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The account given by the senior officials provided the most detailed description to date of the C.I.A.’s role in Benghazi, a covert presence that appears to have been much more significant than publicly disclosed.

Within 25 minutes of being alerted to the attack against the diplomatic mission, half a dozen C.I.A. officers raced there from their base about a mile away, enlisting the help of a handful of Libyan militia fighters as they went. Arriving at the mission about 25 minutes after that, the C.I.A. officers joined State Department security agents in a futile search through heavy smoke and enemy fire for Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens before evacuating the mission’s personnel to the apparent safety of their base, which American officials have called an annex to the mission. Mr. Stevens was one of four Americans killed in the attack.

A four-hour lull in the fighting beginning shortly after midnight seemed to suggest that the worst was over. An unarmed military drone that the C.I.A. took control of to map possible escape routes relayed reassuring images to Tripoli and Washington. But just before dawn, and soon after a C.I.A.-led team of reinforcements, including two military commandos, arrived from Tripoli, a brief but deadly mortar attack surprised the Americans. Two of the C.I.A. security officers who were defending the base from a rooftop were killed.

“The officers on the ground in Benghazi responded to the situation on the night of 11 and 12 September as quickly and as effectively as possible,” one of the senior intelligence officials told reporters.

Thursday’s briefing for reporters was intended to refute reports, including one by Fox News last Friday, that the C.I.A.’s chain of command had blocked the officers on the ground from responding to the mission’s calls for help.

“There were no orders to anybody to stand down in providing support,” the official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of continuing investigations by the State Department and the F.B.I.

At a time when the circumstances surrounding the attack on the Benghazi compound have emerged as a major political issue, with Republicans criticizing the Obama administration’s handling of the episode, the senior official also sought to rebut reports that C.I.A. requests for support from the Pentagon that night had gone unheeded.

In fact, the official said, the military diverted a Predator drone from a reconnaissance mission in Darnah, 90 miles away, in time to oversee the mission’s evacuation. The two commandos, based at the embassy in Tripoli, joined the reinforcements. And a military transport plane flew the wounded Americans and Mr. Stevens’s body out of Libya. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/02/world/africa/cia-played-major-defens
ive-role-in-libya-attack.html?ref=world&_r=0

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A slew of new reporting this morning debunks Fox News reports claiming that the Obama administration withheld assistance during the Sept. 11 attack on a U.S. diplomatic mission in Libya. With these revelations, the combined conservative narrative as led by Fox News — that the Obama administration failed to respond adequately during the attack and that mainstream media has not covered Benghazi enough — is in further disarray.

The new reports also contain previously unreported details about the CIA’s role in Benghazi. President Obama and Secretary of Defense Panetta did order U.S. forces into the region, but the CIA was the first to respond to the attack, arriving on the scene in under half an hour.

The lack of security at the outpost in Benghazi, far removed from the U.S. Embassy in Tripoli, has been the subject of inquiry by both Fox News and Congressional Republicans. The Wall Street Journal sheds new light onto why that was the case. The CIA and State Department had entered into a series of secret deals in which the Agency would provide emergency security to the diplomats operating within Libya.

While the State Department primarily relied upon local Libyan militias for day-to-day protection, as well as contracted British private security, the arrangement between it and the CIA explains why the outpost seemed under-protected. The primary role of the CIA was intelligence gathering and covert operations within Benghazi. Agents there operated out of an annex originally reported to be an offshoot of the diplomatic mission, revealed officially — and accidentally — during Issa’s highly politicized hearing into the Benghazi attacks. http://thinkprogress.org/security/2012/11/02/1128831/new-details-discr
edit-fox-news-benghazi/?mobile=nc

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?9:40 p.m.: A senior State Department security officer at the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi called the CIA base, at an annex about a mile away, and requested assistance: “The compound is under attack. People are moving through the gates.” CIA officers at the base can hear the alarm, and a team immediately begins gathering weapons and preparing to leave.

