"Obviously, the president didn't view this as a priority that required him to stay in touch with his secdef (secretary of defense) or the chairman of his Joint Chiefs of Staff," said Danielle Pletka, vice president for foreign and defense policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute. "You'd think that an act of terrorism would have been something he'd want to be engaged in."
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On the night that the U.S. consulate was attacked in Libya, the U.S.military had a rapid reaction force of Marines in Spain, two Navy destroyers off the Libyan coast, and U.S. fighter jets parked on the nearby Mediterranean island of Crete.
But Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey on Thursday told the Senate Armed Services Committee that none of it could've stopped the attack. The "rapid reaction force" would've taken at least 12 hours to get to the scene, they said.
Furthermore, when asked who was in charge of making decisions and ordering up assistance, Panetta said no one in particular.
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