CIA operatives urgently asked for military help during the terror attack on the US Consulate in Libya but were turned down by higher-ups, Fox News reported yesterday.
Former Navy SEAL Tyrone Woods and other members of a small team of operatives at a CIA safe house a mile from the Benghazi consulate asked for permission to go help out after gunfire erupted, sources told Fox.
But they were twice told to “stand down.”
Woods and at least two others ignored that and rushed to the burning consulate and evacuated it while gunfire was being exchanged, the sources said.
They could not find US Ambassador Chris Stevens and returned to the safe house, where they came under heavy fire. This time they called for military support, but were again turned down.
The fighting at the safe house went on for four hours, enough time for air support to have arrived from an air base in Sigonella, but it never came.
Woods and fellow former SEAL Glen Doherty were killed by a mortar shell nearly seven hours after the initial attack on the consulate, the sources said.
On Thursday, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta criticized “Monday-morning quarterbacking” and said there wasn’t enough information available on the ground in Benghazi to send help.