Friday, October 26, 2012

The Benghazi Scandal Worsens - Risk Aversion Results In A Complete Operational Failure (Update 3)

The Benghazi scandal just got much worse. I posted below that it appears that the decision to deny the requests for additional security in Benghazi made in the months prior to 9-11 was a political decision made at the Clinton / Obama level. Now Fox News has broken a story that, during the attack itself, one that lasted, on and off, over a period of seven hours, the consulate's multiple calls for assistance were refused by the 'chain of command' - that even though we had a drone on station providing real time intelligence and more than sufficient assets to provide a rapid and effective response. American lives were lost because of that it.

[Update: Bill Kristol, in a column linked at the bottom of this post, notes that the CIA has, in a denial made in response to the Fox News story below, "thrown Obama under the bus." Kristol makes the case that the decision to deny military support had to come directly from Obama.]

This from Fox News:


This part, referencing the "CIA chain of command," is unclear. Maybe the CIA station chief?




Although Fox uses the word "again," this is the first mention of a request for outside military support. What was the situation report, who did it go to, who had operational control of responsive assets, were they alerted, and who ultimately denied the request?

Moreover, the people on the ground in Benghazi were not operating in a vacuum. Everyone up the chain of command to Obama, would have been alerted of the attack soon after it began. Sec. of Def. Panetta, CIA Chief Petraeus, and Gen. Ham of the U.S. Africa Commmand (AFRICOM) would not have been just standing around waiting for reports. They would be conducting their own analysis of what the situation required. There would be contingency plans in place that would have been - and clearly were - activated. Special ops units were immediately deployed to Italy awaiting deployment to Libya - orders that never came.

Update 3: There is a rumor that Gen. Ham was in the midst of violating an order from Panetta and deploying his Spec Ops resources to Benghazi when he was stopped by his second in command who, so the story goes, informed Gen. Ham that he was immediately relieved of his command by Panetta. Is this true?

There is at least some evidence that would lend credence to the rumor. The prior commander of AFRICOM, Gen. Ward, served 3 1/2 years in that position. Sec. of Def. Panetta just announced seven days ago that Gen. David Rodriguez had been tapped as the new AFRICOM commander. Gen. Ham had only served in his position as AFRICOM Commander for 1 1/2 years. This would seem a very early exit indeed. The announcement gave no indication of what, if any, would be Gen. Ham's follow on assignment.

Further, per Protein Wisdom:

As I was typing this I heard John Bolton on Greta say that there are conflicting reports of General Ham’s comments on this tragedy and why a rapid response unit was not deployed. Bolton says someone needs to find out what Ham was saying on 9/11/12.

Indeed they do. To continue with the Fox News story:



That a "pentagon official" would mention that as an excuse is utterly ridiculous.  Whether or not a request for additional military support was communicated to the Pentagon is virtually meaningless. These are professionals paid to analyze and respond to a situation, not to wait with their thumbs up their collective asses to be told what to do by the people on the ground - people who may or may not even be aware of what assets are available.



If you have a target 'painted' with a laser, that means that our laser guided munitions can be fired from the air with pin point accuracy. We had weapons platforms within one to two hours of the target. An AC130 Spectre gunship would have ended that threat faster than the blink of an eye and with mimimal collateral damage. That none of these assets were launched is just utterly inexplicable.

Update 2: From a Special Ops commenter at Blackfive:

One of the former SEALs was actively painting the target. That means that Specter WAS ON STATION! Probably an AC130U. A ground laser designator is not a briefing pointer laser. You do not "paint" a target until the weapons system/designator is synched; which means that the AC130 was on station.



If that SEAL was actively "painting" a target; something was on station to engage! And the decision to stand down goes directly to POTUS.

Continuing with the Fox News story:



That is pure, unadulterated, absolute and utter bullshit. Panetta needs to be removed from office immediately. There were two military drones on station providing real time visual intelligence - that in addition to continuous ground reports. The most dangerous enemy asset was laser designated, for God's sake. Bottom line, Panetta had better real time intelligence than 99.99% of all military commanders in history have ever had when deploying troops. There is a pretty clear line between criticizing unconscionable operational failure and "monday morning quarterbacking." This failure to act was the former, it was was pure risk aversion that got our people killed.


Wow. Again, as an excuse, that one doesn't even begin to cut it. Our people in Benghazi had just suffered an attack from a sizable and organized militia group, our forces had taken casualties, and the Ambassador himself was MIA. So what, the fighting had stopped, so just let the survivors hang out there in their precarious position? You would want to immediately send security to stabilize the situation and protect the survivors just in case THE FIGHTING STARTED AGAIN!!!!!! Unbelievable.





Every single aspect of the Benghazi debacle stinks of scandal and failure. Each new revelation just compounds this travesty. The truth needs to be made known and people held accountable. I have no illusions that this will happen before Nov. 6, but this is one that should not and cannot be swept under the rug.

Update: The CIA has responded with a carefully worded statement, not denying that requests for more assistance were made during the firefight, but only that "[n]o one at any level in the CIA told anybody not to help those in need." As Bill Kristol, writing at the Weekly Standard, describes this statement, CIA Chief Gen. Petraeus just threw Obama under the bus. As Kristol explains the implications:



It would seem that all roads in this scandal lead to the Oval Office.


Ex-Dissident said...

Ok, you didn't respond to my earlier comment on this topic so I will ask again. Can the decision to send in a strike force that crosses international borders and originates from Italy be made without the approval of the Commander in Chief? If not, then either Obama denied the request for assistance or was unavailable. Asleep? He had an important fundraising function the next day, after all.

A thought I had on why assistance may have been denied, is that perhaps someone felt this attack was created to bring American soldiers into the area and possibly ambush. Perhaps there was fear of another team 6 like helicopter crash and mass casualty event, and just prior to elections. You pointed out that laser targeting would have allowed that mortar to be eliminated with minimal risk, so perhaps this is was not a real consideration.

Ex-Dissident said...

BTW, I usually check the popular stories on Google and Yahoo news pages....Not one word about Benghazi. Maybe they can bury it a bit longer.

GW said...

Vinny: I actually responded to your earlier comment by e-mail. I had inadvertently changed the comments settings, and your comment did not automatically show up. Sorry if you didn't receive it.

After listening to further analysis tonight on Fox News by Fred Barnes, I am pretty sure that going into Benghazi with outside military assets would have required the approval of Obama.

Benghazi is six hours ahead of our Eastern time zone, so presumably Obama would have been awake through virtually all of what transpired in Behngazi, including the final mortar attack at 4 a.m. on the annex.

I think that you are right, that the decision not to send in additional assets was pure risk aversion - including concern over shoulder fired surface to air missiles, some 20k of which are today unaccounted for in Libya. Ultimately, it was the chain of command voting present. CYA. Everyone of them should be drummed out of the service. It sickens me.

dave in boca said...

BTW, your comment settings seem to be malfunctioning as I have sent TWO responses without getting ONE up here on your comment board.......!

Ex-Dissident said...

What? 20,000 unaccounted for, shoulder held, surface to air missiles in Libya??? These things can take down commercial airlines. And we have to take off our shoes before boarding an airline. What the hell. Suddenly I don't feel like flying anymore.