June 6, 2012: Terrorists blew a big hole in the gate of our consulate in Benghazi.
October 10, 2012: Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) said,
“Under cover of darkness, assailants placed an IED on the north gate of Consulate Benghazi, blowing a hole in the security perimeter that was described by one individual as ‘big enough for forty men to go through.’”
“These pictures are of an attack that happened in Benghazi. The first was a so-called fish bomb. This is the compound in Benghazi before the attack. … The second bombing was an improvised explosive device [IED] that was placed on the north gate, breaching the wall [on June 6]. It was a test by terrorists and it was successful, and we didn’t respond fully and adequately.”
“We didn’t acknowledge it. We didn’t talk about it. We pretended it didn’t happen. It was a terrorist attack on a U.S. asset in Libya and it was never exposed. We pretended it didn’t happen.”
On Oct 19, 2012, Thomas Clough wrote about the September 11, 2012 attack:
“The attackers came equipped with assault rifles, automatic weapons and shoulder-launched rocket-propelled grenades. The attack began with rockets fire aimed at the mission gates. Within 15 minutes the attackers were inside the mission complex. Reports of well-targeted mortar fire was proof that this attack was the work of a trained and coordinated combat team.
[Once upon a time, I was a gunner in a heavy-weapons mortar platoon. We called our specialty “High-Angle Hell.” I speak from experience: precision artillery fire doesn’t “just happen.”]
In piecing together the details of the Benghazi attack up the U.S. consulate, it is becoming clear that there were U.S. Special Operations forces on the ground, at least two drones overhead and lasers being used to paint at least one target. The question then becomes, if these things were in place for a strike against attackers, who called it off? There can only be one answer, the commander-in-chief Barack Obama.
Fox News reports on the laser being used to paint the target:
At that point, they called again for military support and help because they were taking fire at the CIA safe house, or annex. The request was denied. There were no communications problems at the annex, according those present at the compound. The team was in constant radio contact with their headquarters. In fact, at least one member of the team was on the roof of the annex manning a heavy machine gun when mortars were fired at the CIA compound. The security officer had a laser on the target that was firing and repeatedly requested back-up support from a Spectre gunship, which is commonly used by U.S. Special Operations forces to provide support to Special Operations teams on the ground involved in intense firefights. http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/10/26/cia-operators-were-denied-request-for-help-during-benghazi-attack-sources-say/
This went on for four hours and the White House was able to watch this all take place live. Two drones were above recording what was taking place and it seems one was called in to relieve the other, presumably because of fuel issues. A former Delta operator over at BlackFive writes:
Having spent a good bit of time nursing a GLD (ground Laser Designator) in several garden spots around the world, something from the report jumped out at me.
One of the former SEALs was actively painting the target. That means that Specter WAS ON STATION! Probably an AC130U. A ground laser designator is not a briefing pointer laser. You do not “paint” a target until the weapons system/designator is synched; which means that the AC130 was on station.
Only two places could have called off the attack at that point; the WH situation command (based on POTUS direction) or AFRICOM commander based on information directly from the target area.
If the AC130 never left Sigonella (as Panetta says) that means that the Predator that was filming the whole thing was armed.
If that SEAL was actively “painting” a target; something was on station to engage! And the decision to stand down goes directly to POTUS!
There is also the issue of the former Navy SEAL Tyrone Woods and a small team that ignored orders to stand down after they requested permission to go and help.
Former Navy SEAL Tyrone Woods was part of a small team who was at the CIA annex about a mile from the U.S. consulate where Ambassador Chris Stevens and his team came under attack. When he and others heard the shots fired, they informed their higher-ups at the annex to tell them what they were hearing and requested permission to go to the consulate and help out. They were told to “stand down,” according to sources familiar with the exchange. Soon after, they were again told to “stand down.”
Woods and at least two others ignored those orders and made their way to the consulate which at that point was on fire. Shots were exchanged. The rescue team from the CIA annex evacuated those who remained at the consulate and Sean Smith, who had been killed in the initial attack. They could not find the ambassador and returned to the CIA annex at about midnight.
CIA spokeswoman Jennifer Youngblood denied claims that requests for support were turned down.
