Admiral Mullen says there was no time to react to the consulate attack and that there is no reasonable way to tether US forces to diplomatic posts in case they are needed.
True enough.
I admitted there was too little time to save the consulate early after the attack. But there was time to reach the annex. Remember, while the fighting at the consulate was over fast, we didn't know for sure that it was too late to save our ambassador and other staff there. But we chose not to save them even though we didn't know if we had time.
Certainly, we can't have troops on a tether to react to embassy attacks. But we did have lots of military assets in Europe and the region. Are you really telling me that we couldn't have pulled a company of troops to send quickly just in case? Or a platoon? Remember, the CIA sent a mere squad of agents into the battle. We couldn't have put a platoon in the air in case they were of use? We couldn't have put a couple armed planes over the annex for morale support and perhaps fire support?
Admiral Mullen is defending inaction by citing factors that are not necessarily relevant to the Benghazi crisis that day.
Sure, the consulate was a goner. By there was time for the annex. And we didn't know early that it was too late to save the ambassador who could have been alive somewhere.
And while we can't reasonably have troops on standby to save every diplomatic outpost if it comes under attack too strong for local defenses, Mullen does not answer why we did not use any of the many and varied types of military forces that we had in the area to try to save the annex. Perhaps it was too late. But we didn't even try. Why?
And even if there was too little time to save the consulate and annex, has there really been too little time to retaliate against al Qaeda for their role in this attack? More than three months later, we've yet to strike back.
This report explains things that don't answer the questions I have. It's the classic ploy when asked a question you can't answer--just answer the question you can answer.
UPDATE: I'm not alone. Max Boot wants similar answers (tip to Instapundit):
But for all of the rigor of the panel’s work, it was narrowly focused on the State Department’s handling of the situation. There is little said about the military response to the attacks, beyond the sending of a drone aircraft and the evacuation of the diplomats in Benghazi; and there is even less about the White House role in managing the response to the crisis, even though senior officials, up to and including the president, must have been aware of the attacks as they were occurring. Nor is there anything in the report about the failure, so far, to bring the perpetrators of the attacks to justice. Why, for example, has the administration seemingly decided to treat this as a law enforcement matter, with the FBI in the lead, rather than treating it as an act of war, with the armed forces in the lead? A fuller explanation of those issues awaits, presumably, more congressional digging.
The administration just hopes that providing some answers will obscure the fact that they aren't addressing the primary questions. Sadly, it may work.
