Not that it will slow down the RW noise machine, but it's good to hear some pubshback on this.

Contrary to what Fox 'News' reported on Friday:



Fox News Channel reported Friday that American officials in the compound repeatedly asked for military help during the assault but were rebuffed by CIA higher-ups.

The "basic principle is that you don't deploy forces into harm's way without knowing what's going on; without having some real-time information about what's taking place," he said during a joint question-and-answer session with Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff General Martin Dempsey. "As a result of not having that kind of information, the commander who was on the ground in that area, General Ham, General Dempsey and I felt very strongly that we could not put forces at risk in that situation," Panetta said. General Carter Ham commands the U.S. Africa Command.

But Weekly Standard Editor Bill Kristol, in a post published Friday, doubted Panetta's explanation and said the fault must lie with Obama himself. "Would the secretary of defense make such a decision on his own? No," Kristol wrote. "It would have been a presidential decision."

After Leon Panetta's joint question and answer session with the Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff General where he made the following statement:Bill Kristol speculated that such a decision could only have been on the Presidential level.