“We can say with confidence that the Agency reacted quickly to aid our colleagues during that terrible evening in Benghazi,” she said. “Moreover, no one at any level in the CIA told anybody not to help those in need; claims to the contrary are simply inaccurate. In fact, it is important to remember how many lives were saved by courageous Americans who put their own safety at risk that night-and that some of those selfless Americans gave their lives in the effort to rescue their comrades. http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/10/26/cia-operators-were-denied-request-for-help-during-benghazi-attack-sources-say/
I can’t help but think that this sounds, at least with the information that we are getting, like much of the response to the attacks of September 11, which was no response. Even more disturbing is what BlackFive writes,
“This is bigger than Watergate!… The worst has to be the team on the ground knowing that the President just left you to die.“
All of this was responded to by Defense Secretary Leon Panetta on Thursday. He said,
The U.S. military did not get involved during the attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya, last month because officials did not have enough information about what was going on before the attack was over.
Just how much information did you need? The White House had emails. They had forces on the ground, drones overhead, a live feed, painted targets. For four hours nothing was done while the consulate was attacked. There was a Special Operations team operating in Central Europe that could have been called upon, but weren’t, and could have flown there in less than two hours. But none of this was done.
It is looking more and more as though this was not only a planned attack, but also that either the White House was either negligent and irresponsible in their “non-response” or complicit.
REMOVED U.S. Special Forces from a red-hot danger zone;
INSTALLED local militia with ties to Muslim extremists to “guard” the embassy;
IGNORED multiple signs that attack(s) were being planned for the anniversary of 9/11;
DENIED multiple requests for additional security;
LIED for weeks after the attack about what they knew and when they knew it.
SHORT STORY LONG – Here’s the timeline I’ve pieced together, with URLs at the end:
2011 March: Obama authorizes a military assault on Libya’s Gaddafi government, without obtaining the approval of Congress that is required by law. Only 47% of Americans approve of Obama’s action.
2011 October: The leader of Libya, Muammar Gaddafi, dies. While Gaddafi was admittedly a seriously major creep, he had at least been keeping Al-Qaeda out of Libya. Extremists move into the leadership vacuum left by his death.
2012 February: The U.S. embassy in Libya requests — and is granted — an extension on their Site Security Team (SST) composed of 16 Special Forces soldiers who provided security, medical and communications support to the embassy. The State Department says the SST can stay four more months. That sets them up to leave Libya in August, shortly before the anniversary of 9/11.
2012 March: Eric Nordstrom, the State Department’s Regional Security Officer, sends a cable to Washington asking for additional diplomatic security agents for Benghazi. He gets no response.
2012 April: Two men throw an IED over the consulate fence.
2012 May: Militant Muslims attack the Red Cross office in Benghazi, then post on Facebook that they’re planning something for the Americans.
2012 June: Unknown assailants blow a ginormous hole in the consulate gate. Four days later, the British ambassador’s car is ambushed by militants with a rocket-propelled grenade. Another threat appears on Facebook.
2012 July: Nordstrom again asks Washington for additional security for the diplomats in Libya. Again, he gets no response.
2012 August: Family members of the Libyan militia protecting the consulate receive warnings about an impending attack. Ambassador Stevens wants the 16-special forces SST to stay longer; Washington orders them to leave.
2012 September 8: Members of the Libyan militia protecting the consulate warn U.S. diplomats that the security situation is “frightening.”
2012 September 10: The day before the anniversary of 9/11, Ayman al Zawahiri, the man who took over as head of Al Qaeda after Osama bin Laden was killed, issues a public call for Libyans to avenge the death of his Libyan deputy, Abu Yahya al Libi, who was killed in June by a U.S. drone.
2012 September 11: American embassies are assaulted in 20 different countries. In Cairo, attackers scale the U.S. embassy walls and replace the U.S. flag with the Islamist banner. The consulate in Benghazi is attacked by about 20 heavily armed men. Our people in the White House, State Department, military, FBI and CIA watch the attack going down in real time.
Click on graphic to embiggen.
SBU means Sensitive but Unclassified. COM means Chief of Mission – i.e., the Ambassador.
