Col David Hunt transcript: Real-Time Proof of Benghazi Negligence and Cover-upCarr: Colonel Hunt, thanks for being with us again today. What did you think when you heard Joseph Biden talking ragtime right out of the box last night?
HUNT - The second time in my public career I get to call a public figure a liar --- that’s what I thought. Joseph Biden, right off the bat, lied.
He said that what happened in Libya recently… The administration looked so inept is because of an intelligence failure.
Howie, When Pakistan blew up an atomic bomb, and we didn’t know about it, that was an intelligence failure. When 9/11 happened, that was an intelligence failure. When India blew up an atomic bomb and we didn’t know about it, that was an intelligence failure.
When the Iraqi military lined up on the Kuwaiti border, and we didn't see it coming – didn’t know they were attacking until they did it, that’s an intelligence failure.
This is a flat leadership problem.
What happened is that a woman named Lamb, Undersecretary of State for DSS (Department of State Security), 2 days ago, told Issa's committee that she listened, was talking to, and recorded an almost six hour fight that resulted in the death of four Americans. She was at the State Department's Operations Center in Foggy Bottom in DC.
When that happens, there are a bunch of people that get informed. President of the US gets found---- the embassy is being attacked---Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Director of CIA, and on and on.
What also happens is that their command centers, National Command Center (CIA), White House Situation Room--- twelve [Command Centers] that I won't bore you with. At least twelve separate Command Centers are listening to the same conversation. It went on for six hours. The question I think, besides the fact that Biden is lying about it, is Why didn't we do anything? Why didn't the United States government react?
Here we are, listening to an attack, and we didn't do a thing. We've got aircraft in Europe, aircraft in the in the Gulf, and we have the capability of doing something, and we did nothing. But for the Vice President...My point is everybody, from the moment the attack happened, in our government, and the decision-making capability, knew that it was an attack, that it was organized, that it was violent, and that it had nothing, nothing to do with a riot, an assembly of people, or a film.
This was not even close to an intelligence failure. This was prescient, actionable information. And this woman testified to it, and everyone's giving everyone a pass.
We sat by and watched the Embassy fall, and four Americans died.
Carr: Who was on the radio in the consulate in Benghazi?
HUNT: Department of State Security employee -- a DSS agent was at the operation center in Benghazi. They had a room with radios and cameras. And he makes the call; he punches the alert button. Does everything correct and calls his boss in DC.
Then he describes the attack for the whole time, until that the command center is overcome. But when she [Lamb] gets the phone call….
Carr: He's killed. He's killed. He's at the radio when he gets killed. Is that right?
HUNT: The radio stays open. It's still being recorded until it gets destroyed.
Lamb, who is in DC listening to all of this--- Clinton gets called, the President gets called, the Joint Chiefs---everybody gets called about this. This is an embassy under attack. Period. It's an automatic phone call.
And the fact that we have this recording, instantly. We know exactly the picture. By the way, he sent pictures back because he had cameras.
So, the administration knew; they watched it, let it happen, and then for eight days lied about it. And then yesterday, last night, unfortunately, the Vice President of the US just lied. He knows it was not an intelligence failure. No one ever said that, by the way. This is a case where we have information and didn't act. It wasn't a case where we weren’t provided [info]. We had instant knowledge, accurate description, and just sat by and did nothing.
Carr: You said there were a dozen posts listening to this play by play account.
HUNT: Sure
Carr: Just give me a few examples of what kind of agencies would have been involved in this listening or monitoring.
HUNT: National Military Command Center in the Pentagon (that's the military head), the White House Situation Room, the CIA Operations Center, the Counterterrorism Center, EUCON (European Command). Africa Command, Special Operations Command, SOC-EUR [?] Special Operations Command Europe), Atlantic Command, NATO. Everybody.
