NEW BENGHAZI TESTIMONY: Retired Africom General Says 'Early On We Knew It Was No Demonstration'

Thursday at the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform hearing, Ret. Air Force Brigadier General Robert Lovell, former US Africom Intelligence Director, testified that early on they knew Benghazi was a terrorist attack.

“Nor did we completely understand what we had in front of us, be it kidnapping, rescue, recovery, protracted hostile engagement, or any or all the above. But, what we did know quite early on was that this was a hostile action. This was not demonstration gone terrible awry. To the point of what happened, the facts led to the conclusion of a terrorist attack. The Africom J2 was focused on attribution. The attacks became attributable very soon after the event.”

General Lovell also criticized the fact that their was no rescue operation during the attack

“As the attack was ongoing, it was unclear whether it was an attempted kidnapping, rescue, recovery, protracted hostile engagement or any or all of the above,

There are accounts of time, space and capability discussions of the question, could we have gotten there in time to make a difference, Well, the discussion is not in the ‘could or could not’ in relation to time, space and capability. The point is we should have tried.”

The General was on duty at AFRICOM headquarters in Germany during the Sept. 11, 2012 attack that killed four Americans.The AFRICOM command is responsible for region that includes Libya.
General Lovell joins Gregory Hicks, General Ham and others who testified that the White House knew Benghazi was a terror attack from the first moments after it learned the attack was occurring.

Last May, Gregory Hicks, deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Libya, testified before the House Oversight Committee that at 2 a.m. Tripoli time (8 p.m eastern time) on the evening of 9/11/12 he spoke with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her senior staff. Hicks told the committee that he briefed Clinton on what was happening on the ground in Benghazi and that in the course of his call no one mentioned the Mohammed Internet video and the ongoing attack was discussed as an act of terror.

General Ham testified 15 minutes after the attack began he alerted General Dempsey and Leon Panetta who were on their way to a previously scheduled meeting with the President.

“My first call was to General Dempsey, General Dempsey’s office, to say, ‘Hey, I am headed down the hall. I need to see him right away,’” Ham told lawmakers on the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigation on June 26 of last year. “I told him what I knew. We immediately walked upstairs to meet with Secretary Panetta.”

Ham’s account of that fateful day was included in some 450 pages of testimony given by senior Pentagon officials in classified, closed-door hearings conducted last year by the Armed Services subcommittee. The testimony, given under “Top Secret” clearance and only declassified in December, presents a rare glimpse into how information during a crisis travels at the top echelons of America’s national security apparatus, all the way up to the President.

Rep. Brad Wenstrup, R-Ohio, a first-term lawmaker with experience as an Iraq war veteran and Army reserve officer, pressed Ham on “the nature of the conversation” he had with Panetta and Dempsey was that “this was a terrorist attack.”

WENSTRUP: “As a military person, I am concerned that someone in the military would be advising that this was a demonstration. I would hope that our military leadership would be advising that this was a terrorist attack.”

HAM: “Again, sir, I think, you know, there was some preliminary discussion about, you know, maybe there was a demonstration. But I think at the command, I personally and I think the command very quickly got to the point that this was not a demonstration, this was a terrorist attack.”

WENSTRUP: “And you would have advised as such if asked. Would that be correct?”

HAM: “Well, and with General Dempsey and Secretary Panetta, that is the nature of the conversation we had, yes, sir.”

Leon Panetta’s testimony of a year ago corroborated General Ham’s testimony. Panetta told the Senate Armed Services Committee in February 2012 that it was he who informed the president “there was an apparent attack going on in Benghazi.” “Secretary Panetta, do you believe that unequivocally at that time we knew that this was a terrorist attack?” asked Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla. “There was no question in my mind that this was a terrorist attack,” Panetta replied.

Further corroboration came in a then classified session on July 31 of last year, Rep. Westrup raised the question of what was the cause of the attack with Marine Corps Col. George Bristol, commander of AFRICOM’s Joint Special Operations Task Force for the Trans Sahara region.

Bristol, who was traveling in Dakar, Senegal when the attack occurred, said he received a call from the Joint Operations Center alerting him to “a considerable event unfolding in Libya.” Bristol’s next call was to Lt. Col. S.E. Gibson, an Army commander stationed in Tripoli. Gibson informed Bristol that Stevens was missing, and that “there was a fight going on” at the consulate compound.

WESTRUP: “So no one from the military was ever advising, that you are aware of, that this was a demonstration gone out of control, it was always considered an attack”

BRISTOL: “Yes, sir.”

WENSTRUP: “– on the United States?”

BRISTOL: “Yes, sir. … We referred to it as the attack.”According to these senior military leaders, from the very beginning the American people were lied to about this attack by the President of the United States and the Secretary of State among others. We were lied to about the nature of the attack being terrorism rather than the product of a demonstration.