While partisan Democrats may want the Benghazi investigation to close, and for America to “move on,” there are several remaining questions. Even though Obama aide Dan Pfeiffer claimed it was “irrelevant” where President Obama was the night of the attack, that is, in fact, a crucial question. As Commander-in-Chief, he bears direct responsibility for command decisions. As former Ambassador Ann Wagner related, the president is responsible for ordering troops and other military assets to “stand down” during an attack on a diplomatic compound. That is because it is protocol to attempt a rescue operation by launching an in extremis rescue force (as anyone who has worked in a bureaucracy knows, there are Standard Operating Procedures for everything; superiors dictate when not to follow SOPs). Indeed, a disturbing comparison of the CIA and Pentagon timelines put together by Jennifer Griffin makes clear that CIA assets were ready for deployment and were told to wait before attempting a rescue operation… twice. The eventually slain CIA servicemen Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty were told to stand down and not even attempt to rescue Ambassador Stevens, who had met with the Turkish consul earlier that night.
Posted on: Fri, 26 Jul 2013 13:42:42 +0000