Once this call is made, and a button is pushed, saying, oh by the way, we have an attack going on, everybody listens in --- this is old tech, an old procedure that’s been going on for years. Anybody who has ever been on a watch listening in the military knows what I am talking about. And it is amazing to me that this is not even being discussed. It is the elephant in the living room for me. We knew this was going on and did nothing.
Carr: Let's say, let's say there's the African Command and some sergeant is monitoring it, and you know, he's there and he listens to what's going on, and he says, captain come over and listen to this. And the captain listens to it, and I guess the captain would have to call his superior officer, right? And then at some point , wouldn't all these people be calling the Pentagon or the State Department in Foggy Bottom and say, Hey there's a problem in Benghazi. What are we gonna do?
HUNT: Within minutes that happens. It's instantaneous notification of an entire chain of command. An embassy is under attack and falling.
And oh, by the way, turn to channel 27, and here's the information. And then these separate places are asking for – some cases begging for--- guidance. What do you want us to do? Because the military guys, whether it's in Bahrain or Europe, or any place else, can't on their own just go in there, but we have the means available. The point is that nobody pushed the button to say "GO." Nobody had the guts. Nobody cared enough. Six hours, Howie [Carr].
The last time this happened was Mogadishu, when we stood by and watched a ten hour fire fight go on and did nothing. For ten hours that happened, during the Clinton administration. We watched this in Bosnia ....and other places, where an administration fails to act.
But this one. To have the vice president this late in the game --- over four weeks since this has happened---to lie about it and to say it was an intelligence failure is outrageous. And nobody, nobody caught him, nobody backed him up. And it's hardly being mentioned at all, but it's, I think, very serious. And what you said yesterday I think is going to come to pass. This is going to turn out to be a Watergate-sized scandal.
Carr: So you think you think some of these commands in the area or in Europe and elsewhere that they actually did go to the their civilian superiors in Washington or made contact with them and asked them what do you want us to do. And apparently there was no response?
HUNT: Howie, there are digital and written logs that will be produced that will show that each one of these places, automatically---it is not a question of, Do you have a choice. Whoever is on the watch; whoever was in command center, when an incident like this happens, HAS to do certain things, inform certain people, and it's all logged in. It's a matter of record.
So once Lamb testified that she's listening to this, what she just said was that our entire Government was listening, not just Lamb and the State Dept. What I realized when I read the testimony and heard it was that if this phone call actually happened, all of these other headquarters were involved, and a whole bunch of people said NO to wanting some kind of attack to help save Benghazi. That begins and ends at the National Military Command Center at the Pentagon. And there's logs, and hopefully Congress will say, We want people to testify. We want the watch officer. We want the senior guy in charge there. Bring you records, and tell us who you talked to. It’s all procedural…
Carr: Is it the Pentagon's fault, or is it the State Department's fault?
HUNT: No, no, no. State and the White House. The National Military Command Center would not have been able, allowed, to launch---I don't believe---an attack without political permission because they would be launching into a country. I don't think the NMCC could make that call on their own. And it wouldn't be State; it would be the White House.
But again, Howie, during this attack, Clinton is informed---that is part of the procedure---and the President of the US is informed, as is the Vice President, as is the Chief of Staff, and on and on. A six hour firefight in Benghazi is not classified. It is not a secret. It's an event, and it's a serious event. And when the ambassador dies, when they know he has been captured, it even goes up higher. And we couldn't get an FBI team in there for three weeks.
We had CNN reporters in there picking up the Ambassador's diary. This was ineptness, incompetence, and lying. I think Biden ought to be called on it, just like we did with Clinton when she said she was being shot at. People were there Mr. Vice President. You are lying. This was not an intelligence failure, and he knows that.
Carr: Who should have made the call? Who should have ordered the troops? Who should have ordered some kind of scrambling? send in the jets, helicopters, Marines?
HUNT: The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs could have easily called the Secretary of Defense. The Secretary of Defense could have done this, easily…Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff. Howie, they are never out of contact with each other. It's not like, Oh, go find Leon Panetta or where’s the President?
