I pray for this.
Posted on 05/06/2013 3:20:39 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
The alleged source: Greg Hicks, the same State Department deputy whose jaw dropped when he heard Susan Rice equivocating about whether the consulate attack was pre-planned or not.
Who told SOCAFRICA they couldn’t go to Benghazi?
The account from Gregory Hicks is in stark contrast to assertions from the Obama administration, which insisted that nobody was ever told to stand down and that all available resources were utilized. Hicks gave private testimony to congressional investigators last month in advance of his upcoming appearance at a congressional hearing Wednesday.
According to excerpts released Monday, Hicks told investigators that SOCAFRICA commander Lt. Col. Gibson and his team were on their way to board a C-130 from Tripoli for Benghazi prior to an attack on a second U.S. compound “when [Col. Gibson] got a phone call from SOCAFRICA which said, ‘you can’t go now, you don’t have the authority to go now.’ And so they missed the flight … They were told not to board the flight, so they missed it.”…
“I believe if we had been able to scramble a fighter or aircraft or two over Benghazi as quickly as possible after the attack commenced, I believe there would not have been a mortar attack on the annex in the morning because I believe the Libyans would have split. They would have been scared to death that we would have gotten a laser on them and killed them,” Hicks testified. Two Americans died in the morning mortar attack.
More from Hicks via the Examiner:
“They were told not to board the flight, so they missed it,” Hicks added. “So, anyway, and yeah. I still remember Colonel Gibson, he said, ‘I have never been so embarrassed in my life that a State Department officer has bigger balls than somebody in the military.’ A nice compliment.”
He added that “at that time, the third attack, the mortar attack at 5:15, had not yet occurred, if I remember correctly.”…
Hicks is certain that the special forces team was needed. “We fully intended for those guys to go, because we had already essentially stripped ourselves of our security presence, or our security capability to the bare minimum,” he said in the interview.
No way to know if Gibson’s team would have made it to the scene in time to save Doherty and Woods from the attack on the annex if they had received the order to leave promptly, but that’s beside the point. The point, as Stephen Hayes notes, is that it was unclear at the time if the fighting was over, in which case there’s no obvious reason to have them stand down. On the contrary, if Hicks is right about a threadbare security presence at the consulate — and we know from many, many revelations last fall that he is — then the White House had every reason to err on the side of sending extra military assets. When asked why that didn’t happen, Hicks replied, “I guess they just didn’t have the right authority from the right level.” Any theories as to why that might be? Remember, when Martin Dempsey testified three months ago as to why U.S. troops weren’t sent to the scene, he said, “we never received a request for support from the State Department.” Hicks, who was Stevens’s deputy at State, obviously thought support was needed. Who intervened above him to make sure the request wasn’t sent?
Question: Are we to understand that it’s official Obama administration policy not to intervene in attacks on U.S. diplomats unless intelligence on the ground is perfect, or near perfect? I ask because last year Panetta attempted to wave away all these concerns about troops not being sent to the consulate during the fighting on grounds that “you don’t deploy forces into harm’s way without knowing what’s going on, without having some real-time information about what’s taking place.” That logic, as applied to the “bare minimum” security presence at Benghazi, suggests that the White House decided to leave whoever was left on the ground at the consulate to fend for themselves while waiting for “help” from Libyan security so that it didn’t have to take the political risk of another Mogadishu by sending American troops on a chaotic rescue mission. Is that what happened here? And is it uniform policy for diplomats in peril, or just ones who happen to come under attack two months before a presidential election?
Update: Any guesses as to whose fault it is that Benghazi hasn’t gotten better coverage until now? Hint: It’s not the media’s, and it’s certainly not the left’s. C’mon, you know who.
Time to put Obama under oath and every person at the WH that night!!
I don't think Obama would take the oath seriously, but there might still be a few left in Washington that do.
He either couldn’t or woulnd’t make a decision. Either way he’s failed.
Yes and he should have to answer for that in front of the American people.
Here’s the deal... if it was finally discovered that Obama was negligent, and even ordered special forces to stand down when they could have protected the mission, he would be liable for impeachment.
But let’s ask ourselves this question — HOW LIKELY IS THAT?
High crimes and misdemeanors is a phrase from the United States Constitution, Article II, Section 4: “The President, Vice President and all civil officers of the United States, shall be removed from office on impeachment for, and conviction of, treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.”
Which one does Obama’s fault come under? High crime or misdemeanor?
Let’s say that got out of the way and Obama gets indicted for high crime or misdemeanor, how can he be impeached?
It can be attained by a simple majority vote in favor of impeachment, by House members present, for the full resolution of the impeachment, or any article of the impeachment.
Once the vote in favor of impeachment has been attained, the House informs the U.S. Senate of the outcome, and then chooses some House members to act as prosecuting attorneys, called “managers”.
The U.S. Senate prepares to try the impeachment case, during which, it will hear the arguments of both sides. In the case of the impeachment of a U.S. President, the Chief Justice of the United States presides over the proceedings. In order to convict the defendant in an impeachment trial, the hearing requires
1.) a vote in favor of conviction equal to or exceeding two-thirds of the members of the U.S. Senate present, and
2.) a quorum of a simple majority of U.S. Senators. According to Article 1, § 3 of the U.S. Constitution: “The Senate shall have the sole Power to try all Impeachments.
