Why is Obama administration classifying military information related to Benghazi attacks?

Byron York:

The White House has released emails on the misleading talking points created after the September 11, 2012 attack on the U.S. facility in Benghazi. Top officials have testified before Congress. More are coming, some under subpoena. All that activity means the public knows more than ever — although still not enough — about what went on at the State Department before and after the attack.

But when it comes to the attack itself, the American people are still in the dark, more than eight months after four Americans, including Ambassador Christopher Stevens, died in Benghazi. That is because key aspects of what happened from a military point of view — including the most basic question of what U.S. forces could and could not do to help Americans under attack — remain classified.

The House Armed Services Committee received a briefing from Pentagon officials last week about the military side of Benghazi. In a letter demanding the briefing, Chairman Buck McKeon told Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel that he remains “deeply concerned” by the lack of information available about the hours Americans were under attack. McKeon said he wanted to know what aircraft the U.S. had in the region that might have come to the Americans’ aid; where those planes were; whether they were armed or could have been armed; whether they would have needed refueling; the presence of un-manned aircraft, armed and unarmed; the status of various U.S. emergency response teams; and the decisions commanders at all levels made in deciding to deploy or not deploy those assets.

Last Wednesday, McKeon got at least some of the answers to his questions. But it all remains a secret. “Everything that was said was classified,” says one Hill source. “At one point, it even moved up to a higher level of classification. Members had four hours to really drill down on what they wanted to know.”

Lawmakers apparently learned a lot, but not the public. What fighter aircraft were available to go to Benghazi, either from a U.S. base in Sicily or elsewhere? It’s classified. What other planes? Classified. What about drones, especially armed ones, in addition to the unarmed aircraft the Pentagon has said was sent to the site shortly after the attack began? That’s classified, too.

What about the precise movements and locations of those American emergency response teams? Classified. Navy ships? Classified. What about the role that fear of inflicting civilian casualties on the ground in Libya might have played in decision-making? Classified.
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This is the kind of information that is routinely available when we attacked Iraq or Afghanistan.  That it is not available about Benghazi suggest we were more vulnerable than facts have already revealed.  Eventually the information is going to come out.  It would have already been released if it would have made Obama look good.