attack. they weren t even called into session. i ll ask panetta why that is so. no one has asked john brennan anything about benghazi. he s in the chain of command to do something about it. it s dumbfounding the lack of scrutiny this administration has had regarding benghazi. martha: we know hillary clinton was basically up all night trying to get help in the area from the libyan government. we don t know where yawn brennan was, we don t know where the president was during those hours and we know john brennan did not choose to appear on the sunday shows to explain what happened. there is a question why that would be, right? one thing i can say about secretary clinton. she could not have had a clear eyed understanding of the threats what he face in benghazi, libya if she didn t know of the august 16 memo from ambassador chris stevens saying we can t defend the place
all u.s. government personnel from benghazi 12 hours after the initial attack, and subsequently to the air force base was the result of exceptional u.s. government coordination and military response and helped save the lives of two severely wounded americans still, after all of that it is clear that there are lessons to be learned here, and steps that must be taken to insure that we are doing everything possible to protect our personnel and our facilities abroad. so in concert with the state department and the intelligence community we are in the process of developing enhanced security for u.s. persons and facilities in the wake of benghazi. there will always be attention between mission effectiveness for personnel, the ability to get out and do what they are
stories to tell about bashar al-assad and his violence. that s it for now, back to you, rick. martha: we ll take you back to leon panetta the secretary of defense speaking on benghazi. let s listen. and friendship that i ve had with all of you on both sides of the aisle. i ve had the honor to in many ways live the american dream as the son of italian immigrants in the various capacities that i ve had to serve this country. the greatest privilege i think i ve had is to serve as an elected member in the house and had the opportunity to work with many you have in that capacity, and then as a member of the executive branch i had the opportunity to work with you as well. i thank you for your dedication to the country, and i thank you for your willingness to serve the united states. on that tragic day, as always, as the department of defense, we
transfer ceremony when those bodies of those heroes were returned home, and i had the opportunity to meet with their families. i believe we all have a solemn responsibility to these families, and to all the diplomatic personnel who put themselves at risk, to find out exactly what happened, to bring those involved to justice, and to make sure that we re doing everything possible to prevent it from happening again, and to insure the safety of our personnel anna silt and and facilities worldwide. to that end the department of defense has fully supported efforts by congress and the state department to review the events and decisions surrounding the attacks in benghazi. we have made every effort to respond promptly to numerous requests for additional information, to provide briefings, to provide testimony to members and committees in the congress. in fact general dempsey and i were among the very first u.s.
my understanding is that that uav arrived about an hour and 11 minutes after the attack had begun and was focused on the primary facility there to try to determine what was taking place. soon after the initial reports about the attack in benghazi were received general dempsey and i met with president obama, and he ordered all available dodassetts to respond to the attack in libya and to protect u.s. personnel and interests in the region. it s important to remember that in addition to responding to the situation in benghazi we were also concerned about potential threats to u.s. personnel in tunis, tripoli, cairo, sahna, and elsewhere that could potentially require a military response. in consultation with general dempsey and africom commander,