attacked the diplomatic facility at about 9:42 p.m. Benghazi time on Sept. 11, 2012, according to a Defense timeline. In about 17 minutes after the attack, the Defense Department diverted an unmanned surveillance drone to Benghazi, the timeline says. At about the same time, the chief of a CIA annex near the Benghazi diplomatic facility was making preparations to send a team of seven to assist in a rescue operation.

At 10:04 p.m., the CIA team departed in two armored vehicles, arriving at the facility at 10:25 p.m. and immediately engaging in a 15-minute firefight with the extremists, according to abipartisan report issued December 30, 2012, by the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.

The House intelligence committee report said that “some Annex team members wanted urgently to depart the Annex for the TMF to save their State Department colleagues,” but the Annex chief “ordered the team to wait so that the seniors on the ground could ascertain the situation at the TMF and whether they could secure heavy weaponry support from local militias.”

This order to wait has been described by some as a “stand down” order, but it was not. The Republican-controlled House intelligence committee said that based on all the evidence, “the Annex leadership deliberated thoughtfully, reasonably, and quickly.”

House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Nov. 21, 2014: The evidence from eyewitness testimony, ISR video footage, closed-circuit television recordings, and other sources provides no support for the allegation that there was any stand-down order. Rather, there were mere tactical disagreements about the speed with which the team should depart prior to securing additional security assets.

A bipartisan Senate intelligence committee report released on Jan. 15, 2014, reached the same conclusion.

Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Jan. 15: The Committee explored claims that there was a “stand down” order given to the security team at the Annex. Although some members of the security team expressed frustration that they were unable to respond more quickly to the Mission compound, the Committee found no evidence of intentional delay or obstruction by the Chief of Base or any other party.

At about midnight Benghazi time, a little more than two hours after the attack began, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta gathered top military leaders at the Pentagon to discuss military options, according to the Defense timeline. (We will get back to Panetta’s decisions later.)

While military leaders convened at the Pentagon, a six-man security team from the U.S. embassy in Tripoli, including two military personnel, departed for Benghazi at about 12:30 a.m. Rear Adm. Brian Losey, commander at the time of Special Operations Command Africa, did not send all the security forces stationed in Tripoli. He ordered Army Lt. Col. S.E. Gibson’s team to remain in Tripoli to protect the U.S. embassy in the event of an attack there, according to the House Armed Services Committee report.

Gibson was initially “visibly upset” that his team was not dispatched to Benghazi along with the other team from Tripoli, the House report said. A colleague described Gibson as being “furious” at the time at having been ordered to “stand down.” But “Gibson made it clear to the committee that ‘in hindsight’ he believes remaining in Tripoli was appropriate,” the House report said.

“I was not ordered to stand down. I was ordered to remain in place,” Gibson told the House Armed Services Committee. ” ‘Stand down’ implies that we cease all operations, cease all activities. We continued to support the team that was in Tripoli.”

The Tripoli team arrived in Benghazi in about an hour, but it was delayed at the airport “for at least three hours,” according to the Senate homeland security committee report. The committee said the delay “merits further inquiry” to determine if it was merely part of the “chaotic environment” at the time or “was it part of a plot to keep American help from reaching the Americans under siege in Benghazi.” It turned out to be the result of the “chaotic environment,” not “part of a plot.”

The Senate intelligence committee later said in its report that the Tripoli team was trying to locate Stevens before leaving the airport. There had been reports that Stevens may have been at the Benghazi Medical Center, but Libyans were concerned about security at the hospital and feared the Americans could be lured into an ambush, the committee report said.

“After more than three hours of negotiations and communications with Libyan officials … the Libyan government arranged for the Libyan Shield Militia to provide transportation and an armed escort from the airport” to the CIA Annex, the Senate intelligence committee report said.

The Tripoli team arrived at the CIA Annex at 5:04 a.m., “about ten minutes before a new assault by the terrorists began, involving mortar rounds fired at the Annex,” according to the Senate homeland security report. That attack resulted in the deaths of Annex security team members Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty, the report said. Libyan forces arrived at the Annex at 6 a.m. with 50 vehicles and transported the remaining Americans to the airport, where they would be evacuated by plane to Tripoli in two trips at 7:40 a.m. and 10 a.m. enroute ultimately to Germany.

Where was the U.S. military?

