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I get that, but I think the why is obvious, it was group think, message by committee. No one really owned the messaging and the messaging was essentially negotiated. I seriously doubt that the people who put this together had the slightest feeling they were misleading, rather I suspect they probably thought they limiting the inclusion of information that they did not like and did want to put out until they had to with some cover in protecting the investigation. Clearly a big part of the problem was a conflation of Benghazi and Cairo.
I was more interested in what could have been done to bring reinforcements in, and I would still like more information than we have, but again, my only says that State was begging and the military could not commit troops at the time, or in time, with the information that could be ascertained at the time. What would you think is more likely, state asked and the military could not approve, or the military was hung ho and State held them back?
Group think, now that is something I never thought about that. Staffed around to where no staff or agency story of what they thought happened is actually told, a conglomeration of thoughts and some facts that probably no one was happy with. I know DOD and State usually has an uneasy working relationship, we work better with the CIA than State or at least use to, State probably wanted to hold the CIA activity down to a minimum in order to avoid any embarrassment in case any of the activity came out. Group think, interesting and I like that. It could very well account for all the different deletions and changes. We'll just have to wait and see how this all plays out.
The rescue missions are pretty much a judgement call. Sending 4 SF troops armed with either 9 mm or .45's into a situation that is basically unknown, i.e. against how many men, what weapons they have etc. probably was a sound decision. I can understand the troops wanting to go regardless, in my younger days, I would too and be pretty peeved that I wasn't allowed to. As to the aircraft, I don't know, there has been so many withdrawals from Europe and more going on now, I am not familiar with what is there anymore. At one time we did have reaction forces stationed at various places around the world that could be airborne and en-route in 2 hours. But even during the cold war, these forces weren't put on the ready unless there was something we suspected might happen.
So I suppose what piques our curiosity is me the report denying terrorist and you the response. I can understand one and you the other, but neither can understand both, at least as far as curiosity is concerned and neither of us is looking for heads to roll. Do I have this right?