Defense Secretary Testimony Has Scary Implications

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta testified yesterday before a Senate Committee on Armed Services hearing regarding the September 11 attacks in Benghazi, Libya. Most of his testimony was overly boring, as he stuck to the Obama administration’s story that the Defense Department and the White House did all they could with the resources they had. Panetta said he stood by the conclusion of an “independent” review board, which concluded the “inter-agency response was timely and appropriate, but there simply was not enough time, given the speed of the attacks, for armed U.S. military assets to have made a difference.” However, at one point in his testimony, while responding to a question, his answer became downright scary.

When asked about the communication he and President Obama had while the attack was unfolding, Panetta claimed that they had spoke one time on the phone. This was a pre-scheduled meeting in which Panetta, General Dempsey, and the President spoke for about 20 minutes. The President, according to Panetta, after being informed of the Benghazi attack, left everything in the hands of the Defense Secretary and General Dempsey, and did not call to check on the situation even once that night.

This is unbelievably scary for two reasons, the first being if Secretary Panetta is telling the truth in his testimony this means that the Defense Department was making the decisions of whether or not to violate the airspace of another country, whether it was too risky to send help, and what help should be sent if any all by themselves. The President is the Commander-in-Chief. These decisions are his decisions to make, and to have him completely out of communication with the Defense Department while the attack was going on is insanity. How could he not care about our Embassy and our Ambassador, a man he personally assigned to this post?

This is also unbelievably scary because Secretary Panetta is almost certainly covering up for the President. There are far too many anomalies in the testimony of Panetta, and this scenario is far too ludicrous to have happened. The Defense Secretary and the President would have had to discuss what options were available, and which options the President would be open to using during the 20 minute phone call where the President was informed of the attack. Also, to think a President would allow his Defense Department to make these crucial decisions without any input or from himself is ridiculous; it just does not happen.

If the cover up story is this ridiculous, and makes our President look this unfit to lead, then how much worse is the truth? It must be far worse, or else the administration would not be going to such great lengths to keep it from Congress and the American people. There are two options, either we have a President who is unfit to lead because he does not know how to make crucial decisions and has no respect for the lives of the people he put into harms way, or we have a President who is unfit to lead because he is covering up a scandal from the American people. Either way, it is clear we have a major problem with our President.