Benghazi probe: General tells lawmakers no one asked military to save Americans
At
last week's Benghazi hearing, witnesses pointed to a State Department
cover-up in its handling of last year's attack in Libya. Will this hurt
Hillary Clinton's political legacy and her career ambitions?on.aol.com
May 1, 2014
A former upper-echelon military intelligence officer who was the
deputy director of the U.S. African Command testified before lawmakers
on Thursday that the U.S. Department of State, headed by Hillary
Clinton, never once asked the U.S. military to
save the lives of Americans being slaughtered at the Benghazi, Libya,
United States diplomatic mission, according to a videotape from the U.S. Congress.
In response to the alleged 'smoking gun' email written by a White House staff member for then-U.S. Secretary to the United Nations Susan Rice -- which was released by the public-interest group Judicial Watch on Tuesday to Fox News and the Examiner by JW's Jill Farrell -- the House of Representatives Oversight and Government Reform Committee on Thursday held a special session to investigate the latest allegations of an Obama Administration cover-up.
A major witness called to testify before Committee Chairman Darrell Issa and other panel members was retired U.S. Air Force Brigadier General Robert Lovell, the former Deputy Director of Intelligence for the U.S. African Command (AFRICOM), claims that no one at the U.S. State Department requested a military response to attempt to save Americans under attack in Benghazi.
During his testimony, when asked about the feelings of military personnel in the AFRICOM operations room at the time of the terrorist attack on the Benghazi consulate, Brig. Gen. Lovell said, "It was desperation there… it was desperation to gain situational awareness and to be able to do something to save people’s lives."
Upon being asked if U.S. assets in Europe went "into the sound of the guns? Did they actually go into Benghazi?" Lovell replied, "No."
He went on to say, "Basically, there was a lot of looking to the State Department for what they wanted and the deference to the Libyan people and the sense of deference to the desires of the State Department in terms of what they would like to have."
Chairman Issa then stated, "We didn’t run to the sound of the guns? They were issuing press releases. We had Americans dying. We had dead people. We had wounded people. And our military didn’t try to engage in that fight. Would you disagree with that?"
To which Brig. Gen. Lovell simply replied, "Not to my knowledge, sir."
Brig. Gen. Lovell also testified that the Benghazi attack and slaughter “was not -- not an escalation [of a protest]. It was an attack.”
In response to the alleged 'smoking gun' email written by a White House staff member for then-U.S. Secretary to the United Nations Susan Rice -- which was released by the public-interest group Judicial Watch on Tuesday to Fox News and the Examiner by JW's Jill Farrell -- the House of Representatives Oversight and Government Reform Committee on Thursday held a special session to investigate the latest allegations of an Obama Administration cover-up.
A major witness called to testify before Committee Chairman Darrell Issa and other panel members was retired U.S. Air Force Brigadier General Robert Lovell, the former Deputy Director of Intelligence for the U.S. African Command (AFRICOM), claims that no one at the U.S. State Department requested a military response to attempt to save Americans under attack in Benghazi.
During his testimony, when asked about the feelings of military personnel in the AFRICOM operations room at the time of the terrorist attack on the Benghazi consulate, Brig. Gen. Lovell said, "It was desperation there… it was desperation to gain situational awareness and to be able to do something to save people’s lives."
Upon being asked if U.S. assets in Europe went "into the sound of the guns? Did they actually go into Benghazi?" Lovell replied, "No."
He went on to say, "Basically, there was a lot of looking to the State Department for what they wanted and the deference to the Libyan people and the sense of deference to the desires of the State Department in terms of what they would like to have."
Chairman Issa then stated, "We didn’t run to the sound of the guns? They were issuing press releases. We had Americans dying. We had dead people. We had wounded people. And our military didn’t try to engage in that fight. Would you disagree with that?"
To which Brig. Gen. Lovell simply replied, "Not to my knowledge, sir."
Brig. Gen. Lovell also testified that the Benghazi attack and slaughter “was not -- not an escalation [of a protest]. It was an attack.”
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