Army sets up African response team in Djibouti after Benghazi

Washington Times:
The Army now has a rapid response force in East Africa in case of another terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya, the Army‘ deputy director of strategy, plans and policy said Thursday.

During a media roundtable at the Pentagon, ArmyBrig. Gen. Kimberly Field said the response team was established in April in Djibouti with 129 troops from the 2nd Heavy Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division, based in Fort Riley, Kansas.

“They are a response force specifically trained and ready to respond to a crisis such as [Benghazi … which we didn’t have before,” Gen. Field said. “They’re ready to get where they need to be.”

Former Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta ordered the team be established after U.S. and Libyan forces were unable to stop a terrorist attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi on Sept. 11.

...
The base in Djibouti has been there since the early days of the war on terror.  It has been staffed by a contingent of Marines and has also been a base for drones used in Somalia and Yemen.  That is why it is puzzling that its drones were not called on during the Benghazi attacks.

That they set up the force is also an admission of how ill prepared the military was to deal with events in Benghazi.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Should Republicans go ahead and add Supreme Court Justices to head off Democrats

Washington Post: Some Democrats eye adding more justices to the Supreme Court to change its ideological bent The once-remote idea has gained the attention of liberals angered by the GOP push to remake the federal courts. Probably the easy way to defeat this court-packing scheme is for Trump to propose doing the same thing now.  It would lead to Democrat denunciations and claims that it would be wrong, thereby blowing up any attempt by them in the unfortunate event of Democrats winning a presidential election.
Read more

29 % of companies say they are unlikely to keep insurance after Obamacare

Conn Carroll: A new survey of 368 midsize to large companies found that 29% of them are considering terminating their active employee health care plans when Obamacare is full implemented in 2014. Only 71% of employers surveyed said they did not expect to drop their health coverage, while 20% said they did not know and 9% said they were planning to exit. The latest survey, conducted by Towers Watson, echoes an ealier survey by McKinsey & Co. finding that 30% of private-sector employers were planning to drop their employee health insurance coverage by 2014. When the Congressional Budget Office crunched Obamacare's spending numbers, they estimated that only 7% of employees currently covered by employer-sponsored plans would lose their plans. ... This means the cost of the health care fiasco will be hundreds of billions more than estimated by the CBO and Congressional Democrat. It is also clear that Obama's pledge that you could keep your health care plan if you wanted t
Read more