While Benghazi burned

Congress released thirty-some hours of testimony from the various military officers who had a hand in the behind-the-scenes actions on September 11th, 2012 in regards to the assault on the Benghazi consulate by al-Qaeda-linked insurgents that resulted in the deaths of four Americans. The Associated Press summarizes that redacted testimony;

DID MILITARY LEADERS INITIALLY BELIEVE THE TROUBLE RESULTED FROM A STREET PROTEST?

Some heard that, some didn’t; nothing was clear about events on the ground at first.

One of the earliest reports came from Ambassador Chris Stevens, who told his deputy in a phone call cut short: “We’re under attack.”

“We started calling it an attack from inception,” said Army Lt. Col. S.E. Gibson, who was at the U.S. Embassy in Tripoli. “We never referred to it as anything else.”

[…]

Over the two days when the attacks were occurring, there was “very, very little discussion that I can recall about why did this happen.” Ham said. “There just wasn’t time for that, frankly.”

So, the excuse just popped into the heads of the brain trust in the White House?

WAS A FOUR-MAN TEAM HEADED FOR BENGHAZI ORDERED TO STAND DOWN?

Technically, no, the team was not ordered, as some have asserted, to stand by as militants attacked Americans 600 miles away. But they were told not to go to Benghazi and instead to stay and protect personnel in Tripoli. In hindsight, the attacks were over by then, anyway.

[…]

One Libyan plane carrying a six-man U.S. security team already had taken off. Gibson wanted his group on the second chartered flight. He called the special operations command center for Africa to say they were heading to the airport.

He was told, “Don’t go. Don’t get on that plane.”

Yeah, well, that sounds like a “stand down” order to me.

It was not a stand-down order,” Gibson said. “It was not, ‘Hey, time for everybody to go to bed.’ It was, you know, ‘Don’t go. Don’t get on that plane. Remain in place.'”

“It was never an order to stand down,” Losey said. “It was an order to remain in place and continue to provide your security role in Tripoli.”

So, it’s matter of semantics, I guess.

COULD THE MILITARY HAVE DONE MORE?

Perhaps.

In hindsight, Ham said, he should have reached out to his Libyan contacts and other U.S. officials to get Americans evacuated from Benghazi faster. That might have saved the two lives that were lost hours after the first attack at the diplomatic post.

Category: Terror War