The Reason Why No Air Power was Scrambled to Benghazi?

[bripat9643]

If the terrorists were supplied a large cache of surface-to-air missiles by the rebels (originally given them by the U.S.), then could the Pentagon, State Department and White House risk having an aircraft shot down by them?

There was no reason to believe that the Ambassador was dead until after the decision had been made not to send the planes in during the initial attack. The resumption of the attack at the CIA annex put them in a bind. If they sent planes in during the second phase of the attack, surely they would be questioned on why the planes weren't sent hours before. Plus, again, they may have lost an aircraft to terrorists using U.S. weapons.

 

[B. Kidd]

No drone (Obamas preferred kill method) in the area?

 

[AmyNation]

Did you not catch the answer to this question during the testimony?

 

[B. Kidd]

Did you not catch the answer to this question during the testimony?

Missed it.
What was the 'truth'?

 

[AmyNation]

Did you not catch the answer to this question during the testimony?

Missed it.
What was the 'truth'?

I'm gonna just quote g5000, since this question has been asked and answered in a dozen different threads.

Q: I just wanted to ask, you mentioned permission from the Libyans. Why is that important? What did you mean by that?

A: Well, it's their country. And for an American military aircraft to fly over their country, we have to have permission from them to do so.

Q: So you had mentioned that the first team from Tripoli to Benghazi arrived at 1:15?

A: Right.

The two men killed at the annex were from this first rescue team.

Q: And was there a second team that was organized? Could you tell us about the second team?

A: Right. The second team -- the Defense Attache worked assiduously all night long to try to get the Libyan military to respond in some way. Early in the morning -- sorry, after we were formally notified by the Prime Minister, who called me, that Chris had passed, the Libyan military agreed to fly their C-130 to Benghazi and carry additional personnel to Benghazi as reinforcements. Because we at that time -- at that time, the third attack, the mortar attack at 5:15, had not yet occurred, if I remember correctly.

Q: So what time did the second rescue team ??

A: Well, again, they flew -- I think that flight took off sometime between 6:00 and 6:30 a.m.

The second attack was over by then. And notice he says the aircraft was the Libyan's aircraft. It was not ours.




Now I would like everyone to note that tinydancer said in the topic title that the second team was told "you can't go".

This feeds into the bullshit meme of a "stand down order".

However, here is what the guy actually said:

So Lieutenant Colonel Gibson, who is the SOCAFRICA commander, his team, you know, they were on their way to the vehicles to go to the airport to get on the C-130 when he got a phone call from SOCAFRICA which said, you can't go now, you don't have authority to go now. And so they missed the flight. And, of course, this meant that one of the ...

You can't go now. That is not a stand down order. That is a stand by order.

Permission was needed from the Libyans. It was their aircraft.

http://m.cbsnews.com/storysynopsis....go-to-benghazi-during-attacks/&catid=57583014

 

[Clementine]

Sorry, too late to come up with yet another lie about why they didn't act. They already claimed they were waiting on Libya for permission to fly in. They should have been sharply criticized by Obama immediately if that was really the case. I think it's more bullshit and that is why we didn't hear about it until lately.

Witnesses said there were drones in the area.

Whoever is in charge of spinning things for the Obama administration right now is not doing their homework or they'd realize that many new statements contradict previous ones.

Some of us want the truth and if the truth was told in the beginning and now, all statements would be consistent. Not all of us have short term memories.