Panetta’s midnight meeting (Benghazi time) at the Pentagon lasted until about 2 a.m. After the meeting, Panetta took several actions. He agreed to send one Marine Fleet Antiterrorism Security Team platoon stationed in Rota, Spain, to Benghazi and another to Tripoli. He also directed two special operations forces — one from Central Europe and another based in the United States — to depart for a staging base in Italy, according to the Defense timeline and the Senate homeland security report. None of those troops reached Benghazi in time.

“[T]here simply was not enough time given the speed of the attacks for armed U.S. military assets to have made a difference,” as the independent Accountability Review Board said in its report. But other rescue efforts did make a difference.

The ARB report, which was released Dec. 18, 2012, said “every possible effort was made to protect, rescue and recover Ambassador Stevens and Sean Smith.” Smith, a State Department information management officer, also died in the attack at the diplomatic mission.

Accountability Review Board: The interagency response was timely and appropriate, but there simply was not enough time given the speed of the attacks for armed U.S. military assets to have made a difference. Senior-level interagency discussions were underway soon after Washington received initial word of the attacks and continued through the night. The Board found no evidence of any undue delays in decision making or denial of support from Washington or from the military combatant commanders. Quite the contrary: the safe evacuation of all U.S. government personnel from Benghazi twelve hours after the initial attack and subsequently to Ramstein Air Force Base was the result of exceptional U.S. government coordination and military response and helped save the lives of two severely wounded Americans.

The ARB was led by Thomas R. Pickering, who was U.S. ambassador to the United Nationsunder President George H.W. Bush, and retired Navy Adm. Michael Mullen, who served as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush. Although there has been some criticism of the board in conservative circles, the State Department inspector general’s office issued a report in September 2013 that reviewed the board’s operations in general and its work specifically on Benghazi, and concluded that the ARB “operates as intended — independently and without bias.”

In a press conference on the board’s report, Mullen addressed the military’s inability to mobilize its assets quickly enough to defend the Benghazi facility. He said that “it is not reasonable, nor feasible, to tether U.S. forces at the ready to respond to protect every high-risk post in the world.”

There was, however, an increase in military protection of U.S. diplomatic facilities after the Benghazi attacks. A Congressional Research Service report dated July 30, 2014, said that “the U.S. Marine Security Guard posted detachments to 152 U.S. diplomatic facilities around the world as of September 2012; 35 new Marine Guard detachments were requested by the department after the Benghazi attacks.”

There is no question that mistakes were made prior to Sept. 11, 2012, that left the U.S. facilities in Benghazi vulnerable to attack. Multiple investigative reports document those mistakes. Boehner and Benghazi

The Senate homeland security report said the State Department made a “grievous mistake” in keeping the Benghazi facility open given the “dangerous threat environment” in Benghazi in the months leading up to the attack. The ARB report said “systemic failures” and leadership “deficiencies” caused the State Department to ignore “repeated requests” for additional security staffing in Libya, leaving the Benghazi facility “grossly inadequate to deal with the attack.” (Which goes to another of Boehner’s questions: “Why wasn’t the security for our embassy in Libya, the extra security, given to the ambassador after repeated requests?”)

But as far as the night of the attack? The consensus is that the rescue attempts were carried out in a timely manner under difficult circumstances. For Boehner to ask “why didn’t we attempt to rescue” Americans under attack and why were some U.S. personnel “told not to get involved” ignores the evidence.
Boehner and Benghazi

Old info and data. Ramstein is a hell of a lot further than Aviano. And the military can alert a response team and they can be airborne quickly. Not minutes but a couple hours. The Air Force had planes scrambled but they never got word to move. Why was that?

I thought you were knowledgeable about the military side of this thing. Aviano, Italy is almost the maximum distance a F-16 can fly. With most tankers committed to Afghanistan how did you expect them to find an available tanker on short notice and how did you expect to commit crew, arm the jet and be on the way in the time necessary to save Ambassador Stevens? You can't and is why this was debunked a long time ago. This is very shocking and disturbing to me that after four years you people are screaming the same original talking points. You learned nothing in all that time.

The aircraft were on STRIP ALERT. Which means they were armed and ready to go. Egypt has airborne tankers as do other friendlies in the area. I won't respond anymore to your complete ignorance, Boy Scout Hero.

 

[Dragonlady]

We must be reading totally different reports was the one you've seen written in crayon.
Final Benghazi Report Reveals Hillary Clinton's Failure To Competently Realize Risks

All that means is she reacted badly.
Not illegally
Fail.

If that is the case, fine. I don't want someone who reacts badly and gets people killed to be president.

So, no indictment then?

I guess not.

