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To any kind of a rescue mission. they will not do anything unless the president specifically tells them it is okay to do it. that conversation never happened. so while that attack was going on, nobody knew if it was going to be two hours, four hours, two days, two months, hostage rescue mission. nobody knew when it was started. but when the president said don't bother me, in effect, what he really said whatever happens, and we're not getting involved. and i think that is the serious thing that has come out in the last two weeks. the president wasn't there. bill: what do you think about that, g...

It. but what really bothered me was the fact that general dempsey, through general ham, knew because -- >> general ham, over africom. >> they knew a request was made by chris stevens for additional security, that the consulate in benghazi was not secure. >> the april 16 memo? >> yeah. august 16. >> august 16. >> just a month out. and yet they took no action based on that. what they said is, well, we called up state department and they said we don't really need anything. you know, this is next to the commander in chief. this is the top military officer in the country. if he can't determine on h...

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 tun...

So a lot of questions for the military response, rick. rick: a lot of people have been asking about how much the pentagon knew, if anything about the cia's presence in benghazi and whether or not that may have played a role in the delay of any kind of a military response. is that likely to come up? >> reporter: i think it's very interesting in the statement department's arb report, the after action review, general carter hamm said that he wasn't aware that there was such a large group of americans operating out of benghazi. he is the head of africom, why did he not know that the cia had such a...

To the risk of what those terrorists would do overall to their country. patti ann: but you say the state department is overall reluctant to militarize africa. why? >> well, when you talk to the people in africom, that is the combatant command that looks at africa, military command, regional command as we refer to it, they have had difficulty making military moves in northern africa not -- mostly for presence, not to be involved in any fighting, because of the state d.'s unwillingnesses to -- state department's unwillingnesses to militarize it. that's their word, not mine. and the fact of the m...