The Washington Times reports that contrary
to what Barack Obama and Leon Panetta have said, there were 8 special forces commandos
in Tripoli the night of the attack, just 400 miles away. They were
made up of Delta Force, the country's
leading counterterrorism force and Green Berets. Two of the Delta Forces
volunteered to go to Benghazi, along with 5 private contractors. Both
have been quietly awarded medals for their bravery for turning back the
attackers.
Delta Force is
trained as a quick response force and assuming they could be ready in an hour,
they could have been in Benghazi within three hours. This bolsters testimony
given by Gregory Hicks that Lt Steve
Gibson was prepared to relieve Benghazi, but was told to stand down. Pentagon
spokesman, Major Rob Firman, stated:
“They weren’t told to stand
down. They were simply told not to go to Benghazi. They were told to go to the
airport in Tripoli to provide security there.”
The
administration was able to hide the involvement of Delta Force using vague
wording. The timeline mentioned that the relief flight from Tripoli contained
" two Department of Defense "
employees. The official State Department report on Benghazi mentioned "2
Department of Defense workers", but conveniently left out the fact that
they were special forces.
The Washington
Times reports that sources directly familiar with the attack, told them there
was a force of eight men made up of Delta Force and Green Berets, who were in
Tripoli to confiscate weapons and to abduct terrorists, as well as helping to
train Libyan forces.
The two special
operations soldiers arrived in time to drive the terrorists back and to avoid
further casualties. Both men were awarded medals for valor for the engagement.
One source told
the Times:
“Yes, we had special forces in Tripoli, and two in fact did
volunteer and engaged heroically in the efforts to save Americans. The others
were asked to stay behind to help protect Tripoli in case there was a
coordinated attack on our main embassy.
“The remaining [forces] were
ready to dispatch the next morning, but by that time American personnel had
been evacuated to the airport, local militias had provided additional security
and it was determined there was no need for them to be dispatched at that
point.”
The Pentagon
claims that they did not disclose the actions of the two commandos because we
didn't have a Status of Forces Agreement in place. But the Libyan government
warned of the attack and at that time was amendable to aiding the United
States.
That night has
become famous for what the administration and the Pentagon did not do, which is
to send troops and warplanes from outside the country.
The fact that
the two did make it to Benghazi, undercuts the carefully controlled message
from the White House in the weeks leading up to the election. The administration
has already admitted that parts of the story they told was
"misleading." What else is there we don't know?
Retired Army
Col. Ken Allard observed:
“On the one hand, it is an
indictment of the lack of contingency planning by both CIA and DoD, especially
given the rising threat profiles in Libya that were
well understood — and appropriately reported back to D.C. by agency reps on the
ground. So why weren’t there more than just two Delta Force guys to send? Above
all: Where were the air and naval resources that should have routinely been
included in any contingency planning worthy of the name?”
The originally
story put out by the White House through Susan Rice, was that it was a
demonstration against a twelve minute Internet film, even though they knew
almost immediately that it was terrorists. The administration also said there
were no assets in the area, which the latest revelations reveal as less than
honest.
Deputy Chief of
station in Tripoli, Gregory Hicks, sent the reinforcements in cooperation with
the CIA. That means on a night when Panetta claimed he didn't have enough
information to commit troops, Hicks thought he did.
There are no
official reports on what the two did, but we do know that another person from
that flight, ex-SEAL Glen Doherty, was on the roof manning a machine gun until
three mortar shells landed on the roof, killing him and Woods.
It looks like
someone has some explaining to do.
Source: Washington Times, October 30, 2013,
examiner.com
Suggested by the author
No comments:
Post a Comment