Within 24 hours of the 9-11 anniversary attack on the United States consulate in Benghazi, U.S. intelligence agencies had strong indications al Qaeda–affiliated operatives were behind the attack, and had even pinpointed the location of one of those attackers. Three separate U.S. intelligence officials who spoke to The Daily Beast said the early information was enough to show that the attack was planned and the work of al Qaeda affiliates operating in Eastern Libya. – Eli Lake, Daily Beast
President Barack Obama meets with national security advisors in the Oval Office, Sept. 21, 2012. Advisors pictured, from left, are: National Security Advisor Tom Donilon; Chief of Staff Jack Lew; Tony Blinken, National Security Advisor to the Vice President; Deputy National Security Advisor Denis McDonough; and John Brennan, Assistant to the President for Homeland Security. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)
SUNDAY SHOW spin is coming back to bite the White House. First it was U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice, who got caught up in her own explanations, making what was seen as a potential audition for secretary of state a debacle. Then it was Robert Gibbs, who maintained on Fox News Sunday last weekend that the Administration was learning “more information every single day about what happened.”
It’s not clear to me how Eli Lake’s report today adds much on the facts of what was evident, though it does illustrate the dissatisfaction across the political and reporting world with the answers coming from the Obama administration so far, which includes myself.
Conservative blogs are jumping on Lake’s reporting because of election year politics and the hopes any narrative can save Republicans from Mitt Romney. But it’s fueled by the continuing problems with the answers to questions coming out of the White House.
This is why questions continue to be asked, with Congress now getting aggressive about it.
Josh Rogin is reporting that Republicans on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee have asked for all of Ambassador Stevens’s cables.
“While we appreciate the sensitivities associated with this ongoing investigation, we must insist on more timely information regarding the attacks and the events leading up to the attacks,” wrote Sens. Bob Corker (R-TN) and Johnny Isaakson (R-GA) in a letter to Clinton Tuesday.
They acknowledged that Clinton is in the process of setting up an Accountability Review Board, although its chairman former Deputy Secretary of State Thomas Pickering said Monday that the panel hasn’t started it work yet. But the senators don’t want to wait for the board to finish its report, which might not be transmitted to Congress until next spring.
“To that end, we request that you transmit to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee all communications between the U.S. Mission to Libya and the State Department relevant to the security situation in Benghazi in the period leading up to the attacks, including, but not limited to, cables sent from Ambassador Stevens,” they wrote.
President Obama hasn’t helped.
Yesterday in his speech to the U.N. General Assembly, the President opined about the answer to propaganda like the anti-Islam YouTube film that sparked violence in Egypt and beyond was “more speech.” However, this came after the Administration asked YouTube to review the film after violence erupted, which Spencer Ackerman has reported on as well over at Danger Room.
However, the anti-Islam YouTube film was quickly removed as a cause of what happened in Benghazi.
Right now this seems to be a case of trying to keep the voters focused on November, while not doing your job.
Is there some reason President Obama and the administration can’t be transparent about events in Benghazi?
And once again I’ll ask, what happened to intelligence inside Benghazi, with a focused group of C.I.A. agents stationed nearby and why isn’t someone asking Director David Petraeus for answers? I know I’ve ask that before, but no one has answered this unspoken question sufficiently to make me quit asking it.
I’ve asked the same thing. Why practically no security? Why is he in a building with no physical security ( walls, protective doors, etc. )? Why did it take four hours for help to arrive? Why have him there at all with armed militias in the area? In a small way, it seems hauntingly like another 9/11; people know things, but they don’t tell anyone else.
The worst part of it for me is the just do your job quotient.
Pres. Bill Clinton let drop yesterday that Chris Stevens chose to leave Tripoli to be closer to the people.
Okay.
So, the consulate couldn’t be an armed fort and he was obviously trying to be inconspicuous.
As Lake’s report illustrates, there were people trying to bribe those watching Stevens, so his cover was blown. Some reports on his journal say he was concerned & a target of Al Qaeda. At some point he had to pull himself out?
And again, what did CIA Director Petraeus know?
But even with all this, why not just be transparent, because in today’s media world trying to play coy is a doomed strategy. In an election year it also makes you look really bad.
We have an amateur in the Whitehouse who believes the apologize and appeasement foreign policy method works with these people. It doesn’t, and it never will.
