Paul Wolfowitz on Benghazi
whygohome
Posts: 2,305
I'm not a fan of Wolfowitz (from what I know), but I think that this is an interesting take.
http://go.bloomberg.com/political-capit ... -benghazi/
Obama’s New Libyan Defense Chief: Bush’s Paul Wolfowitz, on Benghazi
After a day paling around in Hurricane Sandy disaster areas with New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, President Barack Obama got an unexpected defense today from an even more surprising corner of the Republican Party.
In a blog post, George W. Bush administration deputy defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz, who helped lead the 2003 U.S. charge into Iraq in search of non-existent weapons of mass destruction and Iraqi links to al-Qaeda, declared that “the U.S. did almost everything possible to protect our people” from the attack on the American diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, that killed U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans.
In his post on the Web site of the American Enterprise Institute, the neo-conservative equivalent of the Vatican, Wolfowitz said that after “talking with someone who has spoken directly with key general officers and others involved in the U.S. response to the Benghazi attacks,” he concluded that:
– “The Consulate was overrun in a matter of minutes, before any help was possible.”
– “Decision makers in Washington appear to have been leaning forward, as they should have been. The military’s most capable rescue force, based on the East Coast, was deployed immediately (something that is very rarely done), but –- given the distances involved –- arrived” at the U.S. Naval Air Station at Sigonella in Sicily “only after the crisis was over.”
– Contrary to claims on numerous conservative Web sites: “There was no AC-130 gunship in the region.”
(Defense Department spokesman George Little told Bloomberg the same thing yesterday in an e-mail.)
– Shooting down another conservative attack line: “The only drone available in Libya was an unarmed surveillance drone which was quickly moved from Darna to Benghazi, but the field of view of these drones is limited and, in any case, this one was not armed.”
– In yet another counterattack on Benghazi conspiracy theorists: “The only other assets immediately available were F-16 fighter jets based at Aviano, Italy. These aircraft might have reached Benghazi while the fight at the Annex was still going on, but they would have had difficulty pinpointing hostile mortar positions or distinguishing between friendly and hostile militias in the midst of a confused firefight in a densely populated residential area where there would have been a high likelihood of civilian casualties. While two more Americans were tragically killed by a mortar strike on the Annex, it’s not clear that deploying F-16’s would have prevented that.”
“If all of this is true,” Wolfowitz concludes, “then it would appear that the U.S. national security team was doing everything they thought possible to protect the Americans in Benghazi.”
Wolfowitz still blames the Obama administration for its credibility problem, calling it “the result of a general lack of transparency and particularly of the fact that senior officials, including the president and the secretary of state, persisted for so long in offering the American people misleading suggestions that the attacks in Benghazi were a response to an obscure anti-Islamic video.”
He also faults the administration for failing to respond to requests for better security in Libya, for assigning a low priority to the military’s Africa Command, and for failing to move quickly to bolster Libya’s security forces after the fall of Muammar Qaddafi — although he confesses that the Bush administration made the same mistake in Afghanistan and Iraq.
It remains to be seen, though, whether even one of the architects of the neo-conservative movement that’s foursquare behind Mitt Romney in the presidential contest can shoot down the Internet buzz about drones, gunships, rapid reaction forces and stand-down orders.
http://go.bloomberg.com/political-capit ... -benghazi/
Obama’s New Libyan Defense Chief: Bush’s Paul Wolfowitz, on Benghazi
After a day paling around in Hurricane Sandy disaster areas with New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, President Barack Obama got an unexpected defense today from an even more surprising corner of the Republican Party.
In a blog post, George W. Bush administration deputy defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz, who helped lead the 2003 U.S. charge into Iraq in search of non-existent weapons of mass destruction and Iraqi links to al-Qaeda, declared that “the U.S. did almost everything possible to protect our people” from the attack on the American diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, that killed U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans.
In his post on the Web site of the American Enterprise Institute, the neo-conservative equivalent of the Vatican, Wolfowitz said that after “talking with someone who has spoken directly with key general officers and others involved in the U.S. response to the Benghazi attacks,” he concluded that:
– “The Consulate was overrun in a matter of minutes, before any help was possible.”
