Slowly But Surely Unraveling Benghazi

 

 

 

 

 

” The take-away from this week’s session, so Representative Devin Nunes (R–CA) told Fox’s Megyn Kelly, was that the beleaguered U.S. diplomats and CIA staff in Benghazi were not beyond assistance, as Obama Administration officials would have us believe. Repeatedlymembers of the Administration have stated that there was just not enough time for military assets to come to the aid of U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and his staff in the diplomatic facility, or the contractors and staff in the CIA annex roughly a mile away.

Yet, two factors have emerged, undercutting the Administration’s argument:

  • The diplomatic facility came under attack at 9:00 p.m. on September11,      fighting at the CIA annex erupted between 12:30 a.m. and 2:00 a.m., and      culminated with a mortar barrage at 5:00 a.m. on the 12th. Throughout the      evening and the morning, people all over Benghazi, including other foreign      diplomats, followed the fighting with fascination. No one could possibly know with certainty that this was the end of the battle, though Washington clearly      hoped that it was.
  • Seven CIA security specialists actually did come to the rescue from Tripoli, arriving at the CIA annex just as the mortar attack was erupting at 5:00 a.m. Their trip on a Libyan military C-130H cargo plane had been an exercise in      massive frustration, including three and a half hours spent at the Benghazi      airport, waiting on negotiations with local Libyan militias over safe passage from the airport to the CIA annex. The CIA specialists did finally make it to the annex, to the massive relief of the besieged staff. “