Benghazi: Panetta, Dempsey Throw Obama, Clinton Under the Bus
Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Martin Dempsey provided stunning testimony at a US Senate hearing on the Benghazi tragedy, which confirmed president Barack Obama and then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton were derelict in their duties before and during the evening of the September 11, 2012 attack on the embassy annex in that city.
Panetta’s testimony can be found here:
Dempsey’s testimony can be found here:
Damning parts of the testimony provided by Panetta centered around Obama and the White House staff’s failure to lead and be actively engaged during this crisis.
Sen. Ayotte: Okay, and um, since then has the president asked you why weren’t we able to get, in light of the second attack that occurred seven hours later, armed assets there in order to help those who were left and attacked in the annex?
Sec. Panetta: The president has made very clear to both myself and General Dempsey that, uh, with regards to future threats we have got to be able to deploy forces in a position to where we can more rapidly respond.
Sen. Ayotte: Just to be clear, that night he didn’t ask you what assets we had available and how quickly they could respond and what we could do to help those individuals?
Sec. Panetta: The biggest problem that night, Senator, was that nobody knew really what was going on there.
Sen. Ayotte: And there was no follow-up during the night, at least from the White House directly?
Sec. Panetta: No.
Dempsey confirmed suspicions that Secretary Clinton and the State Department failed to act upon Ambassador Chris Stevens request for increased security capabilities in light of heightened concerns in the area.
“Why didn’t you put forces in place to be ready to respond?,” Senator John McCain asked the general.
Dempsey started, “Because we never received a request to do so, number one. And number two, we –”
McCain interrupted, “You never heard of Ambassador Stevens’s repeated warnings?”
“I had, through General Ham,” responded Dempsey, referring to the commander of AFRICOM. “But we never received a request for support from the State Department, which would have allowed us to put forces–”
“So it’s the State Department’s fault?”
“I’m not blaming the State Department,” Dempsey responded.
While both Panetta and Dempsey stopped short of outright blaming Obama or Clinton, their statements of the facts preceding and occurring on Sept. 11th speak for themselves. These testimonies also highlight what has been blatantly missing from the Obama Administration on this tragedy — facts and the truth.
The facts and the truth is this — President Barack Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton are directly culpable in the deaths of four Americans who were left to fend for themselves abroad. Their failure to lead and act surpasses mere negligence; it is outright criminal. And now the main stream media can’t even cover that up for them anymore. The question remaining — what will Congress do about it?