February 17 Brigade is a militia with links to the Muslim Brotherhood, the largest and most influential Islamic movement in the world. It’s credo is, “Allah is our objective; the Quran is our law, the Prophet is our leader; Jihad is our way; and death for the sake of Allah is the highest of our aspirations.” Its most famous slogan, which is used worldwide, is “Islam is the solution.”
Click on graphic to embiggen.
Ansar al-Sharia: Translation “Partisans of Islamic Law” is an Islamist militia group in Libya that advocates for the implementation of strict Sharia law throughout Libya. Category Yellow: Homeland Security uses a five color-coded threat level scale to label the probability of a terrorist attack and its potential gravity. Red is severe risk; Orange is high risk; Yellow is significant risk; Blue is guarded, general risk; Green is low risk.
Late on the night of September 11 to 12: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton issues a statement that “some have sought to justify this vicious behavior as a response to inflammatory material posted on the Internet.”
2012 September 12: Media outlets report that Ambassador Stevens and three other Americans were killed in an attack by well-armed militants. Reuters reports that some administration officials believe the assault “bears the hallmarks of an organized attack.” Reuters also reports there are indications that members of both al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and Ansar al-Sharia may have been involved in organizing the attacks. President Obama says he does not believe the “outrageous and shocking attack” was simply due to a protest that turned violent, but he never mentions either the video or the word terrorism. He just says, “My suspicion is that there are folks involved in this who were looking to target Americans from the start.”
2012 September 13: White House spokesman Jay Carney says “the protests we’re seeing around the region are in reaction to this movie.”
2012 September 14: Carney says the administration had “no actionable intelligence” that a 9/11 attack was being planned.
2012 September 15: A CNN reporter walks through the unsecured crime scene at the Benghazi consulate and makes off with Ambassador Stevens’ personal journal. CNN reads and uses Stevens’ journal entries in news reports, citing it as an unidentified source “familiar with Stevens’ thinking” and saying the ambassador had been concerned about a “rise in Islamic extremism” that posed security threats to him and his staff.
2012 September 16: Susan Rice, Obama’s Ambassador to the United Nations, appears on multiple Sunday talk shows, saying again and again that a protest over the video was the “proximate cause” of the four American deaths. Libya’s interim president Mohamed Magarief says the assault in Benghazi was not a spontaneous protest, but “was planned, definitely.”
2012 September 19: National Counterterrorism Center Director Matthew Olsen testifies before the Senate Homeland Security Committee that the assault was an “opportunistic” attack in which armed terrorists took advantage of an on-going protest. (Olsen was appointed to the position in 2011 by President Obama.)
2012 September 20: President Obama says, “What we do know is that the natural protests that arose because of the outrage over the video were used as an excuse by extremists to see if they can also directly harm U.S. interests.” CBS reports that witnesses in Benghazi say there was no protest prior to the armed assault against the consulate. White House Press Secretary Carney declares it “self-evident that what happened in Benghazi was a terrorist attack.”
2012 September 21: Secretary of State Clinton says “what happened in Benghazi was a terrorist attack.”
2012 September 25: In his address to the U.N. General Assembly, Obama makes repeated references to the video, but never mentions terrorism. Then he goes on ABC’s The View and, when asked about Clinton’s statement that “what happened in Benghazi was a terrorist attack”, Obama blames “extremist militias” and says “we’re still doing an investigation.”
2012 September 26: Libyan president Magarief tells NBC there was no protest prior to the armed assault against the consulate.
2012 September 27: Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta says it’s “clear that there were terrorists who planned that attack.”
2012 September 28: The Director of National Intelligence (DNI), James Clapper, issues a statement kinda sorta taking the blame for maybe saying there had been a protest that got out of control. (Clapper was appointed by Obama in 2010 and is subject to his authority, direction, and control.)
2012 October 3: FBI investigators finally arrive at the crime scene in Benghazi, which has been unsecured since September 11. (One wonders what exactly constituted all the alleged “investigating” Obama et al. had been claiming they were doing. Isn’t securing the crime scene the FIRST thing you’re supposed to do?)
2012 October 6: U.N. Ambassador Rice says when she was yapping on all those t.v. shows about the video, she had “relied solely and squarely on the information the intelligence community provided to me and other senior U.S. officials.”
