Benghazi Boogaloo

In a segment on the cable, Fox & Friends co-host Gretchen Carlson asserted: "The big question still remaining for so many people is, who came up with the narrative about the video tape? Because it was pretty obvious that a month before there were security concerns with regard to possible terror. So who came up with the idea that floating the videotape idea would be enough to carry through the discussion quite possibly until after the election?"

But Fox's narrative is self-debunking. In addition to saying that officials had security concerns, the cable also reportedly said that officials had no information that militants in Benghazi "were targeting Americans."

Thus, the reported cable does nothing to contradict the administration's narrative that an anti-Islam video was a catalyst for the attack. Indeed, the people responsible for the attack reportedly said that they attacked the consulate because of the video.

Also, the report that there were growing security concerns in Benghazi, but no specific threats against the consulate is not news. For instance, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey said in a September 27 briefing that there had been no specific, actionable threat in advance of the Sept. 11 consulate attack:

Quote:

GEN. MARTIN DEMPSEY: There was a thread of intelligence reporting that groups in the environment in western -- correction -- eastern Libya were seeking to coalesce, but there wasn't anything specific and certainly not a specific threat to the consulate that I'm aware of.

Voting "no" at the UN Security Council, is not a war crime
Not paying dues to the UN is not a war crime.

There are so many things on that list that are NOT even close to war crimes that the entire list is bogus. Try again.

WASHINGTON — Security officers from the C.I.A. played a pivotal role in combating militants who attacked the American diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, on Sept. 11, deploying a rescue party from a secret base in the city, sending reinforcements from Tripoli, and organizing an armed Libyan military convoy to escort the surviving Americans to hastily chartered planes that whisked them out of the country, senior intelligence officials said Thursday.

The account given by the senior officials, who did not want to be identified, 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.

Despite the new details, many questions surrounding the attack remain unanswered, including why the State Department did not increase security at the mission amid a stream of diplomatic and intelligence reports that indicated that the security situation in Benghazi and around Libya had deteriorated sharply since the United States reopened its embassy in Tripoli last year.

A turf battle is brewing over Benghazi.

When GOP Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham stepped before the cameras Wednesday and renewed their calls for a Watergate-like committee to probe the Sept. 11 terrorist attack in Libya, their longtime partner — Sen. Joe Lieberman – was noticeably missing.

Lieberman later emerged from a classified, closed-door briefing with a much different message: A special congressional committee is unnecessary — at least for now. Lieberman says his Homeland Security Committee could handle a broad investigation into the deadly Benghazi assault just fine.

Unanswered questions about what actually happened at the U.S. consulate in Benghazi that night, what information was shared about the attack and why Americans there didn’t have greater security has created divisions among longtime friends and between fellow Republicans.

Further complicating matters is the fact that retired Gen. David Petraeus resigned last week as CIA director over an extramarital affair with his biographer, and some are worried the affair may have jeopardized Benghazi-related national security matters.

Maine Sen. Susan Collins, the top Republican on the Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, backed up her chairman, Lieberman, and dinged McCain, a member of the panel, for missing Wednesday’s nearly two-hour briefing in the Capitol.

Both Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin, “who was there at briefing, and Sen. McCain, who was not, are members of our committee, and I know they would play very important roles,” Collins told POLITICO after the briefing.

“I do not see the benefit of creating a brand new committee when we already have the Senate’s chief oversight committee, plus the Intelligence Committee, examining this very important matter.”

The Ultimate Guide To McCain’s Smear Campaign Against Susan Rice

1. McCain attacks Rice for saying anti-Islam video may have sparked Benghazi attack. Referring to Rice’s suggestion on Sept. 16 that the Benghazi attacks may have been sparked by animosity over an anti-Islam video, the Arizona Republican claimed yesterday on Fox News that Rice “went out and told the American people something that was patently false and defied common sense.” He added on CNN: “It was obvious to one and all that this was not a ‘spontaneous demonstration’ because in real time, they saw there was no demonstration.”


