David:

There are a lot of unkowns with the Captain's Journal piece. I brought attention to it with that in mind.

From what I've read in other places, the drones got there after the thing started but were there for the majority of it.

What constituted "in time" could not have been known beforehand.

From what has been reported elsewhere there was continuous reporting from the people on the spot almost from the moment the thing began, plus the feed from the drones. We had a lot of people there for a lot of weeks beforehand looking, seeing and reporting. Benghazi is part of Africom's area so I would hope Gen Ham had more than a hazy idea of what was going on from that looking, seeing and reporting. With that in mind, it is not such a leap to make the decision (if made). Tripoli sent a planeload of people to Benghazi the second they heard.

As far as the timing goes, that was in the hands of the people who made the attack.