2012 October 7: The White House Disinformation Campaign on Libya Summarized [2:52]
2012 October 9: Senior State Department officials for the first time acknowledge that there was never any protest in Benghazi. Then they blame the whole “blame the video” thing on the intelligence community.
2012 October 10: Both Lt. Col. Andy Wood (head of the SST the State Department pulled out of Libya in August) and Eric Nordstrom (the State Department’s Regional Security Officer) testify at a House Oversight Committee hearing about how their repeated requests for more security in Libya were denied by Washington. Their testimony is confirmed by cables made public by Chairman of the House Oversight Committee, Darrell Issa (R-Calif.).
2012 October 11: During the vice presidential debate, Biden says, “We weren’t told they wanted more security there.” He also blames the administration’s shifting explanations about the attack on the intelligence community.
2012 October 22: Members of the February 17 Brigade tasked with guarding the Benghazi consulate say that, on August 28, 2012, they received a tip about a possible attack on the diplomatic compound and that on the morning of 9/11, the consulate asked them to increase security, but later, for some unknown reason, said to never mind.
2012 October 23-24: ABC, CBS and Reuters all release the three emails reproduced above. Reuters notes, “The timing of the emails is consistent with what a senior State Department official told reporters at a briefing on Oct. 9.”
2012 October 24: When asked about the emails, White House spokesman Jay Carney said the White House knew about those emails as soon as they were received. The word he used was “instantaneously.”
2012 October 26: Fox reported that three urgent requests for military assistance for the Benghazi consulate were sent from the CIA annex. SOMEBODY told the CIA operators they were to stand down. Two former Navy SEALS, Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods, were at the CIA annex. They wanted to go help defend the consulate. They were ordered to stay put, but DISOBEYED that order. Both died heroically, trying to protect the ambassador and his staff.
I was talking about all this with Dearest and mentioned my blog of Oct 15, 2012 (see URL below) where I showed how President Carter’s approval ratings had gone above 50% for four months after our Tehran embassy personnel had been taken hostage. And I said, “I bet Obama was pissed they murdered Stevens instead of taking him hostage.”
Dearest said he would not be at all surprised if Obama had actually organized the whole thing. I was skeptical at first, but when he laid out his reasoning, I had to admit, disgusting as it is, it’s also plausible.
Suppose Obama made a deal with the Muslim Brotherhood, or somebody like them, to swoop into an unprotected compound on 9/11 and take Stevens hostage. And suppose that it was only because Doherty and Woods disobeyed orders to sit on their hands that said attackers found themselves getting shot at by two highly trained Navy SEALS.
Would not the likely outcome be that the attackers would assume they had been taken for suckers and take out their anger at Obama by publicly brutalizing and murdering the guy they were supposed to just kidnap?
Keep in mind, please, that we have NO EVIDENCE this is what happened. It just seems to make a lot of sense of all of the above, KWIM?
Consider if Stevens had been kidnapped and the American people had acted the way we usually do, rallying around in support of our leader during a time of national crisis. We could easily have been headed toward a sure Obama win on November 6th.
We may owe our national salvation to two heroic Navy SEALS. Had they survived, they would surely have been court-martialed. They knew that and ran into battle anyway, because it was the right thing to do.
It would be poetic to learn this is all true, seeing as it was Navy SEALS who risked their lives to get Osama bin Laden, only to have Obama claim all the credit then blab their identities and operational secrets to our enemies.
Evidence is coming out that someone in the Obama administration ORDERED the military to NOT go in and rescue the ambassador. The truth about this needs to be told and told again.
Charles Woods, Father of Former Navy SEAL Tyrone Woods Who Gave His Life in Benghazi … “in six more days, he would have been home”
Larson: “Today I got a call, out of the blue, from the father of one of the Americans who was murdered in Benghazi, Libya Charles Woods explained that he never calls talk shows, but was upset over news he had heard and just decided to call me. He talked about his son, Tyrone Woods, who was killed along with Ambassador Chris Stevens and two other Americans who were trying to save the life of the Amb. After 37 years, there are still days that this business takes your breath away.”
