More Benghazi EVENTS PREVIOUSLY UNKNOWN

UPDATE - VIDEO ADDED AT BOTTOM OF POST

It’s incredible.

The Pentagon DID dispatch Special Forces.

ON THEIR OWN

The Special Forces DID arrive in time to try to rescue our people.

The Special Forces DID take part in the fight to do so.

Masked from public view, two of the U.S. military’s elite special operations commandos have been awarded medals for bravery for a mission that further undercuts the Obama administration’s original story about the Benghazi tragedy.

For months, administration officials have claimed no special operations forces were dispatched from outside Libya to Benghazi during the Sept. 11, 2012, al Qaeda terrorist attacks on the U.S. diplomatic mission and CIA annex because none was within range.

The Pentagon, under intense public criticism for not coming to the aid of besieged Americans, published an official timeline in November that carefully danced around the issue.

It said time and distance prevented any commandos outside Libya from reaching a CIA compound under attack. The timeline disclosed that a reinforcement flight 400 miles away in Tripoli contained two “DoD personnel” but did not describe who they were. Later, the official State Department report on Benghazi said they were “two U.S. military personnel” — but provided no other details. It made no mention of special operations forces.

But sources directly familiar with the attack tell The Washington Times that a unit of eight special operators — mostly Delta Force and Green Beret members — were in Tripoli the night of the attack, on a counterterrorism mission that involved capturing weapons and wanted terrorists from the streets and helping train Libyan forces.

When word of the Benghazi attack surfaced, two members of that military unit volunteered to be dispatched along with five private security contractors on a hastily arranged flight from Tripoli to rescue Americans in danger, the sources said, speaking only on the condition of anonymity because the special operations forces’ existence inside Libya was secret.

The two special operations forces arrived in time to engage in the final, ferocious firefight between the terrorists and Americans holed up in the CIA annex near the ill-fated diplomatic mission in Benghazi, the sources added.

The two special operators were awarded medals for valor for helping repel a complex attack that killed Ambassador J. Christopher Stephens, another American diplomat and two former Navy SEALs, but spared many more potential casualties.

“Yes, we had special forces in Tripoli, and two in fact did volunteer and engaged heroically in the efforts to save Americans,” one source told The Times. “The others were asked to stay behind to help protect Tripoli in case there was a coordinated attack on our main embassy.

“The remaining [special operations forces] were ready to dispatch the next morning, but by that time American personnel had been evacuated to the airport, local militias had provided additional security and it was determined there was no need for them to be dispatched at that point,” the source added.

Pressed why the Pentagon and administration officials did not publicly acknowledge the special operations forces’ contribution that tragic night, the sources said officials decided that their anti-terror work inside Libya was sensitive and closely guarded. In addition, U.S. officials did not have a Status of Forces Agreement in place that would have authorized the troops’ presence, the sources said.

The administration’s story line was that no U.S. special operations forces were deployed to Benghazi because none was within range to arrive during the eight-hour onslaught

“The bottom line is this: that we were not dealing with a prolonged or continuous assault which could have been brought to an end by a U.S. military response,” Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta told Congress this year. “Very simply, although we had forces deployed to the region, time, distance, the lack of an adequate warning, events that moved very quickly on the ground prevented a more immediate response.”

Mr. Panetta, who has since left office, eventually acknowledged that two soldiers were involved in the firefight, but he offered little detail.

“The quickest response option available was a Tripoli-based security team that was located at the embassy in Tripoli.,” he told the Senate Armed Services Committee in February. “And to their credit, within hours, this [seven]-man team, including two U.S. military personnel, chartered a private airplane, deployed to Benghazi. Within 15 minutes of arriving at the annex facility, they came under attack by mortar and rocket-propelled grenades.”

What Mr. Panetta left unspoken in public, however, was why those troops were in Tripoli and who else accompanied them.

At the time of the al Qaeda attacks, the military was setting up a terrorist-hunting unit in Tripoli that included U.S. Special Operations Command’s super-secret Delta Force and Green Berets, the sources say.

Read more: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/oct/30/us-military-commandos-made-it-to-benghazi/?page=2#ixzz2jJFjJ5tS
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IF the situation was dangerous enough for this detail, WHY WAS THE CONSULATE WIDE OPEN?