[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 8]
[House]
[Pages 12057-12058]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                   SIXTH UNANSWERED BENGHAZI QUESTION

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Virginia (Mr. Wolf) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. WOLF. Mr. Speaker, with only six legislative days left before the 
Congress departs for August recess, I am increasingly concerned that we 
will not learn the answers to any of the questions I have raised over 
the past week before the one year anniversary of the attack on 
Benghazi, if ever. This is due, in large part, to the secretive nature 
of the investigation to date. Most of the key hearings into what 
happened that night in Benghazi have happened behind closed doors and 
in classified settings, including a June hearing with General Carter 
Ham, who was the head of the U.S. Forces in Africa the night of the 
attack.
  That is why I was surprised to hear comments made by General Ham at 
the Aspen Security Forum last week where he spoke freely about the U.S. 
response to the attack.
  Does it bother any of my colleagues that General Ham can publicly 
speak about the military's response at a forum in Aspen, Colorado, 
where the tickets were $1,200? The American people should not have to 
pay $1,200, and yet, his testimony before Congress was behind closed 
doors.

[[Page 12058]]

  According to a CNN report, General Ham told the Aspen audience that 
by the time an American drone arrived above the U.S. consulate ``the 
attack on the mission was winding down.'' By that time Ham knew 
Ambassador Stevens was missing and believed he could have been possibly 
kidnapped.
  General Ham was then quoted as saying:

       In my mind, at that point we were no longer in a response 
     to an attack. We were in a recovery. And, frankly, I thought 
     we were in a potential hostage rescue situation.

  The article continued:

       Ham said although he had authority to scramble a jet to the 
     scene, he decided there was ``not necessity and there was not 
     a clear purpose in doing so.''
       ``To do what?'' Ham asked. ``It was a very, very uncertain 
     situation.''

  It was a very uncertain situation, indeed.
  Uncertain as to whether the terrorists held our ambassador as 
hostage? Uncertain as to whether the terrorists would target the annex, 
as they did? Uncertain as to whether this situation would last hours, 
days, weeks, or months? Or years?
  Which raises the question: If his command required no additional 
authority to respond to what he then believed to be a hostage rescue 
situation, why did it take another 7 hours before AFRICOM ordered a C-
17 aircraft in Germany to deploy to Libya to evacuate Americans? And 
why did that plane not leave Germany for another 8 hours after that?
  If the situation appeared to be deteriorating throughout the night at 
the annex, why wasn't there any additional effort to accelerate air 
support or even planes to evacuate American personnel directly from 
Benghazi?
  And given the betrayal of our supposed allied Libyan militia forces 
when calls to defend the consulate went unheeded, why would the 
Pentagon not move even faster to ensure there was a reliable evacuation 
and hostage response force to assist the Americans in Benghazi?
  And given that no American plane arrived in Benghazi to support the 
evacuation, just what planes were used to evacuate the Americans on the 
morning of September 12?
  The State Department's Accountability Review Board said two planes 
were used to transport Americans from Benghazi to Tripoli. We know that 
one was a Libyan Air Force C-130 that brought back the bodies of 
Ambassador Stevens, Sean Smith, Ty Woods, and Glen Doherty. But the 
first to depart was a private chartered jet that took off at 7:40 a.m. 
with evacuees, including all wounded personnel, according to an 
unclassified version of the report. But just who owned that jet? Was it 
the same jet that brought in the seven-person response team from 
Tripoli earlier that night? Was it really chartered or was it 
commandeered? How many wounded were evacuated on that jet? Of the 
wounded, how many were State Department employees, CIA employees, or 
security contractors?
  The ARB said when the first plane arrived in Tripoli, wounded 
personnel were transferred to a local hospital, in exemplary 
coordination that helped save the lives of two severely injured 
Americans.
  Despite my letter I sent to Secretary Kerry, I have never received a 
full accounting of how many Americans were injured in the attack. Are 
any of the wounded still receiving care in military hospitals or other 
medical facilities? Will we ever officially learn their names and the 
heroic actions that night that resulted in their serious injuries?
  I think we can all agree that it would be constructive for those that 
were in the chain of command that night to publicly testify and answer 
these questions.
  The American people are losing confidence in their government. How 
will history judge the actions or inaction of the Obama administration 
and the response of the Congress to the Benghazi attack?

                          ____________________