?10:04 p.m.: A six-person rescue squad from the agency’s Global Response Staff (GRS) leaves in two vehicles. The team leader is a career CIA officer; the team includes a contractor named Tyrone Woods, who later died. During the previous 24-minute interval, the CIA base chief calls the February 17 Brigade, other militias and the Libyan intelligence service seeking vehicles with .50-caliber machine guns. Nobody responds. The team leader and the base chief agree at 10:04 that they can’t wait any longer, and the squad heads for the consulate.

The senior intelligence official said that he doesn’t know whether Woods or any of the other team members agitated to go sooner but added that he wouldn’t be surprised. “I want them to have a sense of urgency,” he said.

?10:10 p.m.: The rescue team reached a chaotic intersection a few blocks from the consulate. Militias gathered there have several .50-caliber machine guns, which the CIA team tries unsuccessfully to commandeer; three militiamen offer to help. The rescue party now includes 10 people: six GRS officers, a CIA translator and the three Libyan volunteers.

?10:20 p.m.: A reconnaissance party of two GRS officers heads to the consulate; at 10:25, three more GRS officers enter the main gate and begin engaging the attackers. The firefight lasts about 15 minutes.

?10:40 p.m.: Members of the CIA team enter the burning inferno of “Villa C,” where Ambassador Christopher Stevens is believed to be hiding. CIA officers try numerous times to reach the “safe room” but are driven back by the intense smoke and fire. Small-arms fire continues from the Libyan attackers.

?11:11 p.m.: An unarmed military Predator drone arrives over the compound to provide aerial reconnaissance. The drone had been diverted from a mission over Darnah, about 90 minutes away. But without weapons, it can’t help much.

?11:15 p.m.: The CIA team puts a group of State Department officers into a vehicle and sends it to the agency base; at 11:30, the CIA officers depart under fire and reach the annex six minutes later.

?11:56 p.m.: CIA officers at the annex are attacked by a rocket-propelled grenade and small arms. Sporadic attacks continue for about another hour. The attacks stop at 1:01 a.m., and some assume the fight is over.

?1:15 a.m.: CIA reinforcements arrive on a 45-minute flight from Tripoli in a plane they’ve hastily chartered. The Tripoli team includes four GRS security officers, a CIA case officer and two U.S. military personnel on loan to the agency. They don’t leave the Benghazi airport until 4:30 a.m. The delay is caused by negotiations with Libyan authorities over permission to leave the airport; obtaining vehicles; and the need to frame a clear mission plan. The first idea is to go to a Benghazi hospital to recover Stevens, who they rightly suspect is already dead. (Also killed was a State Department communication specialist.) But the hospital is surrounded by the al-Qaeda-linked Ansar al-Sharia militia that mounted the consulate attack.

?5:04 a.m.: The team from Tripoli arrives at the CIA base. Glen Doherty, one of the GRS men from Tripoli, goes to the roof and joins Woods in firing positions.

?5:15 a.m.: A new Libyan assault begins, this time with mortars. Two rounds miss and the next three hit the roof. The rooftop defenders never “laser the mortars,” as has been reported. They don’t know the weapons are in place until the indirect fire begins, nor are the mortars observed by the drone overhead. The defenders have focused their laser sights earlier on several Libyan attackers, as warnings not to fire. At 5:26 the attack is over. Woods and Doherty are dead and two others are wounded.

?6 a.m.: Libyan forces from the military intelligence service finally arrive, now with 50 vehicles. They escort the Americans to the airport. A first group of 18, including two wounded, depart at 7 a.m. A second group of 12, plus the four dead, leave at 10 a.m. for Tripoli and then the long flight back to America.

A detailed CIA timeline of the assault on U.S. facilities in Benghazi paints an anguishing picture of embattled Americans waiting for Libyan security forces who didn’t come and courageous CIA officers who died on a rooftop without the heavy weapons they needed, trying to protect their colleagues below. There’s no evidence that the White House or CIA leadership deliberately delayed or impeded rescue efforts. http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/david-ignatius-cias-benghazi-ti
meline-reveals-errors-but-no-evidence-of-conspiracy/2012/11/01/a84c4024-2471-11e2-9313-3c7f59038d93_story.html

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I've heard a couple of times on NPR was that the CIA officers only had their personal weapons and were told to wait for 'heavy weapons',

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Doesn't seem to be working out so well for you.

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