Posted on 10/10/2012 9:56:15 PM PDT by Hunton Peck
In an often heated congressional hearing Wednesday, lawmakers and witnesses alike pointed to State Department official Charlene Lamb as the person most directly responsible for rejecting multiple requests for increased security at the U.S. diplomatic missions in Libya prior to the Sept. 11 attack.
House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA) excoriated the State Department for rejecting requests from the U.S. Embassy in Libya for an extension of temporary security forces that were withdrawn in the months prior to the attack that killed Amb. Chris Stevens and three other Americans.
In a dramatic moment at the hearing, Issa released unclassified cables from March and July that the State Department had refused to release, detailing those requests.
One cable, written by then Amb. Gene Cretz, noted that three Mobile Security Detachments [MSD], consisting of 18 personnel, and the Site Security Team [SST], consisting of 16 personnel, were about to leave their temporary assignments. He said that the Libya mission needed both an extension of those forces and an increase in the number of permanent security officials in Libya.
The SST is a team of U.S. military personnel that was deployed to assist the embassy staff on a temporary basis for 60 days and then extended for another 60 days, but not extended for a third 60-day tour.
During the hearing, the top regional security officer in Libya over the summer, Eric Nordstrom, and Lt. Col. Andrew Wood, a Utah National Guardsman who was leading a security team in Libya until August, placed the blame squarely on Lamb, the deputy assistant secretary of state for international programs, whom they said was the official who denied those requests.
"All of us at post were in sync that we wanted these resources," Nordstrom testified, adding that Lamb had directly told him over the phone...
(Excerpt) Read more at thecable.foreignpolicy.com ...
I believe you ar right about the Marines. If those terrorists arrived at the US Consulate and found it was guarded by a contingent of Marines they would have turned around and ran away.
bump in the road
If you listen to Hillary’s interview where she takes the blame by passing it off to the State Department Security Forces, you’ll hear her say, “...this went on for a long time, hours...”
So this is going on, Lamb is listening in in real time, and Hillary and Obama get no notification whatsoever?
If Hillary was notified, did she notify Obama?
He’s out screwing around all day, and then goes to bed. At what point in there is he brought up to speed that his Ambassador to Libya is being killed?
This guy and his minions are just too cool for school.
Unfortunately for them, they are unraveling.
IMO, it goes all the way to the top.
If you listen closely, Hillary makes the case the State Department Security Service makes all decisions about security.
She doesn’t even admit having a hand in any of it.
What she wants us to believe, is that our Ambassador couldn’t pick up the phone and contact her if he was seriously concerned with his own security.
I don’t believe that. I don’t believe Obama had no idea what was going on either.
None of them gave a damn. They thought Al Qaeda was finished, and didn’t want anyone to think the U. S. didn’t trust them all the way.
Our Ambassador and his staff died, and they lied.
"Dazed and Confused"
Well, Ms. Lamb, apparently not.
State Department is the creepists of the politically correct creeps. When we were in the cold war, they adored the communists. Our enemy is the State Department’s best friend. Peace, peace, peace! The heck with security. Let Americans die for peace. Same with Israel.
"Jerry..."
HA, HA, HA!
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