Kobal2
July 5, 2016, 7:31pm
81
I really wish **Magiver was here. The result of a Bullitt-Magiver **strategizing & logistics session would be amazing .
Poysyn
July 5, 2016, 9:12pm
82
Several of us are now cracking up at work - thanks for this one
That’s a bunch of baloney and I don’t buy it.
It was requested by our guys on the ground who were dying, so apparently they thought it would help. Our guys were dying - are you saying that doesn’t matter?
As for F-16 range, if they couldn’t reach Benghazi for range and/or refueling reasons, then that should not have been part of the story. The movie implied that the jets could help, but were simply not sent.
Are you sure that actually happened? I’ve read a fair amount on Benghazi, and have not encountered a claim that the ground forces asked for a an F16 flyover, and some searching just now turned up nothing.
As for F-16 range, if they couldn’t reach Benghazi for range and/or refueling reasons, then that should not have been part of the story. The movie implied that the jets could help, but were simply not sent.
It makes the story more dramatic, if the intended theme is standing up to hopeless odds, being abandoned, or whatever. The same reason Selma made LBJ so indifferent to the civil rights cause: it served the story they wanted to tell, which isn’t the same as history.
It doesn’t matter, because they never said that. It was action adventure movie, not a documentary. Bunch a baloney to sell tickets.
No it wasn’t. It was asked by Sen. McCain, Rep. Issa, Rep. Kinzinger, Rep. Chaffetz , et al looking to score political talking points after the event.
Bullitt:
As for F-16 range, if they couldn’t reach Benghazi for range and/or refueling reasons, then that should not have been part of the story. The movie implied that the jets could help, but were simply not sent.
Asked and answered :
A report adopted by the eight Republican Members of the House Armed Services Committee in February 2014, concluded that “given their location and readiness status it was not possible to dispatch armed aircraft before survivors left Benghazi,” although it questioned why DOD did not prepare fighters for a prolonged or different attack.
The report also dismissed the deployment of an unarmed fighter aircraft from Aviano as a show of force, explaining that: “*n light of all these factors, majority members believe the use of unarmed aircraft, with no countermeasure capability, refueling arrangements, or targeting assistance, amidst a dangerous antiaircraft environment, would have offered only a small likelihood of benefitting those under attack. It makes sense that this remote option was apparently not more actively contemplated.”
Admiral Michael Mullen, Vice Chair of the independent Accountability Review Board and former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, testified repeatedly about how he personally examined this issue and determined that there was no ability to get an F-16 or another strike aircraft to Benghazi on the night of the attack. He explained that while “[t]here were plenty of assets moving” that night, there were “no planes sitting at the ready,” which meant that it would take “hours and hours” to get them combat-ready, including planning the mission, obtaining tanker support to fuel the planes, getting bomb racks, stetting the munitions, and getting permission from the host nation. He also added that NATO would not have been able to assist with the response, explaining: “I actually commanded NATO forces, and the likelihood that NATO could respond in a situation like that was absolutely zero.”
Brigadier General Scott Zobrist, who at the time was the Wing Commander of the 31st Fighter Wing at Aviano Air Base in northern Italy, and an experienced F-16 fighter pilot, told congressional staff that dispatching an unarmed fighter jet that night would have entailed an “incredible” risk and had the potential to “make the situation worse” because of the risk of a downed aircraft. He further explained: “I’m not sure that I would even, in my good military judgment, if I could let them do that. Nor do I think my commanders would ask me to do that because of the limitations, the probability of success would be so low and the risk would be so high.” He also explained his concerns about the effectiveness of using a strike aircraft in an urban environment at night to disperse a crowd, stating “from an F-16 pilot’s perspective, based on my experience, in F-16; or F-15E or any of our other fighter aircraft, would have limited effectiveness in dispersing a crowd or in an urban environment, especially with very little awareness.”
General Carter Ham, who at the time of the attacks was the Commander of U.S. Africa Command, briefed the House Armed Services Committee Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations on June 26, 2013 that in his military judgment close air support would not have made a difference that night:
“It was a very uncertain situation in an environment which we know we had an unknown surface-to-air threat with the proliferation particularly of shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles, many of which remain unaccounted for. But mostly it was a lack of understanding of the environment, and hence the need for the Predator to try to gain an understanding of what was going on. So again, I understand that others may disagree with this, but it was my judgment that close air support was not the right tool for that environment.”