I was so struck by this man’s impression of Obama and Clinton. One of my military kids met President Bush on the South Lawn in 2007. She was utterly whelmed by how intense and sincere he was, looking the warriors directly in the eyes “like he was looking down into our souls” and thanking them for their service. These were kids, out of basic, but still training for their MOS. What a contrast to the cold fish treatment this Gold Star Dad got from the frauds in this administration. It sickens me.
The people interviewed in this video are “show up at rallies and buy campaign t-shirts” level Obama supporters. All but two of them had NO IDEA what happened in Benghazi, Libya on 9/11/12.
One person who knew explained it to her friend in a blasé voice. The other said that Obama’s response had showed “real leadership.” Why? Because he “brushed it off his shoulders.”
It looks like Hillary is properly accepting responsibility for the State Department’s refusal to provide adequate security to our ambassador in Libya.
But she’s definitely not falling on her sword over that stupid YouTube baloney.
There’s important evidence to support Hillary’s position.
1. State Department officials testified before Congress that they had been monitoring the situation in Libya and had seen no protests against the film.
2. U.S. ambassadors (like Susan Rice) are appointed by and operate under the jurisdiction of the White House. Rice could not have made the rounds of every Sunday morning news show blatting that the YouTube video had motivated the attacks without having received specific direction to do so from the White House.
I mentioned this idea to Dearest … that the reduced security at our embassies could have been a perverse Democrat plot to produce a winning October Surprise for Obama … and he was amazed that anyone could even think such a thing.
I defended myself by citing this November 4, 2010, interview on MSNBC:
Mark Penn tells Chris Matthews Obama Needs Another Oklahoma City Bombing [:26]
Now … if you only look at approval numbers, Penn’s statement makes some sense. But you’d have to be a really twisted excuse for humanity to see approval numbers instead of dead bodies.
As much as I hate to believe my fellow Americans could be so warped, I have to admit these are the same people who lionized Ted Kennedy, the only man with a confirmed kill in the war on women.
Kevin DuJan at Hillbuzz blogged about this “October surprise” idea as if it was a lot more than a horrible possibility:
“Folks, more people are going to eventually go to jail for what happened at Benghazi than went to prison for Watergate. This is a coverup that goes directly to Barack Obama himself. I have friends who lived through Watergate and who repeatedly tell me they had no idea in the initial days after a ‘break-in was reported in Democrat offices’ that it would eventually topple Nixon and bring down so many powerful people. I love the woman on a personal level, but if Hillary Clinton knew about any of this and didn’t stop this scheme for a ‘hostage-taking October Surprise’ then she belongs in prison too…along with Barack Obama, Susan Rice, Valerie Jarrett, and a host of other women and effeminate men who thought lowering security at consulates so ‘something would happen that we could use in October’ was a good idea.”
I hadn’t considered the hostage situation scenario. But when I looked at Carter’s post-Iranian hostage bump, I could see his point. In the long run, Carter made a total hash of that situation. But in the short run, he got enough of a boost that, if Obama had been able to score the same so close to Election Day, he’d have walked away with a second term in his pocket.
Obama has said his goal is to bring to justice those involved in this:
If that’s true, Obama may have to bring himself to justice. According to the news report below, his own people did not merely refuse requests from our Libyan embassy to send additional security; they actually ordered security that was already there to LEAVE … right before the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks!
August 2012: Obama State Dept. Withdrew 16 Member Security Team From Libya Before Attack
IN OTHER NEWS:
October 12, 2012: Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) and ranking member Susan Collins (R-Maine) announced the committee will investigate the events surrounding the death of four Americans in Libya, including the U.S. ambassador, Chris Stevens.
October 13, 2012: The President of the United States phoned in to the Michael Yo Show where he and Yo discussed the Big Issue, what Yo called “the elephant in the room” … could Barack Hussein Obama do ANYTHING to heal the rift between Nicki Minaj and Mariah Carey?
I am so sickened by all this, my stomach hurts and I want to weep.
According to Edward Klein, author of The Amateur: Barack Obama in the White House, it’s ludicrous to think the Clintons and the Obamas have ever become truly united at the forefront of the current Democratic Party.
