U.S. Commandos Were Too Late to Stop Libya Attack (But Might Avenge It)

A day after the CIA released a new timeline of its reaction to the assault on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, the Pentagon added some detail to its recap of events as well, confirming that it had two elite military units that mobilized just slightly too late to help repel last month’s attack. But those units also had the capability to deal with the aftermath of the attack — and the Pentagon isn’t saying what happened to them once they arrived at a Sicilian airbase a few hundred miles from Libya, leaving the possibility they might play a role in hunting the perpetrators of the attack.

Much remains unclear about the Libya assault. But now different parts of the bureaucracy have taken to explaining they were thisclose to helping stop it. State Department officials last month testified to monitoring it almost in real time, but U.S. officials have said State’s hired guard force lacked the capacity to repel the attack. (They may have a point.) The CIA portrayed itself as responding to the attack from multiple fronts as it was happening, successfully extracting U.S. personnel from the site — except for the four Americans who died. (Additionally, top intelligence officials have blamed themselves for the White House’s initial, incorrect explanation that the attack emerged from a protest over an anti-Islamic video.) On Friday, Pentagon spokesman George Little weighed in, explaining a little more than previously about how the Pentagon rushed special operations units into position near Libya, except that the assault subsided before they could reach the country.

Within “hours” of Defense Secretary Leon Panetta learning of the attack, he ordered two distinct military units to Sigonella, an airbase on the Italian island of Sicily, a few hundred miles from Benghazi. One was a “Special Operations unit in central Europe,” Little said on Friday; the other, “another contingent of U.S. troops” stationed in the United States. Both units are distinct from the Marine Fleet Anti-terrorism Security Team (FAST) ultimately sent to Tripoli the following day to secure the embassy there in the wake of the attack.

The units “were not in place until after the attacks were over,” Little said. But the Pentagon didn’t know how long the emergency would last, and the units it ordered to Sigonella could prepare for “a range of contingencies” in the aftermath of the assault.