Not while Big-ears is president.

Corruption......they name is Democrat.

Except this is a REPUBLICAN report.

 

[depotoo]

Funny you care about those boys, yet not these four...

Deflection once again. That was almost 40 years ago. Today it is about Benghazi.

Of course, unless there were charges, you could give a flying f*** about the lives lost due to gross incompetence.

Where is the part they say will put Hillary behind bars where she belongs. Without that it really doesn't matter.

The 270 Marines who lost their lives to Ronald Reagan's incompetence didn't get this kind of investigation, don't you dare tell me its non-partisan and a fair inquiry. The only people unawares are you and a loony bin of others.

Oh fuck you if you think the stink of Marine deaths is too long ago to bring up. Its closer to thirty years and those boys wouldn't even be 50 years old now.

 

[JakeStarkey]

My wife asked today, as she looked at Trey Gowdy, as if he was trans-sexual. Not that there is anything wrong with that.

So, for the 10th or 11th time, Trey tells us nothing wrong has been found.

How informative you and your wife are.

That's a lie.

Clearly.

No woman would have your stinking ass.

Says the butch boy of spec ops.

 

[EriktheRed]

Bullshit. Absolute bullshit. You are part of America's problem right now. You care more about your inept candidate than you do about the lives of others that choose to represent us in different parts of the world. You could care less about the lives of Ambassador Stevens, Smith, Doherty, and Woods, who lost theirs, and the 30 others under attack because no plan was in place nor any action taken to help rescue them.

Your whole sick focus is on whether this will impact your candidate and your party.

If they had an ounce of truth they would have paraded it in front of the press and waved it in front of everyone's eyes. They didn't because they have nothing and never did. This was nothing more than a attempt to influence the election and if Democrats had not presented their report yesterday, you wouldn't have seen the Republican version for two or three more months.

Actually, it would appear that you don't really care. The only reason you pretend to is because of who it's supposed to make look bad. Thankfully, it's only in your wingnut bubble that this is such a huge catastrophe.

 

[JakeStarkey]

No criminal charges can be brought based on the 11 investigations.

 

[daws101]

Funny you care about those boys, yet not these four...

Deflection once again. That was almost 40 years ago. Today it is about Benghazi.

Of course, unless there were charges, you could give a flying f*** about the lives lost due to gross incompetence.

Where is the part they say will put Hillary behind bars where she belongs. Without that it really doesn't matter.

The 270 Marines who lost their lives to Ronald Reagan's incompetence didn't get this kind of investigation, don't you dare tell me its non-partisan and a fair inquiry. The only people unawares are you and a loony bin of others.

Oh fuck you if you think the stink of Marine deaths is too long ago to bring up. Its closer to thirty years and those boys wouldn't even be 50 years old now.

Lol!

 

[Juan de Fuca]

Wrong, wrong, wrong, Chris Stevens was dead within four hours, there was nothing that anyone could do and the fact that you are still holding on to this factoid after being debunked two years ago, merely displays your ignorance of the subject. Read up or go home.

Of course Stevens and another was dead but the response team could have been there toot sweet. And for 20 years I was on emergency response teams with several successful missions so don't even try to educate me on what the fuck the military can or can't do, Peaches.

Stop right there. You were not in the middle of Syria in bumfuck Benghazi, so you have no idea what the military could do or when they could do it. This subject was the main item in a number of reports and was thoroughly investigated and debunked.
“Quite the contrary: the safe evacuation of all U.S. government personnel from Benghazi twelve hours after the initial attack and subsequently to Ramstein Air Force Base was the result of exceptional U.S. government coordination and military response,” the independent Accountability Review Board concluded in its Dec. 18, 2012, report.

The “U.S. military performed well in responding to the attacks,” the House Armed Services Committee said in a February 2014 report. Separately, the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence said in its November 2014 report that the CIA — which was first on the scene of the attack — responded in a “timely and appropriate manner.”

Extremists armed with small arms, machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades and mortars attacked the diplomatic facility at about 9:42 p.m. Benghazi time on Sept. 11, 2012, according to a Defense timeline. In about 17 minutes after the attack, the Defense Department diverted an unmanned surveillance drone to Benghazi, the timeline says. At about the same time, the chief of a CIA annex near the Benghazi diplomatic facility was making preparations to send a team of seven to assist in a rescue operation.

At 10:04 p.m., the CIA team departed in two armored vehicles, arriving at the facility at 10:25 p.m. and immediately engaging in a 15-minute firefight with the extremists, according to abipartisan report issued December 30, 2012, by the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.

