Scandal: The administration says there just wasn't enough time to send military help for the four Americans murdered by terrorists in the Benghazi attacks. Newly released emails show that's another lie.Former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta swore during congressional testimony in 2013 that "without an adequate warning, there was not enough time given the speed of the attack for armed military assets to respond" to Benghazi.
Killed by terrorists in the Sept. 11, 2012, attacks were U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens, U.S. Foreign Service Information Management Officer Sean Smith, and CIA contractors Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty.
In a televised interview, also in 2013, Panetta, who served as the Obama defense secretary for nearly two years, said "you cannot just simply call and expect within two minutes to have a team in place. It takes time."
So the administration's official line has been that no help was sent because events happened too quickly.
But the facts are catching up with the story. Emails released this week by Judicial Watch show that a Defense official offered armed intervention that could in the official's opinion have provided help. "We have identified the forces that could move to Benghazi," chief of staff Jeremy Bash said in an email sent to State Department leadership. "They are spinning up as we speak."
We don't know what those "forces" were because the reference has been redacted. But they likely didn't need to have the strength of an invading army.
It wouldn't have taken much to instill terror in the terrorists. As noted by Judicial Watch, which obtained the emails through a Freedom of Information lawsuit, State Department Mission Deputy Chief Gregory Hicks has said under oath that even scrambling "a fighter or aircraft or two over Benghazi as quickly as possible after the attack commenced" would have prevented the mortar attack on the State Department annex and caused the Libyans to " split."
"They would have been scared to death that we would have gotten a laser on them and killed them," Hicks said.
But military support would have drawn attention to the administration's failed Middle East policies. And it couldn't afford that in an election year.
So, it appears a White House decision was made to let the violence play out without intervention, then make up a lie that the attacks weren't terrorism but merely a protest over an anti-Islamic video that just got out of hand.
It was a tale that Hillary Clinton was most certainly involved in concocting. Was she also involved in turning down the offer of military support?
The White House has repeatedly denied a stand-down order given to the military response to Benghazi. But as the Bash email confirms, support clearly was offered -- yet never arrived. Did someone in the administration turn it down, or was it utterly ignored?
Nah. She probably didn't get the 03:00 email because she was sleeping. Besides, she thinks the military is for losers.
Either way, the White House and the Democrats' leading presidential candidate look bad. It was Secretary of State Clinton's war, so she owns Libya and every disaster related to it.