Friday, August 23, 2013

President Obama allows Benghazi suspects to Walk - Columbia Public Policy | Examiner.com

President Obama allows Benghazi suspects to Walk - Columbia Public Policy | Examiner.com

August 23, 2013
Fox News reports that the special team of investigators sent to Benghazi to track down suspects in last year's Benghazi attack, are being pulled out Libya for good. Special operators in the area told Fox News that the suspects had been identified months ago and after the reports were vetted by both the State Department and the Dept of Defense, were sent on to the White House, who has refused to pull the trigger on the arrests. One recommended action was delivered to the president on August 7th.
The investigators spent months taking video, audio, and photos of the Benghazi suspects, only to see their work crumble before their eyes. The investigators are angry that they risked their lives and the lives of Libyans to obtain this evidence just to find out, they were closing up shop and leaving the country.
"We put American special operations in harm's way to develop a picture of these suspects and to seek justice and instead of acting, we stalled. We just let it slip and pass us by and now it's going to be much more difficult. It's already blowing up. Daily assassinations, bi-weekly prison escapes, we waited way too long."
One angry team leader literally yelled at former Libyan Chief of Mission William Roebuck, asking him, "so you're willing to let these guys get away with murder?" Roebuck's answer was total silence.
The Pentagon is now claiming that these investigators were not charged with tracking the suspects and that when Congress authorized trainers for counterterrorism in Libya, they were specific what the money was to be spent on. The Pentagon says that soldiers out of Ft Bragg were responsible for tracking the Benghazi suspects.
The investigators disagree with that assessment and accuse the Pentagon of using semantics to justify dumping the operation.
"The training is partly a cover and some of these guys ... provided the information on suspects directly to U.S. military commanders and the U.S. State Department last November and again in January. They are there and trained to find, fix and finish." an unidentified investigator told Fox News.
Fox News had reported earlier this year that the investigators had identified the suspects and their whereabouts in November of 2012 and passed that information on to Roebuck in January of this year. No action was taken.
And it gets worse. Libyan officials have now removed the US trainers from a camp where they spent a year of their time and a bundle of taxpayer money to stand up a Libyan force capable of fighting Al Qaeda. US officials are now allowing the Libyan government to occupy the camp, which in turn undermined their mission to create an effective terrorism force that was begun before the September attack on Benghazi.
The men, who are to leave Libya soon, told Fox News that their job was to capture or kill the suspects and that they had briefed acting U.S. ambassador in Libya and the senior CIA representative in the country. They were told that Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, and an undersecretary were briefed, but that neither the DOD or the White House would authorize the action.
One man told Fox News that General Ham, who was in charge of Africom had told Libya Chief of Mission Laurence Pope, that he could easily plan a mission to capture or kill the suspects but that politics had prevented him from taking action.
"politics and fallout kept us from acting. To do an operation we have to have (Chief of Mission) and state approval. We didn't get it. ... They sat on it." (General Ham)
Meanwhile the suspects are aiding the Muslim Brotherhood in Libya and the terrorist group, Ansar al-Sharia, who are alleged to have participated in the Benghazi attack. The Brotherhood and Ansar al-Sharia are getting stronger by the day as the young Libyan government is getting weaker.
Investigators also told Fox news that Mohamed Kattalah. a militia leader and suspect in the Benghazi raid, is located in Eastern Libya, aiding Ansar al-Sharia.

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