But that is what the rumor mill says will come out:
Stevens’ mission in Benghazi, they will say, was to buy back Stinger missiles from al-Qaeda groups issued to them by the State Department, not by the CIA. Such a mission would usually be a CIA effort, but the intelligence agency had opposed the idea because of the high risk involved in arming “insurgents” with powerful weapons that endanger civilian aircraft.
Hillary Clinton still wanted to proceed because, in part, as one of the diplomats said, she wanted “to overthrow Gaddafi on the cheap.”
Why send Stingers--our top man-carried anti-aircraft missile--when there were so many Russian-made missiles out there? And why send Stingers when we could have bought and shipped in Russian weapons to hide our involvement?
Where would the State Department even get Stingers? It would have to be from our military, I assume. Wouldn't it be easier to buy Russian models from allies?
And one more question on that: why bother arming rebels with any anti-aircraft missiles when we established a no-fly zone (and then expanded it into a regime-change air campaign)? The rebels didn't need anti-aircraft missiles for the limited use of helicopters that could avoid the air patrols.
This makes no sense on many levels. On the other hand, stupid things happen. We'll see. I'm skeptical.
The other rumor is of more interest to me:
Regarding General Ham, military contacts of the diplomats tell them that AFRICOM had Special Ops “assets in place that could have come to the aid of the Benghazi consulate immediately (not in six hours).”
Ham was told by the White House not to send the aid to the trapped men, but Ham decided to disobey and did so anyway, whereupon the White House “called his deputy and had the deputy threaten to relieve Ham of his command.”
I thought that General Ham's retirement in April 2013 was scheduled. Although I'd heard this basic rumor before, I thought it was discredited--or at least not proven correct. Perhaps not. That would be a helluva thing to have happened. We'll see. I can believe higher authorities halted rescue efforts. But I'll need proof to accept linkage between that possible action and Ham's retirement. But it isn't nearly as far-fetched, in my opinion, given the administration efforts to portray the war on terror as over.
Like I said, stupid things happen.