REALITY: Rice was merely repeating U.S. intelligence assessments. The Washington Post’s David Ignatius reported that CIA talking points on the Benghazi attack dated Sept. 15, or the day before Rice’s Sunday show appearances, stated that “[t]he currently available information suggests that the demonstrations in Benghazi were spontaneously inspired by the protests at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo and evolved into a direct assault against the U.S. Consulate and subsequently its annex.”

And this is exactly what Rice said, for example, on CBS’ Face the Nation on Sept. 16. “Soon after that spontaneous protest began outside of our consulate in Benghazi, we believe that it looks like extremist elements, individuals, joined in.”

And on Sept. 16, Rice did not, as McCain suggests, offer a definitive assessment of what took place. In fact, she cautioned that it could change after an investigation. “[T]here’s an FBI investigation which is ongoing,” she said. “And we look to that investigation to give us the definitive word as to what transpired.”

2. McCain says the anti-Islam video had nothing to do with the Benghazi attack. In his attempt to discredit Rice, McCain claimed on CNN last night that Rice’s assessment that the attack in Benghazi was sparked by a “spontaneous demonstration” against an anti-Islam video is “totally false.”


REALITY: It is still unclear what started the Benghazi assault. The New York Times reported last month that the attackers “did tell bystanders that they were attacking the compound because they were angry about the video.”

3. McCain says U.S. officials knew immediately that Al-Qaeda was responsible for the Benghazi attack. The Arizona senator claimed yesterday that “[e]verybody knew that it was an al Qaeda attack and she continued to tell the world through all of the talk shows [on Sept. 16] that it was a ‘spontaneous demonstration’ sparked by a video.”


REALITY: Al-Qaeda’s involvement is still speculation; attack and anti-Islam video demonstration are not mutually exclusive . The event could both have been a terror attack and inspired by a demonstration against an anti-Islam video. These two factors are not mutually exclusive and Rice said as much on Sept. 16. Moreover, definitive proof has yet to emerge that the Benghazi attackers were affiliate with Al-Qaeda.

4: McCain says Rice’s Sept. 16 talking points did not originate from U.S. intelligence agencies. Some reporters have tried to inform McCain that Rice was merely giving the public information that American intelligence services provided her, but he seems to refuse to believe that the whole affair is anything but political. “Her talking points came from the White House, not from the DNI,” McCain said last night on CNN, referring to the Director of National Intelligence. “I think it’s patently obvious that the talking points that Ambassador Rice had didn’t come from the CIA. It came from the White House,” McCain said on Fox.


REALITY: Rice’s Sept. 16 assessment of the Benghazi attack matched CIA and DNI analysis at that time. As noted above, Rice’s Sept. 16 statements mirror the CIA’s Sept. 15 assessment and the DNI’s office said a week later that just after the Sept. 11 attack, “there was information that led us to assess that the attack began spontaneously following protests” and that it “provided that initial assessment to Executive Branch officials and members of Congress, who used that information to discuss the attack publicly and provide updates as they became available.” If Rice’s talking points came from the White House, officials there didn’t alter them much from what the intelligence agencies were saying.

McCain wants a special Watergate-style investigation into the Benghazi attacks, but lawmakers, including many of his Republican colleagues, appear to be satisfied with letting the ongoing investigations take their course. It also turns out that many Republicans in the Senate aren’t too keen on pre-judging Rice either, should the President nominate her. And if McCain was really interested in getting the facts about Benghazi, he could have attended yesterday’s closed door hearing on the matter instead of holding a press conference attacking Rice and Obama.

So it’s clear that McCain’s real problem here is with Obama, and on that point, the president suggested that McCain give him a call. “If Senator McCain and Senator Graham and others want to go after somebody, they should go after me,” Obama said yesterday. “And I’m happy to have that discussion with them.”

So it’s clear that McCain’s real problem here is with Obama, and on that point, the president suggested that McCain give him a call. “If Senator McCain and Senator Graham and others want to go after somebody, they should go after me,” Obama said yesterday. “And I’m happy to have that discussion with them.”