Panetta criticizes ‘Monday-morning quarterbacking’ on Libya attack

The Pentagon’s top officials on Thursday defended the U.S.
response to the Sept. 11 attack in Benghazi, Libya, dismissing some of the steady Republican
criticism of U.S. intelligence failures and the Obama administration’s reaction
to the attack.

“There’s a lot of Monday-morning quarterbacking going on
here,” Panetta said at a Pentagon press briefing Thursday, in response to a
question about why there wasn’t a clearer intelligence picture in Libya.

{mosads}Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Martin Dempsey said that
he was “confident” U.S. forces were alert and responsive in what was a very
fluid situation.

“Clearly the American people deserve to understand what
happened in Benghazi,” Dempsey said. “As you know, there are reviews underway
both here and in the Department of State, so we’ll better understand what
happened.

{mosads}“It’s not helpful, in my view, to provide partial answers,”
he added.

The Obama administration has been criticized for its
shifting story about whether the attack was a spontaneous reaction to an
anti-Islam video or a planned assault by terrorist forces.

The administration has also faced criticism for not recognizing
the possibility of an attack on the 9/11 anniversary, as well as for not having
Marines deployed with U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens before the Benghazi attack,
where Stevens and three other Americans were killed.

Asked Thursday if U.S. forces were on heightened alert due
to the 9/11 anniversary, Panetta said they were.

“Yeah, and let me point out, it was 9/11 everywhere in the
world,” Dempsey interjected.

Panetta defended the Pentagon response to the attack when
asked about a drone overhead Benghazi and if any military moves could have been
made more quickly.

“We quickly
responded, as General Dempsey said, in terms of deploying forces to the
region,” Panetta said. “We had FAST platoons in the region. We had ships that
we had deployed off of Libya. And we were prepared to respond to any
contingency. And certainly had forces in place to do that.”

Panetta added there wasn’t enough time to respond in Benghazi before the attack was over.

“This happened within a few hours and it was really over before we had the opportunity to really know what was happening,” he said.

Panetta said he wasn’t going to put
forces on the ground without a clear picture of the situation there.

“The basic principle here, basic principle is that you don’t
deploy forces into harm’s way without knowing what’s going on, without having
some real-time information about what’s taking place,” Panetta said. “And as a
result of not having that kind of information, the commander who was on the
ground in that area, General [Carter] Ham, General Dempsey and I felt very strongly
that we could not put forces at risk in that situation.”