Anyone in that chain, from the Secretary of State…could have asked or told the Dept of Defense, We need help in Benghazi now. What are the closest assets we have? That’s a simple phone call. Just simple operation military can do that, but they never would have done that on their own.
There are incidents in our lifetime where we wish we would we had done it on our own. Bosnia is just one of them. Africa, remember the Congo, and a whole bunch of other places where we didn’t. But this is an example where we watched four Americans die and a consulate fall. We had 320 incidents leading up to this, and while the attack was going on for 6 hours, we watched it. Not just Ms Lamb, but the entire operational arm of the US government was watching and listening to this, and we did nothing.
Carr: Where are the reporters? This is like Watergate.
HUNT: Yes
Carr: When Watergate broke, every newspaper in the country, every network in the country was all over this. Now, it Daryl Issa and Jason Chafetz, and a few Republican congressmen and staffers. Where are the reporters? Are they too busy looking for somebody Mitt Romney gave a haircut to when he was in prep school?
HUNT: I can’t answer that, but for me, they are so in the bag. And, by the way, this is so obvious…this is such an obvious thing, that it is being missed. If the operational center at the State Dept is hearing this, all these other operational commands are hearing this as well.
Carr: So there's got to be a lot of people reporters could talk to---there’s people who are assigned to the Pentagon---they haven't had that many cutbacks. There's got to be people who know what happened that could provide them with the documentation and the records, and it wouldn't take long to blow the story out of the water.
HUNT: It should have been blown out two days ago. I’m not the only one who thinks this is crazy thinking about this. Any guy who’s ever pulled watch, any NCO, any enlisted officer---anybody who’s ever been in these Command Centers knows exactly what I’m talking about.
And, Howie, this is after 911. Fifteen years ago we did this. And since 911, since we’ve been at war for eleven years, in Afghanistan, our communications is staggeringly quick. Look at the White House situation room during the killing of Bin Laden.
Carr: And it's and it is the anniversary of 9/11 that this is all happening on. You’d think they'll be even more on their toes.
HUNT: Yes. The communications is sophisticated and instantaneous. They had satellites looking at this.
Carr: They had drones…there was a drone looking at this, right?
HUNT: Thank you. And our reaction---three weeks…. We’ve got an ambassador dead, two retired Navy Seals, who weren’t even assigned there---they were assigned to a classified annex down the street--- and another man. And the place is decimated for six hours, and our response is zero.
And then the Vice President gets on, and the first words out of his mouth is a lie --- Well, it’s an intelligence failure. No, it is not, Mr. Vice President. It’s not even close to an intelligence failure. This was inaction on the part of your administration who watched this guy die and did nothing.
I don’t know what they are investigating, it’s so… My only concern is…Well, there’s too people, just too many people that were watching this. I honestly don’t see how they get to cover this up, unless the press doesn’t do its job.
But I didn’t even hear Issa’s committee ask her [Lamb] the question. Maybe the people were in shock when Lamb made her statement, but that’s staggering.
I can't believe that people don't know what I'm saying… that all these other….
Carr: This like something out of a movie, where some non-com says, “Colonel, colonel, our men are getting slaughtered there.” And no one has any interest in following it up.
It seems like fiction; it doesn’t seem like it would happen in real life.
HUNT: It's happened a lot in my time, unfortunately. Like I said, we saw it in the Congo: we saw it in Bosnia. We've seen a lot of incidents where an organization will not act. It’s frozen, and this is the case. And that sergeant you are talking about is actually a general. This is immediately communicated that this embassy is under attack violently, and generals are looking on their IPADS at the pictures, and that’s how good this stuff is. Those images are all over the place. And we knew this was bad, getting worse, and did nothing, and then lied about it for 8 days?
