Green Beret officer reports: Obama, Hillary, Panetta ordered Benghazi rescuers to ‘stand down’

Green Beret Lt. Col. Andrew Woods, an officer with 24-years experience with U.S. special forces had come forward with information that reveals U.S. special forces was actually traveling to U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, but the rescuers were forced to turn around because the Commander in Chief Barack Obama wouldn’t give the special forces commander the “go-ahead” order, according to then-CBS News’ Sharyl Attkinson.

Col. Andrew Wood had been assigned to command a special forces anti-terrorism team protecting Ambassador Chis Stevens and other American diplomats stationed in chaotic Libya. In October of 2012, Woods testified before the U.S. Congress that the month before the Sept. 11 battle in Benghazi, his special forces team was withdrawn from Libya by the Obama administration, despite the intelligence reports warning about impending terrorist attacks.

Wood told the Attkisson that special forces (the ones mentioned in the “spinning up” email from Jeremy Bash) were on their way to Benghazi, but were ordered to turn back.

Judicial Watch’s Bash email seems to directly contradict testimony given by then-Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta before the Senate Armed Services Committee in February 2013. Defending the Obama administration’s lack of military response to the nearly 13-hour-long attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi by radical Muslims, Panetta claimed that “time, distance, the lack of an adequate warning, events that moved very quickly on the ground prevented a more immediate response.”

“Those individuals I know loaded aircraft and got on their way to Benghazi to respond to that incident. They were not allowed to cross the border as per protocol until they got approval from the commander in chief,” Wood explained. “That authority has to come from him or they’re not allowed to enter the country.”

Attkisson told NewsmaxTV host Steve  Malzberg, “This is something that the president and the White House has steadfastly denied, but there’s now what I would call an overwhelming body of evidence that leads us to believe that somebody stopped a number of teams and potential rescuers from entering Libya or going to Benghazi to help while those attacks were underway.”

According to a Judicial Watch press release: 

“The timing of the Bash email is particularly significant based upon testimony given to members of Congress by Gregory Hicks, Deputy Chief of Mission of the U.S. embassy in Tripoli at the time of the Benghazi terrorist attack.

“According to Hicks’ 2013 testimony, a show of force by the U.S. military during the siege could have prevented much of the carnage. Said Hicks, “if we had been able to scramble a fighter or aircraft or two over Benghazi as quickly as possible after the attack commenced, I believe there would not have been a mortar attack on the annex in the morning because I believe the Libyans would have split. They would have been scared to death that we would have gotten a laser on them and killed them.

“Ultimately, Special Operations forces on their own initiative traveled from Tripoli to Benghazi to provide support during the attack.  Other military assets were only used to recover the dead and wounded, and to evacuate U.S. personnel from Libya.

“In fact, other documents released in October by Judicial Watch show that only one U.S. plane was available to evacuate Americans from Benghazi to Tripoli and raise questions about whether a delay of military support led to additional deaths in Benghazi.”