General Ham again confirmed his previous statements in a transcribed interview with congressional staff almost a year later, where he explained that “given the uncertainty of the situation, given the complexity of a large urban environment, and the fact that the first attack subsided pretty significantly about an hour or so after it began, that it was my military judgment that strike aircraft, close air support were not the appropriate tool.”
Vice Admiral Charles J. Leidig explained in his transcribed interview with congressional staff that “it was completely infeasible to have fighters available that night. There were no crews. There was no weapons. There was no pre-brief. … They don’t have enough gas to get there, so then you have to have tankers. The tankers are all in Europe or in northern - or in England or Northern Europe. Same thing, you have to call crews in, get them briefed, get them up, flight time, get them down there.” He further explained that because it would have taken at least 24 hours to get a fighter to Benghazi, he concluded that “there was no way we were going to get any aircraft there that night.”
Rear Admiral Richard Landolt, AFRICOM Director of Operations, stated to congressional investigators that he and the other commanders that night determined that the F-16s were “not available” for use because they would take approximately 24 hours to get to Benghazi, which “doesn’t give you anything, because it’s a little too late.”
During a February 7, 2013 hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee, General Martin Dempsey, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, testified that the F-16s were not deployed that night because “this was the middle of the night, now. These were not aircraft on strip alert. They’re there as part of our commitment to NATO and Europe. So as we looked at the timeline, it was pretty clear that it would take up to 20 hours or so to get them there. Second, Senator, importantly, it was the wrong tool for the job.”
Then-Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee about why other types of armed aircraft such as armed UAVs, AC-130 gunships, or fixed-wing fighters were not deployed to Benghazi that night, explaining that they were just too far away to get there quickly: “This was, pure and simple, in the absence, as I said, of any kind of advance warning, a problem of distance and time.”
Former Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, who served during both the Bush and Obama Administrations said that he agreed with the military decisions made by the commanders that night, explaining that “frankly, I’ve heard ‘Well, why didn’t you just fly a fighter jet over and try and scare ‘em with the noise or something?’ Well, given the number of surface to air missiles that have disappeared from Qaddafi’s arsenals, I would not have approved sending an aircraft, a single aircraft—over Benghazi under those circumstances.”
etc, etc.
So… sending an ambassador to Libya to be there on 9/11, without adequate prep and protection, to a city known to be very dangerous, and to not have backup available.
Commander in Chief material, sure.
Bullitt:
So… sending an ambassador to Libya to be there on 9/11, without adequate prep and protection, to a city known to be very dangerous, and to not have backup available.
Commander in Chief material, sure.
He was warned about the risks but still decided to go.
Dr. Anne Stevens spoke candidly about the circumstances surrounding her brother’s death. Stevens, who is the chief of pediatric rheumatology at Seattle Children’s Hospital, serves as the official spokesperson for her family. The New Yorker‘s Robin Wright asked, “Whom do you fault for the lack of security that resulted in the death of your brother, in Benghazi?”.
Stevens responded:
It is clear, in hindsight, that the facility was not sufficiently protected by the State Department and the Defense Department. But what was the underlying cause? Perhaps if Congress had provided a budget to increase security for all missions around the world, then some of the requests for more security in Libya would have been granted. Certainly the State Department is underbudgeted.
I do not blame Hillary Clinton or [former CIA Director] Leon Panetta. They were balancing security efforts at embassies and missions around the world. And their staffs were doing their best to provide what they could with the resources they had. The Benghazi Mission was understaffed. We know that now. But, again, Chris knew that. It wasn’t a secret to him. He decided to take the risk to go there. It is not something they did to him. It is something he took on himself.
Bullitt:
So… sending an ambassador to Libya to be there on 9/11, without adequate prep and protection, to a city known to be very dangerous, and to not have backup available.
Commander in Chief material, sure.
What I can find on the subject says that Stevens arrived in Libya as ambassador in May of 2012, that travel within a foreign country is at the ambassador’s discretion, and the decision to go to Benghazi was his own. So he wasn’t just there for 9/11, and the embassy in Tripoli seems to have had adequate protection.
Do you have any information otherwise (apart from the movie)?
Okay, he was not sent , he went on his own, thanks for setting that straight. He being there presented himself as a target of opportunity, and the attackers took advantage of it.
As for other info, there’s the interview with Geist, Tiegen and Silva, in 5 parts, and this was good info:
Bullitt:
As for other info, there’s the interview with Geist, Tiegen and Silva, in 5 parts, and this was good info:
Before I spend an hour of my life on youtube, you wanna just tell us what it says that you think is relevant?