Carr: So how many people do you know…
HUNT: -- Rice’s statement now, along with the President’s, by the way, and the Secretary of State’s and everybody else, there’s a bunch of people lying. It’s not just Rice. She just got stuck on the Sunday news 5 times. And everybody, on top….[interrupted by Carr]
Carr: How many people actually---give me a number of people who knew what was going on while it was happening, or all around the world. How many people would have known?
HUNT: Oh, it’s in the hundreds---those staffs---anywhere---NMCC, maybe 60-70 people at one time; CIA Operations Center, about forty plus; the Terrorism Center could have 60-70 on duty at that moment: the White House situation room, 12. It goes on and on. I mean it's hundreds of people, Howie, that knew what was going on at the time---not later.
It's to me such a huge thing that maybe it’s just so big and so obvious that people are just letting it go. I have no explanation for it.
Except what I'm telling you is not a revelation. This is day-to-day operational information that this administration has been lying about for all this time.
You don't need an investigation. There are straight up procedures that, I promise you. were followed. And in those procedures, people like the Sec of State, the Pres of the US---within minutes---within minutes are told, We have an embassy under attack.
Carr: And yet Stephanie Cutter says that this is just a political issue that’s being blown out of proportion by the Romney/Ryan campaign.
HUNT: I wish this was being blown out of proportion by the press.
Romney was right when he said it. it's a very, very awkward defense. Cutter’s a PR person
But the vice president---people have to call him out on this.
He should, not should, he does know better. He’s just lying. It’s the second time I have had to call a public figure a liar….
It's outrageous. We had people dying. And, by the way Howie, it’s not just one phone call. During the six hours, all of these decision makers are being updated by their staffs. General, this just happened. General, we just found out this guy died. The fight’s still going on. There are now 60 people---these are constant. Video, written, digital, audio updates to the chain of command that did not function. It just seized up. That to me---Why did it seize up? Because there are a whole bunch of people need to go to jail….[Carr interrupts]
Carr: Surely there was somebody --- surely there must have been several people trying to get something done, trying to get some relief to the these people that were in mortal peril, right?
HUNT: Of course; there are really good people in these organizations. Why the decision was not made to, at least, attempt to do a flyover, to put jets in the air, Marines moving, something. I don’t know. I don’t have an answer for it. I’ve been in those rooms when decisions were not made, and they were always political, as to why they were not being done. But this, this one….Our capability to record things is so sophisticated, this will come out.
I just…No news organization has---because I have talked to a couple of them --- has gone on this angle. They are still going on the Romney vs Obama, versus Biden laughing too much. Whoa, whoa, wait a minute. How about he lied--- in his opening remark. He flat lied. It was not an intelligence failure. That a lie, and he knows better. He knows it wasn’t an intelligence failure. He’s been in the government, what, for 40 years?
Carr: Yea, 40 years.
HUNT: Like I said, Pakistan blowing up a nuke, that was an intelligence failure. 911, big intelligence failure. What happened in Benghazi was an operational, leadership failure on an entire government chain of command. It did not act and had six hours to do so and did nothing.
Carr: It certainly seems like it's gonna come out if they have the former head of the CIA and Michael Chertoff and these guys issuing statements today saying that Biden was way out of line, and he lied, and he knows better. These guys can point any reporter that’s interested in the right direction, who to talk to to get the information, I would think it.
HUNT: It’s a huge…. Howie, standard operating procedures of how our government operates---There’s books, huge, huge books. And every one of these Commands I have mentioned was on that call, was listening, and followed their procedures, and were never given the words to go. It never happened. That’s all…It’s simple. It’s a very simple question and a very straightforward answer. I talked to this General: I talked to this Secretary. The Sec of Defense said this. The Chief of Staff at the WH said this. It’s not hard. This is all recorded.
And somebody needs to explain why, for all this time---6 hours went by and Americans died---and all this time for the FBI to get there, and, oh by the way, Why is it that the heads of our government are lying about this.
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