From a retired Navy
Captain re: CBA (Cross
Border Authority)
A most interesting
perspective about CBA, something I did not know much about.
The author's
explanation and analysis of the Benghazi events seem plausible to me. I believe
others will find this of interest (about 2 min. to read) so will forward for their reading.
The Benghazi debacle
boils down to a single key factor - the granting or withholding of "cross-border
authority." This opinion is informed by my experience as a Navy SEAL officer
who took a NavSpecWar Detachment to Beirut.
Once the alarm is
sent - in this case, from the consulate in Benghazi - dozens of HQs are notified
and are in the planning loop in real time, including AFRICOM and EURCOM, both
located in Germany. Without waiting for specific orders from Washington, they
begin planning and executing rescue operations, including moving personnel,
ships, and aircraft forward toward the location of the crisis. However, there
is one thing they can't do without explicit orders from the president: cross an
international border on a hostile mission.
That is the clear
"red line" in this type of a crisis situation. No administration wants to
stumble into a war because a jet jockey in hot pursuit (or a mixed-up SEAL squad
in a rubber boat) strays into hostile territory. Because of this, only the
president can give the order for our military to cross a nation's border without
that nation's permission. For the Osama bin Laden mission, President Obama
granted CBA for our forces to enter Pakistani airspace.
On the other side of
the CBA coin: in order to prevent a military rescue in Benghazi, all the
President of the United States "(POTUS)" has to do is not grant cross-border
authority. If he does not, the entire rescue mission (already in progress) must
stop in its tracks. Ships can loiter on station, but airplanes fall out of the
sky, so they must be redirected to an air base (Sigonella, in Sicily) to await
the POTUS decision on granting CBA. If the decision to grant CBA never comes,
the besieged diplomatic outpost in Benghazi can rely only on assets already "in
country" in Libya - such as the Tripoli quick reaction force and the Predator
drones. These assets can be put into action on the independent authority of the
acting ambassador or CIA station chief in Tripoli. They are already "in
country," so CBA rules do not apply to them.
How might this
process have played out in the White House? If, at the 5:00 p.m. Oval Office
meeting with Defense Secretary Panetta and Vice President Biden, President Obama
said about Benghazi: "I think we should not go the military action route,"
meaning that no CBA will be granted, then that is it. Case closed.
Another possibility
is that the president might have said: "We should do what we can to help them .
but no military intervention from outside of Libya." Those words then constitute
"standing orders" all the way down the chain of command, via Panetta and General
Dempsey to General Ham and the subordinate commanders who are already gearing up
to rescue the besieged outpost. When that meeting took place, it may have
seemed as if the consulate attack was over, so President Obama might have
thought the situation would stabilize on its own from that point forward. If he
then goes upstairs to the family quarters, or otherwise makes himself
"unavailable," then his last standing orders will continue to stand until he
changes them, even if he goes to sleep until the morning of September
12.
Nobody in the chain
of command below President Obama can countermand his "standing orders" not to
send outside military forces into Libyan air space. Nobody. Not Leon Panetta,
not Hillary Clinton, not General Dempsey, and not General Ham in Stuttgart,
Germany, who is in charge of the forces staging in
Sigonella.
Perhaps the president
left "no outside military intervention, no cross-border authority" standing
orders, and then made himself scarce to those below him seeking further
guidance, clarification, or modified orders. Or perhaps he was in the Situation
Room watching the Predator videos in live time for all seven hours. We don't
yet know where the president was hour by hour.
But this is 100
percent sure: Panetta and Dempsey would have executed a rescue mission order if
the president had given those orders. And like the former SEALs in Benghazi,
General Ham and all of the troops under him would have been straining forward in
their harnesses, ready to go into battle to save American lives.
The execute orders
would be given verbally to General Ham at AFRICOM in Stuttgart, but they would
immediately be backed up in official message traffic for the official record.
That is why cross-border authority is the King Arthur's Sword for understanding
Benghazi. The POTUS and only the POTUS can
pull out that sword.
We can be 100%
certain that cross-border authority was never given. How do I know this?
Because if CBA was granted and the rescue mission execute orders were handed
down, irrefutable records exist today in at least a dozen involved component
commands, and probably many more. No general or admiral will risk being hung
out to dry for undertaking a mission-gone-wrong that the POTUS later disavows
ordering, and instead blames on "loose cannons" or "rogue officers" exceeding
their authority. No general or admiral will order U.S. armed forces to cross
an international border on a hostile mission unless and until he is certain that
the National Command Authority, in the person of the POTUS and his chain of
command, has clearly and explicitly given that order: verbally at the outset,
but thereafter in written orders and official messages. If they exist, they
could be produced today.
When it comes to
granting cross-border authority, there are no presidential mumblings or musings
to paraphrase or decipher. If you hear
confusion over parsed statements given as an excuse for Benghazi, then you are
hearing lies. I am sure that hundreds of active-duty military officers
know all about the Benghazi execute orders (or the lack thereof), and I am
impatiently waiting for one of them to come forward to risk his career and
pension as a whistleblower.
Leon Panetta is
falling on his sword for President Obama with his absurd-on-its-face, "the U.S.
military doesn't do risky things"-defense of his shameful no-rescue policy.
Panetta is utterly destroying his reputation.
General
Dempsey joins Panetta on the same sword with his tacit agreement by silence.
But why? How far does loyalty extend when it comes to covering up gross
dereliction of duty by the president?
General Petraeus,
however, has indirectly blown the whistle. He was probably "used" in some way
early in the cover-up with the purported CIA intel link to the Mohammed video,
and now he feels burned. So he conclusively said via his public affairs officer
that the stand-down order did not come from the CIA. Well - what outranks the
CIA? Only the national security team at the White House. That means President
Obama, and nobody else. Petraeus is naming Obama without naming him. If
that is not quite as courageous as blowing a whistle, it is far better than the
disgraceful behavior of Panetta and Dempsey.
We
do not know the facts for certain, but we do know that the rescue mission
stand-down issue revolves around the granting or withholding of cross-border
authority, which belongs only to President Obama. More than one hundred gung-ho
Force Recon Marines were waiting on the tarmac in Sigonella, just two hours away
for the launch order that never came.
I Received this in a Email asking me to forward, i posted instead .
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