The House intelligence committee report said that “some Annex team members wanted urgently to depart the Annex for the TMF to save their State Department colleagues,” but the Annex chief “ordered the team to wait so that the seniors on the ground could ascertain the situation at the TMF and whether they could secure heavy weaponry support from local militias.”

This order to wait has been described by some as a “stand down” order, but it was not. The Republican-controlled House intelligence committee said that based on all the evidence, “the Annex leadership deliberated thoughtfully, reasonably, and quickly.”

House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Nov. 21, 2014: The evidence from eyewitness testimony, ISR video footage, closed-circuit television recordings, and other sources provides no support for the allegation that there was any stand-down order. Rather, there were mere tactical disagreements about the speed with which the team should depart prior to securing additional security assets.

A bipartisan Senate intelligence committee report released on Jan. 15, 2014, reached the same conclusion.

Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Jan. 15: The Committee explored claims that there was a “stand down” order given to the security team at the Annex. Although some members of the security team expressed frustration that they were unable to respond more quickly to the Mission compound, the Committee found no evidence of intentional delay or obstruction by the Chief of Base or any other party.

At about midnight Benghazi time, a little more than two hours after the attack began, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta gathered top military leaders at the Pentagon to discuss military options, according to the Defense timeline. (We will get back to Panetta’s decisions later.)

While military leaders convened at the Pentagon, a six-man security team from the U.S. embassy in Tripoli, including two military personnel, departed for Benghazi at about 12:30 a.m. Rear Adm. Brian Losey, commander at the time of Special Operations Command Africa, did not send all the security forces stationed in Tripoli. He ordered Army Lt. Col. S.E. Gibson’s team to remain in Tripoli to protect the U.S. embassy in the event of an attack there, according to the House Armed Services Committee report.

Gibson was initially “visibly upset” that his team was not dispatched to Benghazi along with the other team from Tripoli, the House report said. A colleague described Gibson as being “furious” at the time at having been ordered to “stand down.” But “Gibson made it clear to the committee that ‘in hindsight’ he believes remaining in Tripoli was appropriate,” the House report said.

“I was not ordered to stand down. I was ordered to remain in place,” Gibson told the House Armed Services Committee. ” ‘Stand down’ implies that we cease all operations, cease all activities. We continued to support the team that was in Tripoli.”

The Tripoli team arrived in Benghazi in about an hour, but it was delayed at the airport “for at least three hours,” according to the Senate homeland security committee report. The committee said the delay “merits further inquiry” to determine if it was merely part of the “chaotic environment” at the time or “was it part of a plot to keep American help from reaching the Americans under siege in Benghazi.” It turned out to be the result of the “chaotic environment,” not “part of a plot.”

The Senate intelligence committee later said in its report that the Tripoli team was trying to locate Stevens before leaving the airport. There had been reports that Stevens may have been at the Benghazi Medical Center, but Libyans were concerned about security at the hospital and feared the Americans could be lured into an ambush, the committee report said.

“After more than three hours of negotiations and communications with Libyan officials … the Libyan government arranged for the Libyan Shield Militia to provide transportation and an armed escort from the airport” to the CIA Annex, the Senate intelligence committee report said.

The Tripoli team arrived at the CIA Annex at 5:04 a.m., “about ten minutes before a new assault by the terrorists began, involving mortar rounds fired at the Annex,” according to the Senate homeland security report. That attack resulted in the deaths of Annex security team members Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty, the report said. Libyan forces arrived at the Annex at 6 a.m. with 50 vehicles and transported the remaining Americans to the airport, where they would be evacuated by plane to Tripoli in two trips at 7:40 a.m. and 10 a.m. enroute ultimately to Germany.

Where was the U.S. military?

Panetta’s midnight meeting (Benghazi time) at the Pentagon lasted until about 2 a.m. After the meeting, Panetta took several actions. He agreed to send one Marine Fleet Antiterrorism Security Team platoon stationed in Rota, Spain, to Benghazi and another to Tripoli. He also directed two special operations forces — one from Central Europe and another based in the United States — to depart for a staging base in Italy, according to the Defense timeline and the Senate homeland security report. None of those troops reached Benghazi in time.

“[T]here simply was not enough time given the speed of the attacks for armed U.S. military assets to have made a difference,” as the independent Accountability Review Board said in its report. But other rescue efforts did make a difference.

