” A U.S. security team in Benghazi was held back from immediately responding to the attack on the American diplomatic mission on orders of the top CIA officer there, three of those involved told Fox News’ Bret Baier.
Their account gives a dramatic new turn to what the Obama administration and its allies would like to dismiss as an “old story” – the September 11, 2012 Benghazi attacks that killed U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans.
Speaking out publicly for the first time, the three were security operators at the secret CIA annex in Benghazi – in effect, the first-responders to any attack on the diplomatic compound. Their first-hand account will be told in a Fox News special, airing Friday night at 10 p.m. (EDT).
Based on the new book “13 Hours: The Inside Account of What Really Happened in Benghazi” by Mitchell Zuckoff with the Annex Security Team, the special sets aside the political spin that has freighted the Benghazi issue for the last two years, presenting a vivid, compelling narrative of events from the perspective of the men who wore the “boots on the ground.”
” If former CIA Director David Petraeus and his ex-deputy Michael Morell are recalled to testify on Benghazi, they can expect hard questions about the mortar attack on the CIA annex which killed two former Navy SEALs.
Republican Mike Rogers, chairman of the powerful House Intelligence Committee, is weighing whether to recall one or both of those officials over their Benghazi congressional testimony.”
” Rogers said the evidence suggests a highly skilled team carried out the mortar strike. Fox News has confirmed five rounds were fired in under a minute, with three hitting the annex roof — a target roughly the size of two convenience stores.
” This was exceptionally good shooting. It was clearly accurate. They adjusted their fire, which is a term a mortar crew might use, so they went a little long and a little short and they fired for effect,” Rogers said. “When you fire for effect and you have three rounds hit exactly where they were intended that ended up taking the lives of our American heroes there, that tells me that they knew exactly what they were doing. So that was either significantly preplanned, or it was a mortar crew that was exceptionally good.”
Spontaneous my a** … Lies , lies and more lies . It took only two ranging shots from these spontaneous amateurs to be able to drop the next three rounds right on the Annex roof ? Sure . And ponder this little fact found near the end of the story :
” While the CIA annex was heavily fortified, its security cameras intact and a drone overhead throughout the attack, there is apparently no video of the mortar strike itself.”
” Congress generally has given the Pentagon a pass on failing to come to the aid of Americans in Benghazi — that is until now.
Six Republicans on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, led by Vice Chairman Saxby Chambliss of Georgia, have issued a blistering criticism of Army Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, who as Joint Chiefs chairman is the nation’s highest-ranking officer and chief military adviser to President Obama.
Under the heading “Failures in leadership — General Dempsey,” the senators singled out the four-star officer for not having an emergency plan in place in al Qaeda-infiltrated North Africa, including Benghazi, Libya.”
” The injuries were sustained by U.S. personnel after mortars struck the CIA annex rooftop they were defending. Fox News is told that one former government contractor — who is expected to testify this week along with four other contractors in classified sessions on Capitol Hill — has had multiple surgeries since the attack and has still not regained full use of one arm.
In addition to former Navy Seals Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty, who were killed defending the Annex, at least two other Americans were severely injured on the roof top.
Diplomatic Security Agent David Ubben – who as late as August was still recovering at Walter Reed Medical Center in suburban Washington – was so severely injured fighting alongside the Seals that he has undergone multiple surgeries. The protocol is often referred to as a “leg or limb salvage.” “
” Little is known about those who survived the Benghazi attack. The State Department confirmed in March, after multiple inquiries by Fox News, that a total of three diplomatic security agents, as well as a State Department contractor, were among the Americans injured during the terrorist assault which killed the two former SEALs, Ambassador Chris Stevens, and Foreign Service Officer Sean Smith.”
The American people deserve to learn the truth about Benghazi and it’s cover-up . Enough with the stonewalling and lies . It is plain to anyone with an open mind that Obama and Clinton have gone to tremendous lengths to preserve their political viability and that in Obama’s case he has succeeded . He won his reelection and so now is done but Hillary still dreams of returning to the White House and thus cannot afford for the truth to be known .
That truth being , in simple , easy to understand terms , that for the first time since the Iranian revolution a president and his Secretary of State not only allowed the sovereignty of an American embassy to be violated after having been warned of potential threats , but refused to bolster security in response to the threats and then when the threats actually materialized refused help for the minimal besieged security forces that were in place . A clearer example of dereliction of duty by a “Commander-In-Chief” we can’t imagine .
The link below offers a very clear and concise summary of the events of September 11/12 , 2012 . If there is one article on the Benghazi ATTACK that we would suggest as required reading it is this one . Read it and bookmark it for the links and as a reference point . As to the aftermath and subsequent cover-up we need to turn elsewhere and this post published on October 30th of that year reveals in very stark terms how little we have learned in the past year.
Here is a biographical sketch of the author Clare Lopez . You can judge for yourself her bona fides .This is not the rant of some pajama-clad rightwinger down in his folk’s basement .
” Clare M. Lopez is a strategic policy and intelligence expert with a focus on Middle East, national defense, WMD, and counterterrorism issues. Specific areas of expertise include Islam and Iran. Lopez began her career as an operations officer with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), serving domestically and abroad for 20 years in a variety of assignments, and acquiring extensive expertise in counterintelligence, counternarcotics, and counterproliferation issues with a career regional focus on the former Soviet Union, Central and Eastern Europe and the Balkans. She has served in or visited over two dozen nations worldwide, and speaks several languages, including Spanish, Bulgarian, French, German, and Russian, and currently is studying Farsi.
Now a private consultant, Lopez also serves as Vice President of the non-profit forum, The Intelligence Summit, and is a Professor at the Centre for Counterintelligence and Security Studies (CI Centre), where she teaches courses on the Iranian Intelligence Services, and the expanding influence of Jihad and Sharia in Europe and the U.S. She is affiliated on a consultant basis with DoD contractors that provide clandestine operations training to military intelligence personnel. Lopez was Executive Director of the Iran Policy Committee, a Washington, DC think tank, from 2005-2006. She has served as a Senior Scientific Researcher at the Battelle Memorial Institute; a Senior Intelligence Analyst, Subject Matter Expert, and Program Manager at HawkEye Systems, LLC.; and previously produced Technical Threat Assessments for U.S. Embassies at the Department of State, Bureau of Diplomatic Security, where she worked as a Senior Intelligence Analyst for Chugach Systems Integration.
Lopez received a B.A. in Communications and French from Notre Dame College of Ohio (NDC) and an M.A. in International Relations from the Maxwell School of Syracuse University. She completed Marine Corps Officer Candidate School (OCS) in Quantico, Virginia before declining a commission in order to join the CIA. Lopez is a member of the Board of Directors for the Institute of World Affairs and also serves on the Advisory Board for the Intelligence Analysis and Research program and as an occasional guest lecturer at her undergraduate alma mater, NDC. She has been a Visiting Researcher at Georgetown University and a guest lecturer on terrorism, national defense, international relations, and Iran there, at the FBI Academy in Quantico, VA, and the National Defense Intelligence College in Washington, D.C. Lopez is a regular contributor to print and broadcast media on subjects related to Iran, Islam, counterterrorism, and the Middle East and is the co-author of two published books on Iran.”
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