No intelligence?
Leon Panetta argued yesterday that help was denied to the besieged U.S. personnel in Benghazi because of a lack of intel. Jennifer Griffin of Fox News reports otherwise today. The two SEALS who were later killed were told twice to stand down, but went (with two others) to help the consulate personnel anyway. Fighting continued at the CIA annex for four hours after the survivors were evacuated from the consulate. A security officer operating a machine on the roof of the CIA annex "had a laser on the [terrorist mortar position] that was firing and repeatedly requested back-up support from a Specter gunship, which is commonly used by U.S. Special Operations forces to provide support to Special Operations teams on the ground involved in intense firefights." Mortar fire killed the two SEALs. Communications were intact; it was the response that was missing.
Investor's Business Daily has a related editorial on this.
ReplyDeleteJack Keane (that one, the retired four-star Army Vice Chief of Staff) has a superficially reasonable take that air assets would have been hamstrung by lack of clear target ID. My take on that is that, even so (arguendo; this USAF Weapons Controller doesn't buy the lack of target ID), buzzing the area with F-16s (an hour away in this six-hour+ fight) might have scattered the terrorists, if only temporarily, and given simultaneous helicopter assets cover to extract our people and/or insert reinforcements.
But the guy who occasionally sits in our President's chair (and never in the CinC's chair) was too preoccupied with his own political risks to act.
Eric Hines
The big question in the household here is "Where is Director Petraeus"?
ReplyDeleteWilliam sends.
That's something I'd like to know. If he knew all this and has said and done nothing (like resign over it...), I will have lost an enormous amount of respect for the man....
ReplyDeleteIt just gets better and better.
ReplyDeleteIt appears that the amateur Panetta knows so little that he's forced to rely, by rote, on the checklist, or he's covering for the Amateur in Chief who doesn't give a s*. The one is a disaster; the other is shameful.
As to Gen Petraeus, that was his chain of command that told the CIA personnel not to respond.
On Gen Keane's concern about the lack of eyes on the target, perhaps he wasn't aware of this:
Fox News has learned that there were two military surveillance drones redirected to Benghazi shortly after the attack on the consulate began. They were already in the vicinity. The second surveillance craft was sent to relieve the first drone.... Both were capable of sending real time visuals back to U.S. officials in Washington, D.C. Any U.S. official or agency with the proper clearance, including the White House Situation Room, State Department, CIA, Pentagon and others, could call up that video in real time on their computers.
I'd like to see what the drones saw.
This is beginning to work out to some form of manslaughter by our command facility.
Eric Hines
"My take on that is that, even so (arguendo; this USAF Weapons Controller doesn't buy the lack of target ID), buzzing the area with F-16s (an hour away in this six-hour+ fight) might have scattered the terrorists, if only temporarily, and given simultaneous helicopter assets cover to extract our people and/or insert reinforcements.
ReplyDeleteBut the guy who occasionally sits in our President's chair (and never in the CinC's chair) was too preoccupied with his own political risks to act."
In summary, that IMO, just about covers the DOS/POTUS angles. *spit*
William and Miss LB cover the rest of the terrain.
Allowing my imagination to run loose for a moment, I have to say that it would be nice to load up a couple of C-17's with selected politicos on board and then deposit them via parachutes into the middle of Damascus or Tehran with No Deposit, No Return tags stapled on to each ones arse.
With leadership like the present excuse for same, who needs enemies?
...be nice to load up a couple of C-17's with selected politicos on board and then deposit them via parachutes into the middle of Damascus or Tehran with No Deposit, No Return tags....
ReplyDeleteNot so nice. Waste of perfectly good parachutes.
Eric Hines
Heh. Must be my humanitarian bent or maybe my inner cypher telling me that the expense of chutes when tallied against their corrupt expenditures of blood, sweat, and tears is more than worth the cost.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, and given the character of the subjects who should be relocated, you've a point, forget the chutes.
Well if you want to be humanitarian (and I have no real objection to that), let them buy their own wing suits.
ReplyDeleteEric Hines
I will defer this matter to the discussion at BLACKFIVE. I am not taking part in it, as you will probably notice; the matter is one I don't feel ready to engage. There are some critical issues unclear as yet.
ReplyDeleteOther reports indicate that we had a laser sighted on the (AlQuaeda) howitzer. AND that a CIA operative (ex-SF) was told NOT to shoot the howitzer operator(s) with his machine gun.
ReplyDeleteFurther, CIA denies that anyone in CIA told operatives to 'stand down.'
That means that Gen Petraeus has pointed the finger directly at POTUS/VPOTUS or SecDef.
At the risk of sounding like a conspiracy theory geek it's starting to sound like a job w/a strong 5th column. I have too many outstanding questions that will likely never be answered to know who it is, but I now have to question the spine every military commander who might have heard any of the traffic and been able to respond as well as the loyalty of State {no surprise there}, CIA {some surprise there}, and the executive branch {again, no real surprise irregardless of who is in power}. This is shaping up to be worse than the Blackhawk scenario in Somalia. That was simple bureaucratic incompetence for the most part, this is.... more sinister and brings questions of faith into play....
ReplyDeleteYMMV
William sends.
"There are some critical issues unclear as yet."
ReplyDeleteSo, while it's true that since it was a CIA annex, there were things going on we ought not know about, we already know about the existence of the annex, so we can discuss it without getting into sensitive particulars. Given that, Why is it the picture is still so unclear as yet? Doesn't the President owe us some clarity on the issue? If so, isn't he failing on that account, and doesn't the really lousy lying about the movie as cause suggest cover-up? That seems reasonable to me, and if there is no coming clean to be had soon, I'm going with cover up.