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Feb 11 14 10:19 PM
Republicans on the House Armed Services Committee largely exonerated the U.S. military from responsibility for failures associated with the Sept. 11, 2012, terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya, instead blaming the White House and the State Department for ignoring heightened threats in the area. The committee majority’s conclusions, in a report released Tuesday, do not differ significantly from those reached by other congressional panels that have touched on the military’s role in the Benghazi incident.While the GOP lawmakers said that commanders could have pushed harder to position forces to respond to threats in North Africa in general and Libya in particular, they concluded that no U.S. military assets could have arrived in Benghazi in time to affect the outcome of the attack, according to committee staff members who briefed reporters on the report.“Armed drones and AC-130” gunships “weren’t within reasonable flying distance,” said one staffer, who like the other staff members spoke on the condition of anonymity in advance of the report’s release. Italy-based F-16 aircraft were not on alert status, and “it is not at all certain that they would have been particularly helpful in this instance.”The report is one of several released in recent months by the Republican-led House, which has continued to criticize the Obama administration for what some lawmakers have called a cover-up in the Benghazi attack, in which four Americans were killed, including J. Christopher Stevens, the U.S. ambassador to Libya.
Republicans on the House Armed Services Committee largely exonerated the U.S. military from responsibility for failures associated with the Sept. 11, 2012, terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya, instead blaming the White House and the State Department for ignoring heightened threats in the area.
The committee majority’s conclusions, in a report released Tuesday, do not differ significantly from those reached by other congressional panels that have touched on the military’s role in the Benghazi incident.
While the GOP lawmakers said that commanders could have pushed harder to position forces to respond to threats in North Africa in general and Libya in particular, they concluded that no U.S. military assets could have arrived in Benghazi in time to affect the outcome of the attack, according to committee staff members who briefed reporters on the report.
“Armed drones and AC-130” gunships “weren’t within reasonable flying distance,” said one staffer, who like the other staff members spoke on the condition of anonymity in advance of the report’s release. Italy-based F-16 aircraft were not on alert status, and “it is not at all certain that they would have been particularly helpful in this instance.”
The report is one of several released in recent months by the Republican-led House, which has continued to criticize the Obama administration for what some lawmakers have called a cover-up in the Benghazi attack, in which four Americans were killed, including J. Christopher Stevens, the U.S. ambassador to Libya.
Read more @ http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/republicans-investigating-benghazi-blame-white-house-state-dept-for-failures/2014/02/10/b03ebbe2-929b-11e3-b227-12a45d109e03_story.html
And what of the embassy security staff in such a worn torn place being unarmed?
"What lies behind us and what lies before us are small matters compared to what lies within us." ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson ~
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