Chris Wallace: Obama Wanted to “Deploy Forces” to Benghazi

ACCORDING TO WHOM?

by Sharon Rondeau

(May 27, 2013) — On May 19, Obama’s communications director, Dan Pfeiffer, had a face-to-face interview with Fox News’s Chris Wallace on “Fox News Sunday” during which several topics were discussed, one of which was Obama’s whereabouts and reaction to learning of the September 11 attack on the U.S. outpost in Benghazi, Libya.

The ambassador and three other Americans were killed as a result of a terrorist attack which Libyan President Mohammed al-Magariaf told U.S. officials soon afterward was “preplanned” and “predetermined.”  However, five days after the attack, Obama’s U.N. ambassador, Susan Rice, told the public on five different Sunday talk shows that the violence had erupted from a spontaneous protest over an internet video.  Rice spoke from talking points which had been significantly altered from those initially provided by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA to expunge direct references to Al Qaeda and other extremist activity.

During the interview with Pfeiffer, Wallace made a declarative statement which, although missing a word in the written transcript, indicated that Obama had ordered the military to send assistance to the besieged American compound in Benghazi on the night of September 11 which has not been widely reported or confirmed.

Wallace told Pfieffer:

He [Obama] wanted them to deploy forces as soon as possible.

But how did Wallace know that?

Pfeiffer claimed that “conspiracy theories” were circulating about Benghazi despite the report of the Accountability Review Board (ARB) appointed by then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton which did not name Clinton or Obama as having been at fault.  Pfeiffer told Wallace that Obama was “kept up-to-date throughout the day” after learning about the attack but does not mention what Obama was doing that night.

Libyan time is six hours ahead of East Coast time.

Just before the 11:00 mark, Wallace tells Pfeiffer that Obama “told the Joint Chiefs, ‘Deploy forces.'” “Who told him there were no forces?” Wallace asked Pfeiffer.

But do we know that that is what happened?  Did anyone below the putative commander-in-chief say that there “were no forces” available to Benghazi?  Then-Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta did not give testimony to that effect on February 7, nor did Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Martin Dempsey.

Pfeiffer objected to and “found offensive” “the assertions from Republicans” that Obama could have handled the attack differently.  “Who told them that you can’t deploy forces, and what was his response to that?” Wallace asked again.

All Pfeiffer would say was to repeat that Obama was kept abreast of developments in Benghazi.

The interview was reposted on various websites, but without an explanation of how Wallace made the determination that Obama had “wanted to deploy forces” in response to the attack.  Pfeiffer noticeably did not confirm Wallace’s contention.

According to retired military officers, Obama would not have needed to order the military to “deploy forces.”  Rather, contingency plans already in place for such an emergency would have unfolded without Obama having to issue any order at all.  The Post & Email reported that Obama intervened when he gave a “stand-down” order, which halted at least two military teams from attempting to travel to Benghazi directly after hearing of the attack.

Other military veterans agree that intervention was not only possible, but should have been automatic.  In a radio interview with host Howie Carr last fall, Col. David Hunt posed the question, “Why didn’t we do anything?” as he described that “12 different commands” had been listening to the same emergency action messages describing the Benghazi attack, which continued for “six hours.”  Hunt said that the various commanders would have been notified “within minutes” and that “nobody pushed the button to say ‘Go,'” comparing Obama’s failure to act to Bill Clinton’s decisions not to send reinforcements and to withdraw from Mogadishu, Somalia, after 18 U.S. soldiers were brutally killed in October 1993.

Gregory Hicks, a 22-year State Department diplomat, testified to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on May 8 that a Lt. Col. Gibson had begun to lead a military response team to Benghazi when he received a phone call from his chain of command instructing him not to go.  Hicks reported that Gibson became “furious” and appalled at what he described as a diplomat having more courage than the U.S. military.

Obama has been described as “weak” on foreign policy by a columnist for a London-based Arab newspaper.  Obama reportedly halted a potential raid on Osama bin Laden’s hideout three different times before allowing it to proceed, each time having received advice from his senior adviser and confidante, Valerie Jarrett.

During the interview, Pfeiffer accused Republicans of “doctoring an email” relating to the Benghazi incident.  Pfeiffer’s photo appears above the long-form birth certificate posted on the White House website which has been determined by an experienced detective, leading an investigation by a Cold Case Posse, to be a “computer-generated forgery.”

Col. Hunt said that with modern technology, emergency action messages reach the necessary commanders in a “staggeringly quick” and “instantaneous” manner, supporting the contentions of CDR Walter Francis Fitzpatrick, III in a recent report to The Post & Email.  Hunt said that the Obama “administration watched” the four Americans die and took no action to intervene.

Hunt claimed that the Obama regime, particularly Joe Biden, was “lying” about the events in Benghazi.  He described other situations he had witnessed in the past in which military action had been eschewed as “political.”

“They were never given the word to go,” Hunt opined in the interview, referring to testimony given by State Department career employee Charlene Lamb on October 10, 2012.

“These commands exist…that when an embassy is under attack, there is a ton, a pile, a truckload, of headquarters, that are listening and have operational plans to do something about it, and they weren’t allowed to do it…” Hunt told Carr.  “We were watching it minute by minute.”

Gen. Carter Ham, former commander of AFRICOM who retired in April after reportedly having been relieved of command for refusing the stand-down order, reportedly told Congress that “he would have done things differently that night.”

If Obama, as putative commander-in-chief, ordered forces to deploy and his commanders did not follow the order, why were more generals and commanders in addition to Ham and Admiral Charles Gaouette not relieved of their duties that night for insubordination?  Why has Obama not stated publicly that he ordered a military response if that were the case?

All Obama would say directly afterward was that he “gave three very clear directives: Number one, make sure that we are securing our personnel and doing whatever we need to.”  But he did not say that he ordered military assistance, and the October 26 report made by Fox News of a stand-down order was confirmed by Gregory Hicks on May 8.

Commentator Karl Rove also asserted in an interview with Newsmax that ““The president ordered them to deploy whatever forces were necessary.”  Rove appears to have gleaned his conclusion from a statement made by then-Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, who testified to Congress that he, Dempsey, and then-AFRICOM Commander Gen. Carter Ham “felt very strongly” that forces could not be committed without “having some real-time information” about the emergency.

But Ham does not appear to agree with the regime’s response to the Benghazi debacle.

Fitzpatrick said he could confirm that Ham was relieved of his command that night because he refused to follow Obama’s stand-down order.

Panetta insisted that the Benghazi attack was not “a prolonged or continuous assault,” which is a false statement, as the attack lasted between six and eight hours.

Did Panetta perjure himself when he told a Senate panel that Obama had told Panetta and Dempsey to “do whatever you need to do?”

Did that necessarily translate to Obama ordering “forces” to “deploy,” or was Obama derelict in his duties as a watch officer over the United States of America?