About 30 minutes into the attack, a quick reaction force from the CIA Annex ignored orders to wait and raced to the compound, at times running and shooting their way through the streets just to get there. Inside the compound, they repelled a force of as many as 60 armed terrorists** and managed to save five American lives** and recover the body of Foreign Service Officer Sean Smith. They were forced to fight their way out before they could find the ambassador.
I believe adaher’s “b) that lives were saved only because heroic individuals disobeyed orders or acted without orders” refers to this part of the transcript. Now - what is the “significant problem” with the interpretation that you see?
Yes, that. There are two problems that I have with that. First, it is a completely unsourced assertion. What evidence is that based on? There’s nothing at all in the story that I can see. Secondly, it is said later in the script: “The Americans who rushed to help that night went without asking for permission…”.
So, was there an order not to go, or was there simply no request made? The story doesn’t seem clear and the assertions don’t rest on any evidence in the story.
So then - you have a problem with the story. Yet you said that you had a problem with adaher’s interpretation of it. Which one is it? That is, where did adaher interpret it incorrectly?
He omitted the part that was inconsistent with his desired interpretation, and his characterization in part a) of his post is a complete fabrication. There is nothing to suggest that the administration lied about the knowledge it had at the time re: the initiation of the attack.
Of course, since you have stepped in to serve as his proxy, you can explain his point a). Right?
Green Beret Commander, Lieutenant Colonel Andy Wood, was one of the top American security officials in Libya. Based in Tripoli, he met with Amb. Stevens every day.
The last time he went to Benghazi was in June, just three months before the attack. While he was there, al Qaeda tried to assassinate the British ambassador. Wood says, to him, it came as no surprise because al Qaeda – using a familiar tactic – had stated their intent in an online posting, saying they would attack the Red Cross, the British and then the Americans in Benghazi.
Lara Logan: And you watched as they–
Andy Wood: As they did each one of those.
Lara Logan: --attacked the Red Cross and the British mission. And the only ones left–
Andy Wood: Were us. They made good on two out of the three promises. It was a matter of time till they captured the third one.
Lara Logan: And Washington was aware of that?
Andy Wood: They knew we monitored it. We included that in our reports to both State Department and DOD.
Here’s my problem. What happened at Benghazi was clearly a tragedy. The security clearly wasn’t up to what should have been there, and people died because of it. That is clearly a bad thing.
But that’s not what the Republican’s told us it was about. Rather than focus on the poor security, they pronounced it a grand conspiracy/coverup and instead of focusing on determining what went wrong and how to avoid it happening again, they turned it into a partisan witch hunt and blew whatever credibility they had on the issue.
I suspect that the reason for that was that the Republicans didn’t want to have to answer questions about their voting to not fully fund the State department’s security requests, or have the spectre of the 13 attacks to embassies/consulates that occurred while Bush was in office be raised again. Rather than deal with something that was a bad thing as grownups and try to ensure that it doesn’t happen again, the entire Benghazi story turned into partisan pissing contest and a bunch of sound and fury.
Benghazi should not have happened, but by pretending it was something it wasn’t, and by not dealing with it like grownups, the Republicans took the focus away from where it should have been, on protecting our State Department employees and military from terrorist attacks.
I’m sorry, I’m not seeing anything wildly at odds with what is already known about the Benghazi attack, nor do I see anything that State might have done differently once the attack was launched. There cartainly are problems with how seriously intelligence was taken suggesting an attack was being planned, but that surely is already well-known to anyone who has followed the issue.
It has been widely reported that Amabassador Stevens was fully aware of the possibility of an attack on the compound, but went to Benghazi anyway. Did State advise against this? The CBS piece does not address this point.
Regarding the “lives saved by defying orders” statement by the OP, we have this:
OK, this doesn’t seem to have gotten much play previously. But orders from whom? Doesn’t say, nor does provide enough of a timeline to gauge wheter this action would have have any real influence on Ambassador Stevens’ sad fate.
I’ve got to say, this is where I miss print journalism, where I have to think these sorts of significant details would more likely be addressed.
Anyway, if someone believes that there is some sort of (forgive me) smoking gun here that indicts the administration, or perhaps just Mrs. Clinton, regarding the Benghazi attack, please explain what it is; I’m just not seeing it.
Administration knew about the threats, and knew that this was the third threat out of three and the first two were already carried out. So when it happened, to claim that it was just a “spontaneous demonstration” was disingenuous at best.