Excerpts from recent editorials in the U.S. and abroad:
The Providence (R.I.) Journal, Sept. 12:
It’s now more than two years since four Americans, including our ambassador to Libya, were killed in a terrorist attack in Benghazi. Yet there are still troubling questions and uncertainties surrounding the event.
The Obama administration’s reaction after the event has long come under scrutiny ”“ recall Susan Rice’s misleading statements that the attack was a random act of violence spurred by an anti-Islam YouTube video. But now there are disturbing allegations surrounding the events on the ground in Benghazi that night.
Consider the revelations in a new book, “13 Hours.” The book, written (with the assistance of a Boston University professor) by five Central Intelligence Agency commandos who were present in Benghazi at the time of the attack, is the first eyewitness account of the atrocity to be published. It contains a deeply disturbing allegation: that the commandos were prevented from responding to the attack by the CIA base chief in Benghazi.
“The commandos say they protested repeatedly as the base chief ordered them to wait in their vehicles, fully armed, for 20 minutes while the attack on the diplomatic mission was unfolding less than a mile away,” reports The New York Times, which obtained an advance copy of the book. “The commandos’ account ”“ which fits with the publicly known facts and chronology ”“ suggests that the base chief issued the ”˜stand down’ orders on his own authority,” the paper continues.
It is suggested that the chief made this decision because he preferred to use local Libyans to protect the compound rather than CIA personnel. (The fear, reportedly, was that the CIA would expose its base.) But no help from Libyans came, and as a result, four Americans died horrific deaths. A “senior intelligence official” has seemingly denied the allegations, telling The Times that “there were no orders to anybody to stand down in providing support.”
Clearly, this is a matter that requires further investigation. If it is, in fact, true that five CIA commandos were fully equipped and ready to protect the diplomatic mission, then it’s profoundly troubling that they were prevented from doing so. The American people deserve answers as to why four of their own were allowed to die at the hands of terrorists on that awful night, and if everything possible was done to protect them.
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