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US Diplomat: Military Help Sought During Benghazi Attack

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Gregory Hicks: it was apparent in the first hours of the Benghazi attack that it was a terrorist assault.
Gregory Hicks: it was apparent in the first hours of the Benghazi attack that it was a terrorist assault.
The former deputy head of the U.S. embassy in Libya says he sought military assistance during last year’s deadly attack on the American diplomatic mission in Benghazi but was told the nearest U.S. airbase was in Italy, too far away to be of any help.

On Wednesday, May 8, Gregory Hicks told a congressional panel that he was in repeated contact with U.S. officials in Washington — including then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and Libyan officials – as the September 11 attack unfolded on the lightly defended Benghazi outpost.

At one point, Hicks said he asked a U.S. defense official whether he could get military assistance to help repel the assault on the Benghazi consulate. “Will they be sending us any help?”

But Hicks said he was told it would take U.S. planes stationed at an air base in Italy two to three hours to get to Libya and that no air tankers were available to refuel attack aircraft. Other Pentagon officials have told investigators it would have taken even longer.

Hicks and two other State Department officials appeared before the Republican-led House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, the latest congressional hearing into the assault that killed U.S. ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other American diplomats.

Within days of the attack, Hicks said he was “stunned” and “embarrassed” to hear Susan Rice, the American ambassador to the United Nations, state on U.S. television news shows that the attack grew out of protests against an anti-Islamic video, such as those that occurred earlier the same day in Cairo. Hicks said it was apparent in the first hours of the Benghazi attack that it was a terrorist assault unrelated to demonstrations against the video.

Rice’s comments have led congressional Republicans to accuse the Obama administration of deliberately misleading the public about the details of the attack, which occurred just weeks before last November’s presidential election.

Democrats say the investigations are a politically motivated attempt to discredit Clinton, a popular U.S. political figure who could seek the 2016 Democratic Party presidential nomination.

In his opening statement, committee chairman Congressman Darrell Issa said key Obama administration officials have declined to answer the panel’s questions about the attack. The lead Democrat on the panel, Congressman Elijah Cummings, accused Republicans of politicizing the investigation.

An independent investigation found a series of State Department management failures contributed to the security breakdown at Benghazi that led to the deaths of the four U.S.envoys.

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