It Took Obama Six Hours to Respond to Benghazi and Hillary Didn’t Find Himby Patrick Howley 30 Sep 2016
Big GovernmentPresident Obama did not personally respond to Benghazi on the night of the attack until more than six hours after the White House convened an emergency conference call, according to little-noticed State Department records reviewed by Breitbart News.
Obama’s six-hour absence, during which the United States military did not have presidential orders to enter Libyan airspace to potentially save Americans, was apparently not interrupted by Hillary Clinton.
A State Department Operations Center Watch Log noted that the White House convened a “NOIWON” at 1621 Military Time, or 4:21 PM Eastern Time, on September 11, 2012 to respond to the developing “attack” on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya.
“1621 The White House Situation Room convened a NOIWON, on behalf of the Watch, in which INR also participated, to report on an attack on the Diplomatic Mission in Benghazi,” according to the records.
“NOIWON” stands for “National Operational Intelligence Watch Officer’s Network.” A historycommons.org article on the 9/11 attacks defines NOIWON:
A National Operations and Intelligence Watch Officer Network (NOIWON) conference call is established to allow government agencies in the Washington, DC, area to quickly share information regarding the ongoing events.
But despite the White House acknowledging the emergency, Obama is nowhere to be found in the Watch records.
The “ExecSec,” or Executive Secretary in the office of the Secretary of Defense, “visited the Watch” at 1635, or 4:35 PM.
The Watch sent out three targeted alerts to various government agencies within the first hour.
Finally, at 2227, or 10:27 PM, President Obama shows up in the Watch Log records.
“2227 The Watch patched President Obama to the Secretary,” according to the records. The “Secretary” refers to Hillary Clinton.
The secret records were obtained via a Freedom of Information Act request by attorney Mark Zaid on behalf of the group Veterans For a Strong America.
“This is the watch log created by the State Department. The State Department has an operations center, and they maintain a log of all actions and communications that take place. This is the watch log, the record of communication, going in and out of the operations center,” Joel Arends, chairman of Vets For a Strong America, told Breitbart News.
“For the president of the United States to have not interjected himself sooner in this process is a tragedy,” Arends said, noting that only President Obama could have obtained permission from the Libyan transitional government to use their airspace to send in the U.S. military.
“Why did it never happen? Where was the president during this time?…He should have known that we had to request a formal order from the Libyan government to enter into their airspace,” Arends said.
Arends thinks that Hillary Clinton should have intervened to find Obama.
“Let’s ask the same questions of the Secretary herself. She’s a lawyer. Why wasn’t she pushing the president to fly Why did she never request presidential permission for our forces to fly into Libyan airspace?” Arends asked.