This is going to be a tall order. First, the GOP will have to take over the Senate in 2014. If the impeachment occurs before that, it is HIGHLY UNLIKELY Obama will be removed from office via impeachment.
Who told SOCAFRICA
***I think it was BOHICAFRICA
What did they expect from an illiterate community organizer and constant campaigner. He had to get some sleep so he could go to Vegas. He said al Qaeda was on the run and that’s all there is to it. He needed to be re-elected and couldn’t be made to look like the fool he really is. A dangerous fool!
Obama owns Benghazi, the economy, and everything else he has failed at since he became the biggest joke ever perpetrated on this country. He and Hillary are covered in the blood of these dead Americans.
Too many of “the American people” just don’t care or don’t even know about Benghazi. They don’t deserve to live in America, in my humble opinion.
Whats interesting to me is that, though I thought I was following this story fairly closely, I didn’t realize there were military forces in Tripoli available for the rescue. I knew there were special forces outside the country being positioned for deployment, who were eventually told to stand down. I knew there was a “civilian” security team flown in from Tripoli to beef up the CIA base. (I read that their arrival “might” have helped the baddies locate the “secret” base, though thats not clear to me...)
But special forces “in” Tripoli? They kept that pretty quiet until now.
Imagine you are a terrorist and you want to make a huge point so you commit a huge terrorist act, jump up and down with glee and then turn on your tv and see the President of the United States blames the terrorist act on some offensive you tube video and also talks about an imaginary protest beforehand. DUH..HUH????
Panetta is a fraud, willingly running cover for his bosses.
They had drones in the air. They watched the whole thing in real time. They had CIA men on the ground. How much more "real time information" did he need?
I mean, really?
Keep in mind that this was an order for in-country personnel to 'stand down.' This has nothing to do with sending personnel from outside Libya to go in for a rescue mission.
Hicks told investigators that SOCAFRICA commander Lt. Col. Gibson and his team were on their way to board a C-130 from Tripoli ...
Only one person had the authority to send forces from outside Libya.
Only the POTUS had the authority to act!
0bama was notified immediately and automatically when the Benghazi consulate triggered the "Imminent Danger Notification System" alert. He did nothing.
Judge Jeanine Investigates Benghazi Gate Part 4 - 10/20/2012 video 6:53
Lt. Col. Tony Shaffer (U.S. Army ret.), former CIA Station Chief Gary Berntsen and former CIA operative Mike Baker
Howie Carr interview with Col. Hunt On The Newest Libyan Revelations audio 28:37
There are three scandals here...
---------------------------------------------------------
Denial of requests for security were a dereliction of duty. The lies and misdirection about the "video" after the attack were fraud and malfeasance under the color of authority. The inaction during the attack was something more than that.
The failure to act during the attack is the direct equivalent of desertion IMO.
ONE man had the authority to act that night.
EXCLUSIVE: CIA operators were denied request for help during Benghazi attack, sources say
0bama abandoned his post.
If it was a dereliction of duty..yes. If it is just incompetence....I doubt it.
He CAN be compelled to answer under oath whether or not he is in an impeachment proceeding or not (I believe). Time to find out though how to proceed. Certainly his staff can be called to testify under oath. I would like to see Valerie Jarret called up to congress.
“They kept that pretty quiet until now.”
The main stream media has done an impressive job of giving little to no information about anything regarding Benghazzi.
IMO, there are only two real possibilities about what happened in Benghazzi, based on the available info.
1. Obama was so deeply involved in a para-military, arms-trading deal with Al-Queda terrorists that he cannot risk expsoing it. So they lied about everything involved, trying to slough it off as nothing.
2. Obama simply did not care what happened to the US personnel, including his Ambassador, because what ever he was involved with pertaining to the Libyan Rebels, was more important.
Either way, and I can see no other reasonable alternative, he is singurlarly unfit to be POTUS.
Patience is what is needed right now. Anyone thinking that this will be a quick ordeal needs to read about Watergate. That did not happen overnight but because of that... Nixon suffered horrible blows daily. I lived through it and I was attending college at the time. Academons were orgasmic over political blood. It was a very nasty and evil environment for a Southern Conservative to have to endure.
LLS
And having that “ceremony” with four flag draped coffins just adds horrible insult to even worse injury (death).
If Congress had the gonads, at least the House, they’d impeach him for at least manslaughter.
Low information voters are a fickle lot... they loved American Idol... until they didn’t. They loved the Macarana... until they didn’t. They loved killing our islamic enemies that murdered 3000 Americans on 9/11... until they didn’t. obama and hillary are about to know how it feels to be a clay aiken.
LLS
I pray for this.
But there lies the fly in the ointment. Nixon was a Republican. The MSM today will go to the ends of the Earth to crucify a Republican, but a Democrat? Not so much. I curse every member of the MSM.
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