The CIA rushed security operatives to an American diplomatic compound in Libya within 25 minutes after it had come under attack and played a more central role in the effort to fend off a night-long siege than has been publicly acknowledged, U.S. intelligence officials said Thursday.
The agency mobilized the evacuation effort, took control of an unarmed U.S. military drone to map possible escape routes, dispatched an emergency security team from Tripoli, the capital, and chartered aircraft that ultimately carried surviving U.S. personnel to safety on Sept. 12, U.S. officials said.
The account, which was provided to news organizations Thursday by senior U.S. intelligence officials, is the most detailed chronology presented so far of an attack that killed the U.S. ambassador to Libya and three other Americans, including two CIA security officers. The attack has become a flash point in the U.S. presidential campaign.
The decision to provide a comprehensive account of the attack five days before the election is likely to be regarded with suspicion, particularly among Republicans who have accused the Obama administration of misleading the public by initially describing the assault as a spontaneous eruption that began as a protest of an anti-Islamic video.
U.S. officials said they decided to offer a detailed account of the CIA’s role, however, to rebut media reports that have suggested that agency leaders delayed sending help to State Department officials seeking to fend off a heavily armed mob.
Instead, U.S. intelligence officials insisted that CIA operatives in Benghazi and Tripoli made decisions rapidly throughout the assault with no interference from Washington, even while acknowledging that CIA security forces were badly outmatched and largely unable to mobilize Libyan security teams until it was too late.
Among the new disclosures is that the CIA station chief in Tripoli sent an emergency security force, with about a half-dozen agency operatives as well as two U.S. military personnel, to Benghazi aboard a hastily chartered aircraft while the attack was underway.
The CIA team attempted to organize an effort to make its way to a hospital where U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens had been taken and was thought to be still alive. But the team was held up by Libyan officials at the airport and scrapped the plan to reach Stevens after learning that the security situation at the hospital was uncertain.
U.S. officials also formally acknowledged for the first time that the annex in Benghazi to which U.S. diplomatic personnel were evacuated was a CIA base that the agency had established as its first stronghold in Libya before autocrat Moammar Gaddafi was overthrown late last year.
Complete and total BS on behalf of the failing Obama administration.
Forces were ready to go to ground to defend the consulate in Benghazi, and were told to stand down by the White House.
According to this report, yesterday (27 October) Obama ordered the immediate removal of Rear Admiral Charles M. Gaouette from his command of the powerful Carrier Strike Group Three (CSG-3) currently located in the Middle East.
CSG-3 is one of five US Navy carrier strike groups currently assigned to the US Pacific Fleet. US Navy carrier strike groups are employed in a variety of roles, which involve gaining and maintaining sea control and projecting power ashore, as well as projecting naval airpower ashore.The aircraft carrier USS John C. Stennis (CVN-74) is the strike group’s current flagship, and as of 2012, other units assigned to Carrier Strike Group Three include Carrier Air Wing Nine; the guided-missile cruisers USS Mobile Bay (CG-53) and USS Antietam (CG-54); and the ships of Destroyer Squadron 21, the guided-missile destroyers USS Wayne E. Meyer (DDG-108), USS Dewey (DDG-105), USS Kidd (DDG-100), and USS Milius (DDG-69).US news reports on Obama’s unprecedented firing of a powerful US Navy Commander during wartime state that Admiral Gaouette’s removal was for “allegations of inappropriate leadership judgment” that arose during the strike group’s deployment to the Middle East.This GRU report, however, states that Admiral Gaouette’s firing by President Obama was due to this strike force commander disobeying orders when he ordered his forces on 11 September to “assist and provide intelligence for” American military forces ordered into action by US Army General Carter Ham, who was then the commander of the United States Africa Command (AFRICOM), against terrorist forces attacking the American Consulate in Benghazi, Libya.General Ham had been in command of the initial 2011 US-NATO military intervention in Libya who, like Admiral Gaouette, was fired by Obama. And as we can, in part, read from US military insider accounts of this growing internal conflict between the White House and US Military leaders:“The information I heard today was that General [Carter] Ham as head of Africom received the same e-mails the White House received requesting help/support as the attack was taking place. General Ham immediately had a rapid response unit ready and communicated to the Pentagon that he had a unit ready.General Ham then received the order to stand down. His response was to screw it, he was going to help anyhow. Within 30 seconds to a minute after making the move to respond, his second in command apprehended General Ham and told him that he was now relieved of his command.
Not only should Obama not be relected, he should be impeached and tried for treason.
Thank you Nick Danger.
Obama lied.
People died.
Then Obama lied again.
You’re not very creative are you?
Obama 2012.
Have a blessed day.
I do my best to get the truth out there.
And you?
“General Ham then received the order to stand down. His response was to screw it, he was going to help anyhow.”
The people who should be tried for treason are the republican’s and their surrogates who are politicizing this event. Disobeying a direct order is cause for firing.
If the republican’s want to investigate a real event let them start by investigating 9/11 or Tora Bora or Cheney’s thugs going to CIA every day to make sure the analysis fit the plan of attacking Iraq. The $9 billion missing money at the pentagon and on and on.
This “event” was was a predictable response to our actions in Libya. It was planned for by the very people who repelled the attack. The only treasonous act is the attempt by the republican’s to politicize it.
Let me see if I got it correct.
We spend $600 billion a year on the military. We’ve got over 5,000 airplanes, 8,000 tanks and 1.5 million soldiers, and the terrorists murder our ambassador and three of our military (two retired) in Benghazi, Libya, because we can’t defend one building. And you want me to vote to reelect Obama to run the military?
You must be insane!
