http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/panetta-obama-absent-night-benghazi_700405.html
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta testified this morning on Capitol Hill that President Barack Obama was absent the night four Americans were murdered in Benghazi on September 11, 2012:
Panetta said that Obama left operational details, including knowledge of what resources were available to help the Americans under seize, "up to us."
In fact, Panetta says that the night of 9/11, he did not communicate with a single person at the White House. The attack resulted in the deaths of four Americans, including Ambassador Chris Stevens.
Panetta said that, save their 5 o'clock prescheduled meeting with the president the day of September 11, Obama did not call or communicate in anyway with the defense secretary that day. There were no calls about the what was going on in Benghazi. He never called to check-in.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/no-word-hillary-during-benghazi-attack_700410.html
No Word from Hillary During Benghazi Attack
Panetta, Dempsey did not speak to Clinton.
12:55 PM, FEB 7, 2013 • BY MICHAEL WARREN
Neither the secretary of defense nor the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff spoke to the secretary of state during the 8-hour attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya on September 11, 2012. At a Thursday hearing in the Senate, Republican Ted Cruz asked both Leon Panetta and Martin Dempsey, "In between 9:42 p.m., Benghazi time, when the first attacks started, and 5:15 am, when Mr. Doherty and Mr. Woods lost their lives, what converations did either of you have with Secretary Clinton?"
"We did not have any conversations with Secretary Clinton," Panetta responded.
"And General Dempsey, the same is true for you?" Cruz asked. Dempsey confirmed this. Watch the video below:
http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/general-benghazi-we-never-received-request-support-state-department_700403.html
General on Benghazi: 'We Never Received a Request for Support from the State Department'
11:38 AM, FEB 7, 2013 • BY DANIEL HALPER
General Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the State Department never requested "support" in Benghazi:
"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 iterrupted, "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.
http://hotair.com/archives/2013/02/07/dempsey-state-department-never-asked-us-to-respond-to-benghazi/
Dempsey: State Department never asked us to respond to Benghazi
POSTED AT 12:41 PM ON FEBRUARY 7, 2013 BY ED MORRISSEY
Via Daniel Halper, John McCain extracted some significant testimony from a clearly reluctant chair of the Joint Chiefs in an Armed Services Committee hearing on Benghazi today. Appearing with outgoing Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, both tried arguing that there are too many threats and places requiring defending to have the American military act as “a global 911 service,” in Panetta’s words:
“The United States military is not and should not be a global 911 service capable of arriving on the scene within minutes to every possible contingency around the world,” Panetta told the Senate Armed Services Committee.That testimony, combined with Army Gen. Martin Dempsey’s argument that the military did what its location allowed, angered Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who accused the Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman of peddling falsehoods.“For you to testify that our posture did not allow a rapid response, did not take into account threats to our consulate … is simply false,” McCain told Dempsey. McCain contended that the military’s capability allowed armed forces to intervene in short order.
McCain didn’t bother to restrain his disgust in this exchange, either:
“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.
This is an absurd argument. No one would have questioned a lack of preparation at our Geneva embassy on May 14th, for instance. But this wasn’t May 14th, and it wasn’t Geneva. It was 9/11 — the eleventh anniversary of the attacks on Washington and New York City, which as anyone who hasn’t been in a coma for the last dozen years knows, al-Qaeda has highlighted for more attack attempts. Furthermore, it took place in Benghazi, which has been overrun by AQ-affiliated and other Islamist terrorist groups ever since the US and NATO left a huge power vacuum in eastern Libya by decapitating the Qaddafi regime the previous year. And finally, as McCain points out, the late Ambassador Chris Stevens was trying to point all of this out for months to the State Department, to no avail.
So it wasn’t a question of having a “global 911 service,” as Panetta scoffed. The problem is an ignorance bordering on the willfully incompetent about the risks in Benghazi and shrugging off preparations to provide support in case something happened. Dempsey and Panetta are dodging that question of responsibility for the lack of interest at State and the White House in military readiness for a terrorist attack that Stevens saw coming months in advance, and that practically anyone could have predicted after the transformation of eastern Libya into a failed state.
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