The Benghazi Transcripts: Top Defense officials briefed Obama on ‘attack,’ not video or protest

[flowers]

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/01/13/benghazi-transcripts-top-defense-officials-briefed-obama-on-attack-not-video-or/

Minutes after the American consulate in Benghazi came under assault on Sept. 11, 2012, the nation's top civilian and uniformed defense officials -- headed for a previously scheduled Oval Office session with President Obama -- were informed that the event was a "terrorist attack," declassified documents show. The new evidence raises the question of why the top military men, one of whom was a member of the president's Cabinet, allowed him and other senior Obama administration officials to press a false narrative of the Benghazi attacks for two weeks afterward.

Gen. Carter Ham, who at the time was head of AFRICOM, the Defense Department combatant command with jurisdiction over Libya, told the House in classified testimony last year that it was him who broke the news about the unfolding situation in Benghazi to then-Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Gen. Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The tense briefing -- in which it was already known that U.S. Ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens had been targeted and had gone missing -- occurred just before the two senior officials departed the Pentagon for their session with the commander in chief.

According to declassified testimony obtained by Fox News, Ham -- who was working out of his Pentagon office on the afternoon of Sept. 11 -- said he learned about the assault on the consulate compound within 15 minutes of its commencement, at 9:42 p.m. Libya time, through a call he received from the AFRICOM Command Center.

"My first call was to General Dempsey, General Dempsey's office, to say, 'Hey, I am headed down the hall. I need to see him right away,'" Ham told lawmakers on the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigation on June 26 of last year. "I told him what I knew. We immediately walked upstairs to meet with Secretary Panetta."

Ham's account of that fateful day was included in some 450 pages of testimony given by senior Pentagon officials in classified, closed-door hearings conducted last year by the Armed Services subcommittee. The testimony, given under "Top Secret" clearance and only declassified this month, presents a rare glimpse into how information during a crisis travels at the top echelons of America's national security apparatus, all the way up to the president.

Also among those whose secret testimony was declassified was Dempsey, the first person Ham briefed about Benghazi. Ham told lawmakers he considered it a fortuitous "happenstance" that he was able to rope Dempsey and Panetta into one meeting, so that, as Ham put it, "they had the basic information as they headed across for the meeting at the White House." Ham also told lawmakers he met with Panetta and Dempsey when they returned from their 30-minute session with President Obama on Sept. 11.

Armed Services Chairman Howard "Buck" McKeon, R-Calif., sitting in on the subcommittee's hearing with Ham last June, reserved for himself an especially sensitive line of questioning: namely, whether senior Obama administration officials, in the very earliest stages of their knowledge of Benghazi, had any reason to believe that the assault grew spontaneously out of a demonstration over an anti-Islam video produced in America.

Numerous aides to the president and then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton repeatedly told the public in the weeks following the murder of Ambassador Stevens and three other Americans that night -- as Obama's hotly contested bid for re-election was entering its final stretch -- that there was no evidence the killings were the result of a premeditated terrorist attack, but rather were the result of a protest gone awry. Subsequent disclosures exposed the falsity of that narrative, and the Obama administration ultimately acknowledged that its early statements on Benghazi were untrue.

[Rapunzel]

There's more to it than has seen light of day.  Why was Ham relieved of duty?

[Chieftain]

Why was there not an aircraft carrier task force in the Mediterranean during that time??  Any other President would have had a carrier handy because it represents incredible force multiplication and provides the President with many options.  A carrier in WestMed could have had fighters over Benghazi in minutes, and kept them there with tankers and relief fighters indefinitely.  You can fly any kind of Marine assault aircraft off of a carrier, refuel it and provide support for an assault/rescue force almost immediately.  And you are not dependent on using airfields or overflying anyone's airspace.

The bottom line is that our forces were not in position to support or rescue the Benghazi mission because of deliberate choices made by the National Command Authority, Obama and Leon Panetta.  Our forces stood down shortly after Obama was immaculated, and that's why nobody was around to help.

[Rapunzel]

Why was there not an aircraft carrier task force in the Mediterranean during that time??  Any other President would have had a carrier handy because it represents incredible force multiplication and provides the President with many options.  A carrier in WestMed could have had fighters over Benghazi in minutes, and kept them there with tankers and relief fighters indefinitely.  You can fly any kind of Marine assault aircraft off of a carrier, refuel it and provide support for an assault/rescue force almost immediately.  And you are not dependent on using airfields or overflying anyone's airspace.

The bottom line is that our forces were not in position to support or rescue the Benghazi mission because of deliberate choices made by the National Command Authority, Obama and Leon Panetta.  Our forces stood down shortly after Obama was immaculated, and that's why nobody was around to help.

Not just Benghazi, chief.  When you read and watch Lone Survivor you see how much all our guys on the ground are on their own... the result of running a freaking war from DC instead of up close and personal.

[EC]

Not just Benghazi, chief.  When you read and watch Lone Survivor you see how much all our guys on the ground are on their own... the result of running a freaking war from DC instead of up close and personal.

You always are on your own, at the sharp end. It just doesn't often get mentioned. You are there in the mud and blood, while the brass are polishing their pips, in chairs that have a permanent ass print. Half of the time you are not fighting "the enemy." You are trying to evade your superiors and whatever retarded brainstorm they woke up with that day.

[rangerrebew]

Why was there not an aircraft carrier task force in the Mediterranean during that time??  Any other President would have had a carrier handy because it represents incredible force multiplication and provides the President with many options.  A carrier in WestMed could have had fighters over Benghazi in minutes, and kept them there with tankers and relief fighters indefinitely.  You can fly any kind of Marine assault aircraft off of a carrier, refuel it and provide support for an assault/rescue force almost immediately.  And you are not dependent on using airfields or overflying anyone's airspace.

The bottom line is that our forces were not in position to support or rescue the Benghazi mission because of deliberate choices made by the National Command Authority, Obama and Leon Panetta.  Our forces stood down shortly after Obama was immaculated, and that's why nobody was around to help.

As I remember it, there wasn't a carrier in the region due to monetary constraints caused by Obama's downsizing the military budget.  During that time there were four carriers in port at Norfolk alone; something almost never seen no matter the fiscal problems of the country.

[rangerrebew]

You always are on your own, at the sharp end. It just doesn't often get mentioned. You are there in the mud and blood, while the brass are polishing their pips, in chairs that have a permanent ass print. Half of the time you are not fighting "the enemy." You are trying to evade your superiors and whatever retarded brainstorm they woke up with that day.

In other words, half the time you are fighting THE enemy, and the other half fighting the enemy within?

[EC]

In other words, half the time you are fighting THE enemy, and the other half fighting the enemy within?

Fighting THE enemy is cleaner. At least you understand each other. You are trying to kill them, they are trying to kill you.

The brass, on the other hand, don't want to kill you. Just bend you over a barrel .... 

[Rapunzel]

Interesting on Real News this afternoon they led off playing the very first question from the VP debate in 2012.. it was about Benghazi and Biden swore up and down it was the video... then they played "Hillary" talking up the video at the receiving ceremony for the dead victims of Benghazi and last Obama lying before the UN saying over and over this was a video.