The security plan was put in place by the experts and it in fact worked. The CIA people in the Annex were able to repel the attack with only 3 casualties. (2 were killed) The ambassador and Smith became separated from Seal attempting to lead them to safety through the thick smoke and were apparently overcome. They were not shot, in fact the ambassador was carried to the hospital where they attempted to revive him.
The idea that we can just bomb people into oblivion whenever we want to is insane. We would likely have suffered more casualties from friendly fire.
How you can blame Obama for a security plan developed by the very people who had to defend it defies logic.
I’ll repeat what I said to another apologist;
“I guess I’m just a RESULTS kind of guy.Sorry.”
and I’ll repeat what I’ve said to many “results” kind of guys. If the results your going for is to kill innocent civilians, women and children as a cover for failed US foreign policy which has increased US national security threats while destroying our own economy there are many of us who disagree.
US foreign policy has already produced millions of deaths between the sanctions and then the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan. The only results your approach has produced is 6,000 American soldiers deaths and 50,000 wounded at a cost of #3.2 trillion. With American’s like you, who needs Al Qaeda?
So, what you’re saying is that four more dead Americans won’t really matter, then.
Truly disgusting.
It matters, just not enough for the republican’s to politicize. That’s the truly disgusting thing.
And you get this information from? Sounds more like right-wing bs to me. Not the firing but the the rest. Ham deserved to be canned. Naturally you won’t believe the CIA involvement because it simply doesn’t jive with you beliefs. Facts seem to matter so little to right-wingers.
I guess I’m just a RESULTS kind of guy.
Sorry.
And the crap coverup continues, this time with the actual ASSISTANCE of the corrupt media.
“…But the team was held up by Libyan officials at the airport and scrapped the plan to reach Stevens after learning that the security situation at the hospital was uncertain” doesn’t sound like a very forceful rescue effort.
Held up by Libyan officials ??Kinda makes you say, huh , WTF are you talking about…Just raises even more questions…What did they do , forget to say , mother may I ??Good God…This whole MESS sounds like it was run by F-Troop and Maxwell Smart..
By this time it was a bit late to do anything don’t you think? Stevens was already in the hospital by then. Libya is an independant country you know where this country can’t simply send our troops in without permission. Oh, yes, I forgot. This is the U.S. we can send our troops anywhere I guess.
Oh dang!
Just think of the fallout from the US offending those poor Libyans.
My goodness, Obama would have to make a special trip over there to appologize…….again.
He might have the time if it wasn’t for all those pesky campaign trips, like the one he went on THE VERY NEXT MORNING to Las Vegas.
“The attack has become a flash point in the U.S. presidential campaign.” Only because certain media has made it so. Fox has been going on about it for weeks. Boner’s committee should be called the “make mountains out of molehills committee.”
Read the transcripts. The ambassador and Smith got separated from the Seal leading them to safety in the thick smoke. The later attack on the annex was a well organized, well planned hit and run that killed the other two Seals. The two dozen CIA people fended off the attack and got to safety at the airport. It was there that they learned that the ambassador was dead and at the hospital. How were they to know if it was a set up to draw them back to the hospital?
These were all combat Seals making decisions on the ground. All of them had been in country for long enough to know what they were doing.
The only treasonous act is on the part of republican’s trying to use this to get their loser elected so they can create more of these situations.
You expect conservatives to believe that? It doesn’t fit with their beliefs so it’s obviously not factual. Oh yes facts don’t matter anyway with the teaparties do they.
Former Navy seals. That went into that situation fully expecting someone to have their back. (Obama)
That someone hung them out to dry. (Obama)
That same someone needs to go. (Obama)
He was on the golf course. I can still hear the words of the Navy Seals father and brother and they deserve the truth. The truth Will come out one day soon. Apparently the liberal press failed to air that interview. Just another showing of media bias.
As much ‘stuff’ as I am going to catch, someone needs to defend the Agency. The CIA’s Station Chief’s are human, They are also, regretably, required to clear almost everything they do with DC. Libya happened and developed so fast that it was impossible to clear each and everything that had to be done w/ DC. Anyone who’s served in the military and had a micro-manager Company or Squadron Commander with a hand up their keester knows the reality’s, and inevitable conequences, of that.
That the Tripoli Station Chief sent his people, BEFORE HE CALLED DC, to Benghazi tells me that someone in the Agency is finally getting beyond the ‘Simon Say’s’ or ‘Mother , may I’ level of managing asset’s thinking the the Agency has been plagued with over the last 15 to 20 years. Instead of complaining and whining, Patraeus needs to recall the Tripoli Station Chief and promote them as a way of, once and for all, getting the ghosts of Bush and Cheney off the back of the Agency and letting the Agency’s people know, publicly, that they are expected, and will be supported, to use their own judgement when things go deep ‘doo-doo’ regardless of who is siting in the White House. It’s also more than time for the Senate and House Intell. Committee’s to get off the backs of these field agent’s and realize that not everything happens like DC wants on a clean, set-piece schedule that’s good for the Sunday morning press show’s. Life does not run with the like some operations manual. The people in the field know that. It’s time that the press, and the politician’s in DC, learned that lesson. It’s the least we all can do in memory of Chris Stevens and the other’s.
WOW.
Mike
You’re really starting to “get it”.
Welcome to the independant thinkers circle.
Horse out of the barn.
CIA takes charge?
What happened to our own official Mighty Military?
Marine detachments and that type of thing.
It still all went terribly wrong on our Presidents watch.
And reports indicate he was watching it all go wrong.
Faux News reports, lol.
Actually , I think I read about most of this in our beloved BDN.
I dont have cable so I may not be as up to speed as some of the others.