And yes, he is trying cover up a blatant, stupid monstrosity of a mistake. How any of you can trust and believe anything this amateur and his puppets say amazes me. Susan Rice has disgraced herself. Hillary Clinton and Obama have too by repeatedly blaming it on a some video that hardly anyone had ever seen, much less knew about. The attack was planned, they had intel and the Obama Administration dropped the ball. Now the person and those involved with the film are in danger. And four Americans are dead, and most likely died an agonizing death. I am totally disgusted with this whole issue and the way Obama handled it. God forbid anything get in the way of his fundraising. Despicable.
Yet, you all will still vote this liar back in to office. He will be the ruin of this country.
Yet, you all will still vote this liar back in to office.
First, this statement has been proven incorrect by comments placed by readers over months. I’d say it’s true a majority reading here will vote Obama-Biden.
Given that Mitt Romney has shown no foreign policy aptitude, and neither Jill Stein nor Gary Johnson have any experience at all, coupled with the fact they aren’t viable winners, though they are proven politicians, particularly Johnson, it shouldn’t surprise you people prefer Obama.
As for being a “liar,” it’s curious you give Mitt Romney a pass on his professional prevaricating. I’m not surprised, but it’s interesting that your antipathy for Obama clouds your judgment on Romney. Not a shock, but this type of thinking once again proves emotion rules with the vast majority of voters over facts.
He will be the ruin of this country.
This is utter rubbish. Our country has survived much worse, though the real threat to an Obama win is progressivism itself. As for how bad it can get, see the 1960s. Go back further. I never understand this type of Sean Hannity hysteria, whether it’s your side or on the Democratic side.
You are wrong about nobody seeing the video. The Glenn Beck of the middle east broadcast that thing far and wide.
Here’s something you don’t realize–did you see Romney’s response? It sounded like DIck Cheney. No one wants another Dick Cheney foreign policy debacle.
Apologize and appeasement? Good grief. Get off of Hannity and into the real world. Saying things like that sound exactly like something that would come out of the disastrous Bush Administration and you are actually HELPING Obama with that nonsense. Let’s not forget that Bush IGNORED warnings of a terrorist attack that lost over 3,000 American lives and yet people like you CONSTANTLY give him a pass. Any Americans losing their lives is a bad thing but the GOP just has ZERO credibility on this and like Taylor says about why aren’t you screaming at Petraeus for some answers? Is it because you’re giving him a pass because he’s a Republican?
Romney’s “policy” (or response) can only cost himself an election…….Obama’s policy (or response) can only cost the lives of people.
Yeah, let’s change the subject to Romney because that’s more important.
Romney wants to continue the Bush Administration policies that cost thousands of American lives. That’s where he comes into the conversation.
The worst thing that can happen in response to this is probably the thing that will happen, if the discussion here is any guide. The worst thing that can happen is that our Foreign Service becomes more isolated from the countries they serve in, and that we depend even more on violence and the threat of violence to maintain our position in the world.
Foreign Service Officers are sworn officers of the United States. As part of their jobs, they are willing to be sent to places many of us wouldn’t visit on a bet. Then they are expected to enhance the standing of America there by maintaining good relations with the locals, and help American interests there by working with the local governments. It’s work that often requires isolation from one’s own society and, occasionally, exposure to danger.
Yes, we should look at how the deaths of Amb. Stevens and the other FSOs came about, and whether they could have been prevented given his concerns about the mission. What we can’t do, though, is build more monstrosities that isolate us even more from the people our diplomatic service is supposed to work with, and practically scream “imperial power” to anyone who is able to get close enough to look at them.
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However, the anti-Islam YouTube film was quickly removed as a cause of what happened in Benghazi.
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To me, the central failure of the Obama Administration here was to acknowledge this fact when they knew it, which looks to be a day or two after the consulate was overrun. I don’t know if they wanted to escape political embarrassment, or had some other motive, but they were lying about this for days afterward. They should have either kept quiet, or said “we don’t know yet”, until they were sure.
Whatever the security and intelligence failures might have been, to me they pale in significance in comparison to the Administration’s public demonstration that it’s willing to lie for no good reason. Couple that with its propensity for punishing whistleblowers with antiquated espionage statutes, and you have a recipe for unaccountable government.
Trying to keep their job instead of doing their job [thank you "West Wing"] seems to have been the problem. EXCEPT… There is no evidence that Obama’s job is in danger.
The White House made a huge mistake by listening to the Obama campaign team, it is appearing.
It is unconscionable to try to spin a terrorist attack on 9/11, 2012. It’s also stunningly stupid.