The ARB report, which was released Dec. 18, 2012, said “every possible effort was made to protect, rescue and recover Ambassador Stevens and Sean Smith.” Smith, a State Department information management officer, also died in the attack at the diplomatic mission.

Accountability Review Board: The interagency response was timely and appropriate, but there simply was not enough time given the speed of the attacks for armed U.S. military assets to have made a difference. Senior-level interagency discussions were underway soon after Washington received initial word of the attacks and continued through the night. The Board found no evidence of any undue delays in decision making or denial of support from Washington or from the military combatant commanders. Quite the contrary: the safe evacuation of all U.S. government personnel from Benghazi twelve hours after the initial attack and subsequently to Ramstein Air Force Base was the result of exceptional U.S. government coordination and military response and helped save the lives of two severely wounded Americans.

The ARB was led by Thomas R. Pickering, who was U.S. ambassador to the United Nationsunder President George H.W. Bush, and retired Navy Adm. Michael Mullen, who served as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush. Although there has been some criticism of the board in conservative circles, the State Department inspector general’s office issued a report in September 2013 that reviewed the board’s operations in general and its work specifically on Benghazi, and concluded that the ARB “operates as intended — independently and without bias.”

In a press conference on the board’s report, Mullen addressed the military’s inability to mobilize its assets quickly enough to defend the Benghazi facility. He said that “it is not reasonable, nor feasible, to tether U.S. forces at the ready to respond to protect every high-risk post in the world.”

There was, however, an increase in military protection of U.S. diplomatic facilities after the Benghazi attacks. A Congressional Research Service report dated July 30, 2014, said that “the U.S. Marine Security Guard posted detachments to 152 U.S. diplomatic facilities around the world as of September 2012; 35 new Marine Guard detachments were requested by the department after the Benghazi attacks.”

There is no question that mistakes were made prior to Sept. 11, 2012, that left the U.S. facilities in Benghazi vulnerable to attack. Multiple investigative reports document those mistakes. Boehner and Benghazi

The Senate homeland security report said the State Department made a “grievous mistake” in keeping the Benghazi facility open given the “dangerous threat environment” in Benghazi in the months leading up to the attack. The ARB report said “systemic failures” and leadership “deficiencies” caused the State Department to ignore “repeated requests” for additional security staffing in Libya, leaving the Benghazi facility “grossly inadequate to deal with the attack.” (Which goes to another of Boehner’s questions: “Why wasn’t the security for our embassy in Libya, the extra security, given to the ambassador after repeated requests?”)

But as far as the night of the attack? The consensus is that the rescue attempts were carried out in a timely manner under difficult circumstances. For Boehner to ask “why didn’t we attempt to rescue” Americans under attack and why were some U.S. personnel “told not to get involved” ignores the evidence.
Boehner and Benghazi

Old info and data. Ramstein is a hell of a lot further than Aviano. And the military can alert a response team and they can be airborne quickly. Not minutes but a couple hours. The Air Force had planes scrambled but they never got word to move. Why was that?

I thought you were knowledgeable about the military side of this thing. Aviano, Italy is almost the maximum distance a F-16 can fly. With most tankers committed to Afghanistan how did you expect them to find an available tanker on short notice and how did you expect to commit crew, arm the jet and be on the way in the time necessary to save Ambassador Stevens? You can't and is why this was debunked a long time ago. This is very shocking and disturbing to me that after four years you people are screaming the same original talking points. You learned nothing in all that time.

The aircraft were on STRIP ALERT. Which means they were armed and ready to go. Egypt has airborne tankers as do other friendlies in the area. I won't respond anymore to your complete ignorance, Boy Scout Hero.

You won't respond but I'll be there to straighten out every lie you try to project.

 

[Juan de Fuca]

Funny you care about those boys, yet not these four...

Deflection once again. That was almost 40 years ago. Today it is about Benghazi.

Of course, unless there were charges, you could give a flying f*** about the lives lost due to gross incompetence.

Where is the part they say will put Hillary behind bars where she belongs. Without that it really doesn't matter.

The 270 Marines who lost their lives to Ronald Reagan's incompetence didn't get this kind of investigation, don't you dare tell me its non-partisan and a fair inquiry. The only people unawares are you and a loony bin of others.

Oh fuck you if you think the stink of Marine deaths is too long ago to bring up. Its closer to thirty years and those boys wouldn't even be 50 years old now.

You should care about them too and the fact that you have nothing to say about that failure sums you up.

 

[JakeStarkey]

depootoo does not care about the dead four at all

it is only a talking point for him