Post I made in response to thread (now for documentation on TM):
US Troops Would Not Have Been Painting Targets on Ground Unless There Was Air Support Overhead
ALSO, [as refutation of Panetta excuses] Lt Col Tony Shaffer was interviewed today on Fox "Happening Now."
INTERVIEWER: ...One of the justifications for not sending in a AC130 gunship, which can put an incredible amount of lead on the ground. One reason for not doing that is because they didn't know whether the folks out on the street were friendly or not friendly...."
Shaffer: Let me hit that in two parts. You should have done something. You should have flown F16s at full afterburner to disperse people, if nothing else. And, more importantly, according to the information that came out today, these CIA guys did have---I can't go into detail---ways of identifying where the good guys were. There's ways to see, on the ground, where the good guys are. And more importantly, these guys had laser designators....
Also, Lt Col Tony Shaffer: "Let me be very clear on this. Panetta is wrong, and let me defend my brothers in the CIA. It was not CIA who said "no," CIA did not deny this (help). Panetta said something telling yesterday---horrific---"It didn't fit within our 24-hour planning capability." Are you kidding me?"
*****************************
The exact quote is even worse, but it is not attributed to Panetta: [All articles pig-tailing off Attkisson's report omit this quote]
The State Department, White House and Pentagon declined to say what military options were available. A White House official told CBS News that, at the start of the attack, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Martin Dempsey and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta "looked at available options, and the ones we exercised had our military forces arrive in less than 24 hours, well ahead of timelines laid out in established policies."
"Horrific" is spot on. Tony Shaffer is the only person in all of media that I have heard pick up on the statement by an unnamed "WH official." Lawyer-ly weasel words if I have ever heard any.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Another point Tony Shaffer made, not mentioned elsewhere:
"One last inconvenient point. The ambassador was missing at that point in time. You would have thought everything that could be done should be done to figure out what was going on by the fact that he was not known to be dead yet. These guys were in a firefight trying to recover people, and someone made a decision to sit on their hands."
One word....JARRETT!!