Saturday, October 27, 2012

Benghazi: The Obama Admin left them without support . . .


On the 11th Anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attack upon the United States by Islamic jihadists, the United States Mission in Libya located in Benghazi was attacked by Islamic militants.  Our Ambassador and three other U.S. personnel were killed.  In the aftermath of the attack, the Obama Administration had placed blame on a little known Youtube video.  Since, the Obama Administration has finally admitted that the attack was a coordinated attack by an armed force conducting a military operation against the U.S. Mission and the nearby CIA Annex. 
Fox News is reporting that the CIA team located approximately two blocks away from the American Mission building were in constant contact with their headquarters from the start of the attack on the American Mission in Benghazi.  They requested help from U.S. military sources three times through the CIA chain of command.   It is alleged that their superiors ordered them to stand down three times and not to go to the assistance of the State Dept. mission personnel.  However, this allegation is denied by General David Petraeus, Director of the CIA.

A statement attributed to CIA Director General David Petraeus reported by the Weekly Standard stated:  "No one at any level in the CIA told anybody not to help those in need; claims to the contrary are simply inaccurate."  Who then ordered the CIA personnel at the Annex not to go to the assistance of their fellow Americans under attack at the American Mission two blocks away?
Four CIA personnel disobeyed the orders to stand down and proceeded to the Mission building and rescued several personnel and recovered the body of Foreign Service Officer Sean Smith.  Ex-Navy Seals Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods were later killed in a mortar attack on the CIA annex two blocks from the State Dept. mission.

The entire attack was streamed live to the White House, the Pentagon, the State Department and the CIA from security cameras at the U.S. Mission.  There were at least two MQ-1 Predator drones overhead with live video coverage being provided from those sources.  The Predators may have been controlled by British pilots.  The British were given several drone aircraft for reconnaissance during the NATO involvement in indicting Ghadaffi's armed forces operating against the rebels.

The attack upon the Benghazi U.S. Mission and the nearby CIA Annex was conducted by an estimated 120 well armed jihadists.  Within two hours Ansar al-Sharia, the Al Qaeda group operating in Libya, was claiming responsibility for the attack.
The attack upon the U.S. Mission and the CIA Annex raged for 7 hours with reinforcements and tactical air support readily available at NAS Sigonella and elsewhere in the Middle East and Africa.  Elements of the USAF 177th Tactical Air Wing are stationed at Aviano AB in northern Italy, less than 2 hours away from Benghazi on full afterburner for F15s and F16s. 

The Benghazi Mission and CIA Annex were less than 2 hours away from NAS Signonella on Sicily.  NAS Signonella hosts NATO and USAF aircraft such as the AC130U Specter.  The AC130U is a heavily armed variant of the C130 tactical airlift aircraft that is armed with a 105mm cannon, a 40mm cannon and two 20mm gattling guns.  The Specter is used for precision air strikes and direct support of infantry and special forces ground operations.
Woods and Doherty were killed by a mortar strike at the CIA annex.  A battle raged there with CIA personnel calling for air support by a AC130U Specter gunship based at NAS Sigonella on Sicily 480 miles away.  Woods and Doherty were killed when a mortar shell hit their position.  CIA personnel manning a machine gun on the roof top informed their superiors by radio of the exact coordinates of the mortar shelling their position.   They had the mortar and its crew under direct observation the entire time.

Several military options appeared to be available to conduct rescue and security operations for the U.S. Mission and the CIA Annex. including at least three mission specific teams of special forces personnel, including members of Delta Force.  More U.S. Marine infantry resources were available at NAS Sigonella two hours away by C130.

Given the nature of the attacking forces, had American forces shown, the enemy would have departed the area.  The attackers were not military troops, but members of an Al Qaeda militia with poor training and light weapons consisting of AK47s, PPSH 57mm machine guns, RPGs, and at least one mortar.
The U.S. Consulate in Benghazi has been improperly deemed a Consulate.  The facility under attack did not rise to the level of a Consulate and was actually a U.S. Mission.  It has now been disclosed from various sources that Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens mission was to facilitate the delivery of arms to various rebel factions.  Arms that were delivered through the auspices of the Qatar, Saudi Arabian, and Turkish governments.  The attack on the mission occurred just after the departure of a Turkish official who had dinner with Ambassador Stevens.

It has been alleged that Ambassador Stevens was dealing directly with the Muslim Brotherhood and other radical Muslim groups to move arms into the hands of the various hard-line Islamist rebel groups operating in Libya.  Stevens was working with the Muslim Brotherhood to convey arms provided by Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey to radical Islamist rebel groups.
The CIA mission that Woods and Doherty were part of was charged with finding missing MANPADS, Russian SA-7 Grail man portable anti-aircraft missiles similar to the U.S. military's Stinger.  There are allegedly 20,000 Russian MANPAD missiles missing from Libyan military stockpiles.  The reason for the search is to account for these weapons to prevent them from being used against the U.S. military elsewhere in Africa, the Middle East and Africa.

Meanwhile, in the White House, Pentagon, and State Department, insulated from the death and destruction they were witnessing, Sec-State Hillary Clinton, President Obama, and SecDef Leon Pannetta began the spin that the attack was not what they were witnessing, but an act of 'spontaneous mob violence' over the Youtube video.  Even U.S. Ambassador to the U. N. Susan Rice was promoting this falsehood.  For whatever reason, the Obama Administration chose to lie about the Benghazi attack.  Perhaps to the hide the gun running mission of Ambassador Stevens in the face of "Fast and Furious"?

Who and at what level denied the American personnel under attack U.S. military assistance?  Who ordered the CIA personnel to 'stand down' three times during the fight, effectively acting to deny the Mission personnel under attack assistance until four brave men obeyed their conscience and oath and acted to go to the aid of their fellow Americans?  These men are true heroes.

Where was the U.S. military response during the attack?  SecDef Leon Panetta is now claiming that there was too little information to formulate a plan.  Instead, the Obama Administration let U.S. Sovereign territory, which the Mission was under international law, be violated with impunity by an Al Qaeda affiliated Islamist militia, resulting in the deaths of U.S. personnel without recourse, other than to say that those "responsible will be brought to justice", as if the attack was a convenience store robbery.

The President of the United States, the Secretary of State, and the Secretary of Defense have much to answer for in their failure to act upon Ambassador Stevens multiple requests for increased security, for their failure to act upon the intelligence provided by the Libyan interim government with respect to the potential for an impending attack, for their failure to act during the attack to protect U.S. personnel, and for their outrageous lies in the aftermath.  The lie of the 'spontaneous mob' motivated by a Youtube video was carried forward two weeks post the September 11th attack in Benghazi.
 
Additional security personnel were cheap insurance, why were they denied? 

What was Ambassador Stevens doing running guns to Islamist radical groups?

Once again, accountability is being denied by this administration.  Yet, there are four dead whose deaths demand action. 

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