(For more on Hicks' testimony, click here.)
Gregory Hicks, the deputy to the late Ambassador Christopher Stevens, told congressional investigators in April that a Special Forces team was ordered not to fly to Benghazi by the U.S. Special Operations Command South Africa, reports CBS News:
According to excerpts released Monday, Hicks told investigators that SOCAFRICA commander Lt. Col. Gibson and his team were on their way to board a C-130 from Tripoli for Benghazi prior to an attack on a second U.S. compound "when [Col. Gibson] got a phone call from SOCAFRICA which said, 'you can't go now, you don't have the authority to go now.' And so they missed the flight ... They were told not to board the flight, so they missed it." […]
Hicks told congressional investigators that if the U.S. had quickly sent a military aircraft over Benghazi, it might have saved American lives. The U.S. Souda Bay Naval Base is an hour's flight from Libya.
Hicks will be the first "ground-level eyewitness" to speak publicly about the Benghazi attacks at Wednesday’s congressional hearing.