Benghazi Notes Profile picture
May 13 5 tweets 2 min read Twitter logo Read on Twitter
Kurt Tidd emailed orders he stated came from Leon Panetta, none of which directed any forces to #Benghazi. The CIF and SOF were to go to an "intermediate staging base" and the FAST was to prepare to deploy to Tripoli pending yet another final clearance from Panetta. (1/5)
Tidd testified one reason the CIF and the U.S. SOF were ordered to an intermediate staging base and not to Libya directly was due to concerns expressed by @HillaryClinton's @StateDept regarding the number of military personnel that would arrive in country. (2/5)
It is unclear why concurrence from anyone attending the White House meeting for forces to deploy was needed. The National Command Authority, the lawful source of military orders, consists of 2 people: the President and the Sec. of Defense. Neither attended that meeting. (3/5)
The House Select Committee investigation of the #Benghazi attacks exposes in excruciating detail the mass confusion among US officials along the chain of command regarding the semantics of the incompetent Panetta's "deploy orders." (4/5)
When viewed through the lens of @BarackObama's "lead from behind" foreign policy doctrine, however, it is easier to understand why concern over offending the host country and second-guessing overruled taking aggressive action to rescue Americans under attack. (5/5)

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
 

Keep Current with Benghazi Notes

Benghazi Notes Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @BenghaziNotes

May 14
The false conclusion from the White House teleconference was that the #Benghazi attack had been a singular event, resulting in Ambassador Stevens being taken hostage. The Pentagon shifted the mission from one of an attack on the Benghazi compound to one of rescuing Stevens. (1/7)
Pentagon decision makers assumed they were facing another hostage rescue operation, such as the 4/12/09 Maersk Alabama Captain Richard Phillips rescue or the 1/25/12 operation that rescued Jessica Buchanan and Paul Hagen Thisted. (2/7)
Pentagon commanders should have used the joint operating planning process, as promulgated at the time in the August 2011 Joint Operation Planning (JP 5-0) document. (3/7)
Read 7 tweets
Apr 14
The FEST is “the U.S. government’s only interagency, on-call, short-notice team poised to respond to terrorist incidents worldwide." FEST capabilities include crisis management, hostage negotiating, and counter-terrorism support within 4 hours. (1/4)
FEST was deployed after multiple previous terrorist attacks including the 2000 USS Cole bombing in Yemen and the 1998 US Embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania. (2/4)
Mark I. Thompson, the person in charge of the FEST, contacted @StateDept Undersecretary of Mgmt. Patrick Kennedy about deploying the FEST within hours on the night of the attacks. Kennedy sent an email response declining the offer to help. (3/4)
Read 4 tweets
Apr 13
Assets that Panetta did NOT "choose" to deploy included 2 squadrons of F-16s at Aviano Air Base, 4 remotely piloted aircraft (drones) stationed in southern Europe, special operations aircraft stationed in Souda Bay, Crete, and the Foreign Emergency Support Team (FEST). (1/5)
On 9/11/12, the air squadrons in Aviano were not on any heightened alert status, despite the supposed call for a “heightened alert” from Obama. Instead, they were in training posture and in the middle of a 2-week inspection, meaning nothing was pre-loaded on any aircraft. (2/5)
Armed drones were heavily used in Obama and Hillary's war in Libya. Drone pilots testified that after the fall of Qadhafi, they received orders to disarm drones, making it time consuming to re-arm them to respond to the #Benghazi attack. (3/5)
Read 5 tweets
Jan 17
An American named Marc Turi was a registered arms broker and owner of Turi Defense Group, Inc. who divided his time between Arizona and the United Arab Emirates. (1/9) Image
Turi applied to the @StateDept for a license in March 2011 to ship former Soviet Bloc weapons to Libyan rebels. Turi emailed Stevens regarding his proposal. Stevens wrote back saying that he would share Turi's information with the appropriate people back at the @StateDept. (2/9)
Turi's proposal to ship Soviet Bloc weapons to Libyan rebels was denied because all commercial military sales are notified to Congress, and @HillaryClinton's @StateDept didn't want a data trail traced to them when they were conducting their own covert arms operation. (3/9)
Read 10 tweets
Aug 11, 2022
With the first Sunday network TV news talk shows since the #Benghazi attacks approaching, the White House had to pick someone to appear and answer questions. Their 1st choice was @HillaryClinton. @brhodes sent her a request, but he claimed he never heard back from her. 🤣(1/7)
This was obviously an embarrassing moment for @HillaryClinton, who had planned to use her war in Libya and the assassination of Qadhafi as a success story for her future campaign for president. (2/7)
Flashback to the statement by her Deputy Chief of Staff @jakejsullivan long before the #Benghazi attacks: "Hillary's role is leadership/ownership/stewardship of Libya policy from start to finish." (3/7)
Read 7 tweets
Aug 10, 2022
When pressed by the @HouseBenghazi committee on why his overhaul of the talking points did not include the fact that there was NO 9/11/12 protest at the #Benghazi compound, backed by numerous documented witness accounts, @MichaelJMorell used an "It's not my job" excuse. (1/6)
Morell's argument was that he would have overstepped his bounds as a CIA manager to change the assessment of analysts in the talking points: "Look, managers at CIA don’t do analysis. When they are perceived to be doing the analysis, the analysts go nuts, right?" (2/6)
Morell's argument was intentionally misleading and false. He was NOT creating an analytic assessment. He was editing talking points that would be used for public consumption. The CIA analysts were not involved in the talking points process; only managers (i.e. Morell) were. (3/6)
Read 6 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!


This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Don't want to be a Premium member but still want to support us?

Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal

Or Donate anonymously using crypto!

Ethereum

0xfe58350B80634f60Fa6Dc149a72b4DFbc17D341E copy

Bitcoin

3ATGMxNzCUFzxpMCHL5sWSt4DVtS8UqXpi copy

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us on Twitter!

:(