CIA Command Reportedly Refused Help To Embassy During Benghazi Attack
Yesterday Obama’s Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta told reporters that the military didn’t intervene during the Benghazi attack because of a lack of real-time intelligence. That claim appears to have been blown out of the water by a report indicating that agents in the CIA annex at the embassy were, in fact, in constant radio contact with their superiors throughout the attack and were not only providing intelligence but were demanding help:
Fox News has learned from sources who were on the ground in Benghazi that three urgent requests from the CIA annex for military back-up during the attack on the U.S. Consulate and subsequent attack nearly seven hours later were denied by officials in the CIA chain of command — who also told the CIA operators to “stand down” rather than help the ambassador’s team when shots were heard at approximately 9:40 p.m. in Benghazi on Sept. 11.
Former Navy SEALs Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty were part of a small team who were at the CIA annex about a mile from the U.S. Consulate where Ambassador Chris Stevens and his team came under attack. When they heard the shots fired, they radioed to inform their higher-ups to tell them what they were hearing. They were told to “stand down,” according to sources familiar with the exchange. An hour later, they called again to headquarters and were again told to “stand down.”
Woods, Doherty and at least two others ignored those orders and made their way to the Consulate which at that point was on fire. Shots were exchanged. The quick reaction force from the CIA annex evacuated those who remained at the Consulate and Sean Smith, who had been killed in the initial attack. They could not find the ambassador and returned to the CIA annex at about midnight.
At that point, they called again for military support and help because they were taking fire at the CIA safe house, or annex. The request was denied. There were no communications problems at the annex, according those present at the compound. The team was in constant radio contact with their headquarters. In fact, at least one member of the team was on the roof of the annex manning a heavy machine gun when mortars were fired at the CIA compound. The security officer had a laser on the target that was firing and repeatedly requested back-up support from a Specter gunship, which is commonly used by U.S. Special Operations forces to provide support to Special Operations teams on the ground involved in intense firefights. The fighting at the CIA annex went on for more than four hours — enough time for any planes based in Sigonella Air base, just 480 miles away, to arrive. Fox News has also learned that two separate Tier One Special operations forces were told to wait, among them Delta Force operators.
To that last point, we’d learned previously from a CBS News report that a group of US commandos had landed in Sicily in preparation for a rescue mission to Benghazi. At the time it was reported that these commandos didn’t have time to put an operation together, but this report from the CIA operatives at the embassy says otherwise.
It appears CIA leadership knew what was going on in Benghazi and had the time to send help, and not only did they not send any help at all they ordered the CIA agents who were on hand not to assist the embassy personnel.
Tags: Barack Obama, benghazi, cia, leon panetta, libya
