Posted on 10/28/2012 3:35:53 PM PDT by markomalley
That according to a National Security Council spokesman.
Rick Moran breaks down the past few days (via Doug Ross):
The CIA is denying. The Pentagon is denying. And now the White House is denying that anyone refused to send help to our embattled CIA and State Department personnel engaged in a seven hour running firefight with more than 150 jihadists.
It just doesn’t get any lamer than this:
The White House on Saturday flatly denied that President Barack Obama withheld requests for help from the besieged American compound in Benghazi, Libya, as it came under on attack by suspected terrorists on September 11th.
“Neither the president nor anyone in the White House denied any requests for assistance in Benghazi,” National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor told Yahoo News by email.
Why was this so hard for President Obama to say on Friday when asked a direct question about assistance to Americans under fire?
President Barack Obama said repeatedly Friday that his administration would “find out what happened” and punish those responsible, but he twice ducked questions about whether U.S. officials denied requests for help.
As Bill Kristol points out, Obama doesn’t have to “find out what happened” in the White House — he was there and presumably was kept informed.
Retired Army Lt. Col. Tony Shaffer said his sources told him President Obama watched the attack from the Situation Room. It shouldn’t exactly be a bombshell to discover a president had been monitoring an ongoing attack on an ambassador and his detail — that’s exactly what we’d expect a president to do. However, the pickle for the administration is that the only way they can distance Obama from the “who denied requests for help” question is to allow everybody to believe that Obama wasn’t doing what everybody would expect a president to be doing under those circumstances: Closely monitoring the situation.
Leon Panetta said help wasn’t sent because they didn’t have enough information about what was going on before the attack was over. There might be a bit of semantics playing out here. Assuming for a moment no US official literally said “request denied,” most people would still consider doing nothing to be tantamount to a denial of request.
If nobody either in or connected with the Obama administration specifically denied requests for military back-up or gave any “stand down” orders during the Benghazi attack as Fox News reported, why didn’t the administration use the golden opportunity presented by the Sunday morning news shows to go out and rip Fox News apart at the seams much to the delight of disenchanted people who voted for Obama in 2008 who are desperately in need of motivation to get to the polls next Tuesday? Instead David Axelrod was worried about how Hurricane Sandy could harm Obama’s re-election chances and Stephanie Cutter was saying the Des Moines Register’s endorsement of Romney is not based in reality. The latter was during the “Pot Meets Kettle” segment of ABC’s This Morning.
A couple of Sunday show clips from today…
Sen. John McCain on CBS: It’s either a massive cover-up or incompetence:
Democrat Sen. Udall, who sits on the Intelligence Committee, won’t tell Chris Wallace if the drones above Benghazi that day were armed:
Gingrich: Obama canceling campaign trips due to hurricane but didn’t after Benghazi?
and armed drones (likely armed) could have made a big difference if they had been allowed to fire on vehicles or enemy mortar teams
THAT’S why obama votes “present” from his bed!
“Neither the president nor anyone in the White House denied any requests for assistance in Benghazi,” By email no less.
If true then they probably did not approve any requests for assistance. The White House did nothing and everything was in limbo and 4 people died.
OK. Then who the Hell was in charge?
I know that who ever it was, was not military. Anyone could have asked for volunteers and every active military and former military would have been standing by within 10 minutes waiting for transport. That’s a fact Jack.
This reminds me of O.J. Simpson looking for the real murderer:
President Barack Obama said repeatedly Friday that his administration would “find out what happened”.
Is this a case of people with first names beginning with the letter “O” simply being Oblivious?
here is the question that people are not asking... Why did the 2 seals leave the CIA base and go to try to help the ambassador? Were they the only ones at the CIA base? Were others following the orders not to help?
In case you didn’t make it to the MEAT of the article:
... General Ham as head of Africom received the same e-mails the White House received requesting help/support as the attack was taking place. General Ham immediately had a rapid response unit ready and communicated to the Pentagon that he had a unit ready.
General Ham then received the order to stand down. His response was to screw it, he was going to help anyhow. Within 30 seconds to a minute after making the move to respond, his second in command apprehended General Ham and told him that he was now relieved of his command.
The story continues that now General Rodiguez would take General Ham’s place as the head of Africom.
A true statement. You can take it to the bank. Assistance did come from Tripoli.
But they are playing word games with us. Notice the missing "military" in front of the word "help". Military assistance was withheld. Only Obama could have done that.
I am now thinking that is exactly what happened.
Come on, Barack. Go to Cuba and request asylum. You know Fidel likes you. This President thing isn’t working out. Everyone, and I mean everyone, knows that this Benghazi mess is a million times worse than Iran Contra, DESERT ONE and Watergate all rolled into one. And when the story gets out about the money, then it’s game over and you’re off to the pokey. Nobody wants that. For goodness sakes, we all like your smile. Have AXELROD charter a private jet and head down to Havana. Drinking frosty drinks and smoking choom on the beach sounds a lot better than months of testimony and worry and pain. Yeah, it didn’t work out the way you planned, but that happens to everyone. They’re even booing you at the Madonna concerts for Pete’s sake. Go out like a pirate, not like some Pee Wee Herman. Head to Cuba.
I was just wondering if they can claim that no order to “stand down” was given and when in fact the order to “proceed” was NOT given. That would mean gridlock in the military hierarchy especially since they all rely on guidance from “above” so as to avoid making “bad” decisions that end up killing the careers of senior officers.
You can tell utterly ridiculous and bald faced lies when you KNOW that the press is going to back your rubbish. Only trouble is that the public is getting wise to the lies.
I was trying to phrase that exact question but you did it much better.
I am wondering as well.
So no one denied help so what help was given?
If, as the aide says, he didn’t deny the requests then the aide is admitting there were requests. Earlier, they denied there were any requests. So, which is it, huh? Either they lied before or they’re lying now. If they’re lying now then they’re admitting they failed to act. Either way, the buck stops in the oval office.
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