– “Decision makers in Washington appear to have been leaning forward, as they should have been. The military’s most capable rescue force, based on the East Coast, was deployed immediately (something that is very rarely done), but –- given the distances involved –- arrived” at the U.S. Naval Air Station at Sigonella in Sicily “only after the crisis was over.”
– Contrary to claims on numerous conservative Web sites: “There was no AC-130 gunship in the region.”
(Defense Department spokesman George Little told Bloomberg the same thing yesterday in an e-mail.)
– Shooting down another conservative attack line: “The only drone available in Libya was an unarmed surveillance drone which was quickly moved from Darna to Benghazi, but the field of view of these drones is limited and, in any case, this one was not armed.”
– In yet another counterattack on Benghazi conspiracy theorists: “The only other assets immediately available were F-16 fighter jets based at Aviano, Italy. These aircraft might have reached Benghazi while the fight at the Annex was still going on, but they would have had difficulty pinpointing hostile mortar positions or distinguishing between friendly and hostile militias in the midst of a confused firefight in a densely populated residential area where there would have been a high likelihood of civilian casualties. While two more Americans were tragically killed by a mortar strike on the Annex, it’s not clear that deploying F-16’s would have prevented that.”
“If all of this is true,” Wolfowitz concludes, “then it would appear that the U.S. national security team was doing everything they thought possible to protect the Americans in Benghazi.”
Wolfowitz still blames the Obama administration for its credibility problem, calling it “the result of a general lack of transparency and particularly of the fact that senior officials, including the president and the secretary of state, persisted for so long in offering the American people misleading suggestions that the attacks in Benghazi were a response to an obscure anti-Islamic video.”
He also faults the administration for failing to respond to requests for better security in Libya, for assigning a low priority to the military’s Africa Command, and for failing to move quickly to bolster Libya’s security forces after the fall of Muammar Qaddafi — although he confesses that the Bush administration made the same mistake in Afghanistan and Iraq.
It remains to be seen, though, whether even one of the architects of the neo-conservative movement that’s foursquare behind Mitt Romney in the presidential contest can shoot down the Internet buzz about drones, gunships, rapid reaction forces and stand-down orders.
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"Dynamite drop-in, Monte."
:fp: fox news die hard?
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I love you forever and forever
Adel 03 Melb 1 03 LA 2 06 Santa Barbara 06 Gorge 1 06 Gorge 2 06 Adel 1 06 Adel 2 06 Camden 1 08 Camden 2 08 Washington DC 08 Hartford 08
that broadcast school has really paid off.
My view of a lot of these gov't mistakes with reporting is that they try to hard to get information out too quickly. They get varying reports and they go with it. I know in movies everyone up the chain of command knows everything immediately, I just don't think it is that way in real life.
Back to the question at hand,
It is too bad this has become right against left when it should have been and should be about America vs. those that attacked on that day. What could have been done differently leading up to it is much more important to find out than blaming those for making the best decision they could.
I can do without the misinformation, but I think it stems from trying to explain to people the un-explainable... No one wants to hear the truth of why these attacks happen, they would much rather be fed a story about islamic jihadists and a ridiculous video. So now they can argue about the conspiracy rather than the real reason people continue to plot against and attack our installations all over the world. These people attacked and no one wants to talk about the real reasons, so they make up videos and call the terrorists crazy jihadists.
Sad. Thanks for the info, I have to say I haven't been paying much attention, nice to see someone look at this like an American rather than a dem or rep.
It is terrifying when you are too stupid to know who is dumb
- Joe Rogan
And another point to bring up is that this IS NOT some manufactured, opposition research back room "October Surprise" before the election -- it's an honest to God INCIDENT that at any other time would have the media fighting tooth and nail for answers and accountability. This is exactly what the media SHOULD be doing, but is not.
I admire Wolfowitz going to bat here, but still, extremely important questions remain. There's three parts: how security was neglected while al-Qaeda was building; whether the administration tried to mislead the public; and now whether the administration denied pleas for help.
We've got that last one beginning to be covered adequetely, the second one has produced nothing but hot air - records will show who the president called, what groups he convened, did he go to the Situation Room (tellingly, we got the Sit Room Photo of Sandy, but not Benghazi), and some of that will also address that last question. The first one has congress folks calling for Hillary's resignation....