'Full Measure': Benghazi rescue interrupted - Pt. 1

WASHINGTON (SBG) — It's among the most enduring controversies of the Obama administration. On Sept. 11, 2012, Islamic extremist terrorists battered two U.S. compounds in Benghazi, Libya, for nearly eight hours, while Americans inside waited for U.S. military help that never came. Four Americans were killed: Ambassador Chris Stevens and diplomat Sean Smith, along with former Navy Seals Glen Doherty and Ty Woods.

It was eight weeks before election day. Obama officials, including then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, incorrectly pointed to the Christian producer of a YouTube video that they claimed had whipped up protesters into violence. They excised words like "Islamic" and "al-Qaida" from public talking points.

In recent days, the House Benghazi Committee released results of its investigation. Democrats call it "one of the longest and most partisan" probes in history and said "officials did not make intentionally misleading statements." They blamed "fast-moving circumstances," but there was much news in the report on chaos, delay, and efforts to mislead, with evidence coming from government insiders.

However, there were also many questions left unanswered. What did the president do while Americans were under attack, and who called the shots? Unknown. White House photos taken that night? Blocked from public release. Also, the Defense Department wouldn't give an inventory of available military assets.

One overarching conclusion by Republicans: The response from the world's most powerful military was perplexingly inadequate. With the release of the committee's report, we revisit our report looking at evidence of a rescue interrupted.

The film "13 Hours, the Secret Soldiers of Benghazi" opened in January. It's the harrowing account of six CIA team members in an annex about a mile from the Benghazi compound when it fell under attack. They claim when they tried to go to the rescue, their boss delayed them.

Now, an email hidden from public view for three years reveals another rescue attempt was apparently interrupted. The military offered to deploy Special Forces to Benghazi during the assault, long before the attackers killed CIA contractors and former Navy Seals Glen Doherty and Ty Woods.

Three and a half hours into the eight-hour long siege, the military's Chief of Staff Jeremy Bash emails top State Department officials: "We have identified the forces that could move to Benghazi. They are spinning up as we speak. They include a SOF (Special Operations Forces) element that was in Croatia."

Col. Andrew Wood: "'They're spun up as we speak' means that he's made contact with them. They've confirmed that they've been given that order and they're making progress toward going to that location."

Retired Army Green Beret Col. Andrew Wood commanded a Special Forces anti-terrorism team protecting Ambassador Chris Stevens and other diplomats in Libya.

In 2012, Wood told Congress his team was removed from Libya by the Obama administration a month before the attacks, despite warnings of terrorist violence to come.

For the first time, Wood is speaking out with a startling claim: that those Special Forces offered in the military email were on their way to Benghazi, but were turned back.

Wood: "Those individuals, I know, loaded aircraft and got on their way to Benghazi to respond to that incident. They were not allowed to cross the border, as per protocol, until they get approval from the commander in chief. That authority has got to come from him. Otherwise, they're not allowed to go further into the country. I have a high degree of confidence that that happened, based on information that I've heard from individuals that were there. Those forces were put into motion. They simply were not allowed to go further."

The White House has refused to detail the involvement of President Obama, the commander in chief, while Americans were under attack on foreign soil. Following a short briefing at the beginning of the assault, he virtually disappears from the public narrative.

The White House declined to comment for this report, but has long denied any assets were available or ready, and said everything possible was done.

Yet the email indicates Special Forces were ready, and high-ranking Obama administration officials, or "principals," were to weigh in. "Assuming Principals agree to deploy these elements, we will ask State to secure the approval from host nation," the military tells the State Department. "Please advise how you wish to convey that approval to us." Inexplicably, nobody did seek Libya's approval for the U.S. forces to fly in to help.

The availability of Special Forces is news to Greg Hicks, the top U.S. diplomat in Tripoli during the assault.

In 2013, Hicks testified he was repeatedly told there was no military help available.

Hicks: "I asked the Defense Attache who'd been talking with AFRICOM and with the Joint Staff: Is anything coming? Will they be sending us any help? Is there something out there?"

Responding to the newly public email, Hicks tells "Full Measure" that "an aggressive interpretation" of the military options presented "would have tasked me with obtaining flight and landing clearances from the Libyan government. I have no doubt they would have been granted."

Sharyl Attkisson: "What is the significance of this memo, would you say?"

Gary Berntsen: "It's incredibly significant, and you would understand why the administration wouldn't want people to see that those elements within the government that were tasked with the protection of lives and property actually started the process and were stopped."

Berntsen is a former CIA senior operations officer and chief of station. He commanded counter-terrorism missions and led the response team after Islamic extremists bombed U.S. embassies in East Africa in 1998.

Like Wood, Berntsen says quick reaction military teams are tasked to handle emergencies exactly like Benghazi and automatically spin up, unless and until they're stopped.