Axelrod forced Obama to let Bill give a speech on August 27, 2008 at the Democrat convention; Bill helped stump for Barry in 2008, energizing the pro-Clintonites to get out the vote; and Obama made Hillary Secretary of State.
But, as I recall, the Clintons were not even at the convention the next day when Obama accepted the nomination. And the Obamas have never had the Clintons over to the White House for an informal dinner. Not once.
Klein’s sources tell him that, in recent weeks, Obama flipped the bird at Bill big time. Bill Clinton — lifelong Democrat, former two-term President of the United States, a man who managed to WIN his own re-election campaign — offered to help Barry with his debate prep. And the White House did not even bother to return his phone call.
And now Obama is making Hillary his Benghazi scapegoat … as if the Clintonistas will ever let THAT happen!
1. At the VP debate, Biden said, “We weren’t told they wanted more security. We did not know they wanted more security there.”
2. Obama’s Press Secretary, Jay Carney, said, “The Vice President was speaking about himself, the president, and the White House.”
3. Deputy National Security Advisor for Communications, Ben Rhodes, reiterated Carney’s spin – Biden’s “we” meant President Obama and Vice President Biden.
Not that Hillary Clinton doesn’t deserve the blame for Benghazi.
“Securing Our Embassies Overseas”
The Secretary of State, and by extension, the Chief of Mission (COM), are responsible for developing and implementing security policies and programs that provide for the protection of all U.S. Government personnel (including accompanying dependents) on official duty abroad.
Still, it has been the Obama administration’s policy from the get-go to pander to extremists and put left-wing political considerations ahead of absolutely everything. As far as I can see, HRC did exactly what she was supposed to do — i.e., see that Obama’s foreign policy was implemented at every level.
There’s no question the Clintons are far-left in their political beliefs; but when Hillarycare crashed and burned, costing Dems control of Congress, Bill and Hillary shifted to the middle and kept hold of their power for a full two terms. I think the story I told @ https://polination.wordpress.com/2012/10/12/the-lying-liars-in-the-obama-white-house/ demonstrates they have not changed. They’ll promote the leftist agenda as much as possible, but they are not about to take a bullet for Obama.
Not from the Book of Judges, Chapter 4 ;o) … When the Lord routed Sissybama and all his army, Sissybama ran away to the tent of his ally, Biller the Clintonite. Hillael, the wife of Biller, came out to meet him, saying “Come, come right in. Don’t be afraid.” So Sissybama went in and rested, trusting Hillael to keep watch for his enemies. But when he had fallen asleep, Hillael drove a tent peg through his temple into the ground, and he died.
I’m betting Prince Bogino, the first African-American wild animal tamer, managed to live to a ripe old age, because he was smart enough to never, ever forget that the animals he performed with were killers at heart.
Obama’s deputy campaign manager Stephanie Cutter: Benghazi is only an issue ‘because of Romney and Ryan’ [:32] In the real world, an armed, murderous assault on an embassy is an act of war. In the real world, the YouTube lies the Obama administration foisted on us for NINE DAYS are a very serious matter. But in Obama-land, it’s all just no biggy. In this clip, Cutter says Romney and Ryan are big fat jerks for “politicizing” the whole thing. Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.
Sunday, May 1, 2011: SEALs raided Osama bin Laden’s compound in Pakistan and killed him.
Monday, May 2, 2011: The White House was blabbing about it the next day, thereby destroying any benefit we could have reaped from the intelligence gathered at the compound. The White House also leaked critical details about the mechanics and personnel of the raid itself, seriously compromising the safety of the men and their families and hurting the success of future operations.
Ever since: “Obama got bin Laden” has been a major them in Obama’s re-election campaign.
But who really “got” bin Laden?
Click on graphic to embiggen.
The White House version of the events leading up to the raid, as recounted by Vice President Joe Biden, is that the “entire national security apparatus” sat down in the Situation Room and Obama asked each one’s recommendation. According to Biden, it was 50-50, go-don’t go; as Obama “walked out the room, it dawned on me, he’s all alone. This is his decision. If he was wrong, his Presidency was done. Over.” Ever since, Obama, Biden and their surrogates have been showering accolades on Obama for having made “one of the most gutsiest calls of any president in recent memory.”
