House GOP pursues Benghazi ‘stand down’ probe

“It is important that the committee see this oversight effort through to its conclusion.”

McKeon spokesman Claude Chafin, replaying to Smith

A House Republican chairman is doggedly pursuing the question of whether military personnel were told to “stand down” during the 2012 deadly assault on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, despite the insistence of military leaders and other Republicans that it never happened.

Rep. Darrell Issa’s Oversight and Government Reform Committee is pressing officials in a series of closed-door meetings about the instructions from military commanders in the chaotic hours after the first attack and whether they were told not to assist Americans under siege.

Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told Congress last June that personnel in Tripoli were never told to “stand down” and top Republicans on the House Armed Services Committee reported in February that no such order was given.

But the panel shows no sign of relenting in its investigation of the Sept. 11, 2012, attack that killed U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans on President Barack Obama’s watch.

Issa’s panel, along with staff from the House Armed Services Committee, continues a full-scale investigation, with additional interviews scheduled next month.

The “stand down” allegation first emerged last May when Gregory Hicks, the deputy chief of mission in Tripoli, told the committee that four members of a special forces team in Tripoli wanted to go assist Americans but were told to stand down.

The February interim report from the Republicans on the Armed Services Committee said Army Lt. Col. S.E. Gibson wanted to take three special operators from Tripoli to Benghazi after the attack. But according to testimony, Rear Adm. Brian L. Losey, the Africa commander, told Gibson to remain in Tripoli to defend Americans there, who it was feared might also be assaulted. Six U.S. security personnel were already en route to Benghazito evacuate the Americans there and would have crossed paths with Gibson and the others on their return flight.

In committee interviews, Gibson denied being ordered to “stand down.”

“I was ordered to remain in place. ‘Stand down’ implies that we cease all operations, cease all activities,” Gibson said. “We continued to support the team that was in Tripoli.”

The committee in its February report said “there was no ‘stand down’ order issued to U.S. military personnel in Tripoli who sought to join the fight in Benghazi,” and Dempsey, in testimony to the Senate last June, said, “They weren’t told to stand down. A ‘stand down’ means don’t do anything. They were told that the mission they were asked to perform was not in Benghazi, but was at Tripoli airport.”

The GOP majority report from Armed Services also noted that then-Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Dempsey testified that they never communicated with then-Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton that night, raising questions about a suggestion by Issa that Clinton had told Panetta to stand down.

In interviews with Issa’s committee, officials have testified that the decision to remain in Tripoli saved lives because a medic who was part of the four-man team helped care for Americans evacuated from Benghazi.

Democrats have complained that the panel is trying to redefine the instructions to the military. Frederick Hill, a spokesman for Issa’s panel, said the committee understands that Gibson doesn’t perceive the order he received as fitting the military definition of a “stand down” command.

“But at the same time the committee does remain concerned about why the decision was made for Lt. Col. Gibson to not be allowed to go to Benghazi to assist Americans who were fighting at the time there but instead was given a different task to do in Tripoli and trying to understand fully, with all different circumstances existed at that time why the priority was for him to stay in Tripoli and not assist Americans under fire,” Hill said.