Berntsen: "You proceed, because if there's an emergency and Americans are at risk, Americans have died, or are under the threat of death or a threat of kidnapping or any kind of violence. We're moving."

A military source familiar with some of the night's events also confirms military options were provided. "There were both conventional and Special Forces in theater and assigned to AFRICOM (Africa Command) offered up by Gen. [Carter] Ham" on a video teleconference. "Based on what I know, the forces they were talking about could have gotten there pretty quickly."

Berntsen: "Only political instructions from above would have stopped them. There is, you know, no one is going to wait. That is my experience, of having done this for almost 25 years, having led the teams myself, you're proceeding, you're going."

The new details may help explain why Congress had so much trouble getting direct answers from Obama officials who insisted a rescue attempt was impossible.

When questioned in 2013, Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Secy. Leon Panetta of the Department of Defense (DOD) gave no hint that Special Forces had actually "spun up."

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.: "Was any DOD asset ever deployed to help these people before the end of the attack?"

Dempsey: "Would you rephrase, would you?"

Graham: "Was any DOD asset, aircraft, or individual soldier ever sent, put in motion to help these people before the attack was over?"

Dempsey: "Let, if I could, as soon as we knew there was an attack, the National Mission Force and the FAST teams began."

Graham: "My question is, did anybody leave any base anywhere to go to the aid of the people under attack in Benghazi, Libya before the attack ended?"

Panetta: "No, because the attack ended before we could get off the ground."

Multiple officials said the same thing.

State Department Deputy Secy. William J. Burns: "There simply wasn't enough time at that point to bring U.S. military forces."

Clinton: "Their assets were too far away to make much difference in any timely fashion."

Former Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff and Vice Chairman of Accountability Review Board Adm. Mike Mullen: "There simply was not enough time for U.S. military forces to have made a difference."

Adding to the claims of a rescue interrupted: the leader of a Foreign Emergency Support Team in the U.S. earlier testified his squad, too, was stopped from responding, and a small U.S. military team in Tripoli was ordered not to board a plane for Benghazi during the attacks.

Wood says it all implies a decision at the highest level. Otherwise, he believes the military would've gotten in position to respond five hours before the Benghazi attacks when the U.S. faced a related crisis: Islamic extremists overran the American embassy in Cairo, Egypt.

Wood: "Their compound had been breached and there were people now inside their buildings under protection of Marine guards waiting for someone to bust into the rooms. To me, that would signal somebody should be getting those reaction forces ready to stand by and perhaps move. And then five hours later, when things occurred in Benghazi, and again, the alarm bell went off, and there was no apparent response, that's a pretty tough one to explain. With events transpiring in Cairo, at the embassy in Cairo, I think the decision not to react may have been made very early on in the day, when those events were transpiring. So, that by the time that Benghazi happened, it wasn't going to happen, because that decision was made early on."

If so, why isn't clear. However, the attacks came eight weeks before the 2012 election. President Obama had campaigned on the idea he'd sent terrorists running.

Critics say deploying the military to terrorist attacks could have been viewed as more harmful to the campaign than the incorrect explanation the administration gave: that protesters attacked after being whipped up by an anti-Islamic YouTube video.

A Special Forces soldier for 24 years, Wood says his team and U.S. diplomats in Libya were briefed that if they ever got into trouble, those Special Forces in Europe were tasked with coming to the rescue.

Wood: "They're kept in a high state of readiness just for that purpose. So, they're willing and able and ready to jump. They're like the fire department, in any town, in any city in the United States."

To illustrate how close the U.S. Special Forces in Croatia were: A commercial flight from Zagreb, Croatia, taking off at the start of the Benghazi attacks with an hour-and-a-half layover in Istanbul, Turkey, still could have arrived in Tripoli, Libya, before Woods and Doherty were killed.

However, the Special Forces offered up by the military ended up at the U.S. Naval Base at Sigonella, Italy instead of Benghazi. And in a delay that remains unexplained, it took 17 hours from the time the military said it had spun up for them to make that hour-and-a-half flight from Croatia to Italy. Far too late to help.

Wood: "I operated there under the belief that those reaction forces would be there for us if we got into some kind of trouble, like what happened."

Attkisson: "Two groups of testimony given under oath by government officials were: there were no forces that could have responded quickly, and that even if they had scrambled more people, they couldn't have gotten there in time to make a difference."

Berntsen: "I don't believe either of those reflect the truth of what occurred on the ground there. They had forces moving, they could have intervened, they should have intervened, and had they, we likely would have been in a position to save the second two men who bravely sacrificed their lives."

The State Department has said, "The notion that [it] did not do everything possible to protect our people that night is as offensive as it is wrong." There's one piece of evidence that could help in the debate: the After Action reports dissecting the military response, but the Pentagon has refused Congressional and media requests to see them.