But that isn’t what others are saying. And it is not what the written record reveals.
Tuesday, May 3, 2011: Just 2 days after the raid, a secret “Deep Throat” source, known as White House Insider, reported to the Ulsterman blog that senior military and intelligence officials had deliberately by-passed President Obama on this decision. According to White House Insider,
President Obama was, in this case, as in all others, working as an absentee president.
There had been a push to invade the compound for several weeks if not months, primarily led by Leon Panetta, Hillary Clinton, Robert Gates, David Petraeus, and Jim Clapper. The primary opposition to this plan originated from Valerie Jarrett, and it was her opposition that was enough to create uncertainty within President Obama. Every time military and intelligence officials appeared to make progress in forming a position, Jarrett would intervene and the stalling would begin again.
Panetta warned that the fact they knew Osama bin Laden’s location was bound to get out; if Obama failed to do anything to capture him, the political backlash would cripple his administration. Jarrett totally nixed a bombing raid, which would have killed the terrorist leader with little risk to American lives, but agreed they could go along with a ground raid.
Nevertheless, when that raid was ready to go, Jarrett again convinced Obama to refuse permission. Obama’s then Chief of Staff Bill Daley fully supported Panetta, Clinton and Gates in going ahead with the raid and told them that, if the raid failed, he would disclose the president’s indecision to the American public. Panetta initiated the raid himself, keeping both President Obama and Valerie Jarrett out of the loop.
Wednesday, May 4th, 2011: Craig Whitlock, who covers the Pentagon and national security for the pro-Obama Washington Post, published a lengthy feature article about Admiral McRaven that strengthens the image of Barack Obama as a narcissist grotesquely taking credit for the operation:
“As US helicopters secretly entered Pakistani airspace Sunday, the Joint Operations Center at Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan was under the control of a square-jawed admiral from Texas who had labored for years to find Osama bin Laden’s elusive trail. Vice Adm. William H. McRaven, one of the most experienced terrorist hunters in the US government, had tapped a special unit of Navy SEALs for the mission two months earlier. A former SEAL himself, McRaven had overseen weeks of intensive training for a covert operation that could cripple al-Qaeda if it worked, or strain an already troubled alliance with Pakistan if it went awry. The search for bin Laden was led by the CIA, which painstakingly pieced together scraps of intelligence that eventually pointed to a high-walled compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. … On Friday, [April 29, 2011] McRaven received the green light from Panetta to launch the raid at the earliest opportunity.”
Nearly a year later, TIME magazine published a memo written two days before the raid that matched up with the information above.
Friday, April 29, 2011: Memo by Director of the CIA Leon Panetta –
For the record
Received phone call from [Obama’s National Security Advisor] Tom Donilon who stated that the President made a decision with regard to AC1 [Abbottabad Compound 1]. The decision is to proceed with the assault.
The timing, operational decision making and control are in Admiral McRaven’s hands. The approval is provided on the risk profile presented to the President. Any additional risks are to be brought back to the President for his consideration. The direction is to go in and get bin Laden and if he is not there, to get out. Those instructions were conveyed to Admiral McRaven at approximately 10:45 am.
Leon Panetta, DCIA
This memo proves President Obama did not gather his team in a room and make a “gutsy call.” He didn’t even make the phone call to Panetta. And his operational instructions were absurdly vague, just to go “get” bin Laden.
Far from personally walking through every stage of the operation with his national security team, Barack Obama made sure that, should the mission fail, Admiral McRaven could be thrown under the bus for failing to “bring back for his consideration” whatever “additional risks” they’d encountered, no matter how trivial or last minute they might be.
And instead of protecting or evacuating the man who actually located where Osama bin Laden was living, the Obama administration’s self-glorifying leaks handed Pakistanis enough information to identify, arrest and sentence the man to more than 30 years in prison for helping a foreign intelligence agency.
May 29, 2011: Pakistani Doctor who found bin Laden for us [2:48]
April 30, 2012: Rush Limbaugh reported further evidence, from an anonymous source, that Panetta et al. had cut Obama and Jarrett out of the loop:
“They had to go call the president off the golf course and get him into that Situation Room an hour and a half before the attack so he was there for the photo-op. And if you’ll notice, if you’ve seen the picture of Obama looking with the deer-in-the-headlight eyes at the monitor supposedly of the op taking place, you see a golf shirt under that jacket that they put on him.”
May 1, 2012: A highly decorated former Navy SEAL named Chris Kyle said the following on the record regarding the Osama Bin Laden mission:
“In years to come there is going to be information that will come out that Obama was not the man who made the call. He can say he did and the people who really know what happened are inside the Pentagon, are in the military and the military isn’t allowed to speak out against the commander- in-chief.”
August 20, 2012: The UK’s Daily Mail reported they’d seen an advance copy of a new book by journalist Rich Miniter called Leading from Behind: The Reluctant President and the Advisors Who Decide for Him, in which Miniter, who has worked for the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Times and London’s Sunday Times, cites an anonymous source within Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) revealing that in January, February and March of 2011, Valerie Jarrett talked President Obama into canceling three separate missions to kill bin Laden.
Everything Miniter says backs up White House Insider’s story and even expands it with more details.
According to his source,
Clinton, Panetta, Gates and Petraeus were the driving forces behind getting the successful May 2011 raid under way over Jarrett’s objections and Obama’s indecision.
Despite Obama’s and Biden’s public claims to have made getting bin Laden a TOP PRIORITY from the very first day of his administration, Obama was actually ‘studiously undecided’ about whether to kill the mastermind of 9/11, refusing “to weigh in or commit himself on even small matters related to a possible strike on bin Laden.”
Jarrett’s opposition was totally political. She worried about a backlash against the president if the operation failed, or even if it succeeded. She repeatedly reminded everyone that Obama had campaigned on the alleged “intelligence failures” of the Bush years and that there was no need to hand their political rivals a set of intelligence failures of their own.
Clinton used her weekly meetings to finally convince Obama of the political dangers of failing to act, but still Obama dithered, trying to again call the raid off the day before. The White House later said that “poor weather conditions” had prompted this final stalling tactic, but weather reports are public and prove conditions were ideal. It was just Obama getting his panties in a pucker.
October 11, 2012: A distinguished military analyst reported that a senior intelligence community source has leaked to him that President Obama did not even know of the raid in Abbottabad to kill Osama bin Laden on May 1, 2011, until after the helicopters with SEAL Team Six had crossed into Pakistani airspace.
The president was notified at the golf course and called back to the White House, which is why he appeared so calm at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner the night before and then went golfing as the mission was getting underway.
According to this source,
Director of Central Intelligence Leon Panetta was the key player who organized and supported this daring raid. He signed the “execute orders” with only a few people aware: Secretary of State Hilary Clinton, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, Adm. Bill Mullen and Gen. David Petraeus.
The White House was closed out of the decision because the president, through Valarie Jarrett, had turned down two or three other earlier proposals. The deputy of central intelligence and his covert planning team were extremely frustrated at all the denials and saw the opportunity to get Osama bin Laden slipping away.
The source reports the decision to leak this information is due to the “boiling point” frustration within the State Department, the Department of Defense and the CIA, over the actions and cover-ups of the president and his administration hierarchy following the Libyan debacle in which our Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other brave and dedicated Americans were murdered by an al-Qaida affiliate.
Their frustration is understandable, since they knew that Al Qaeda was rebuilding in Libya and that a 9/11 anniversary attack was a serious threat. While they were not certain immediately after the attack exactly who was behind it, they were most certainly not telling the White House the thing was some spontaneous “OMG YouTube” demonstration that got out of hand.
October 11, 2012: During his debate with Paul Ryan, Vice President Biden AGAIN threw the intelligence community under Obama’s famous blame bus, saying the phony YouTube video excuse the White House had used for NINE DAYS after the Benghazi attack was “what we were told by the intelligence community. The intelligence community told us that. As they learned more facts about exactly what happened, they changed their assessment.”
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2011 Sources:
Obama’s decision to go after bin Laden “one of the gutsiest” moves, adviser says
EXCLUSIVE: Obama ‘cancelled missions to kill bin Laden THREE TIMES after getting cold feet – until Hillary Clinton stepped in’, claims explosive new book
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