The coverup just gets thicker!!!
CIA Report: "Within 24 hours" Benghazi was Terror Attack
The multiple different narratives from the Obama Administration about the assassination of Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans on Sept. 11, 2012 in Benghazi, Libya was already certain to be a central issue in the foreign policy presidential debate on Oct. 22 as it was in the Oct. 16 debate in New York. But, an Associated Press report published today confirming revelations made last Sunday by Sen. Lindsay Graham raises further questions that demand answers from President Obama.
Following are excerpts from the AP story as published by The Washington Post:
WASHINGTON — The CIA station chief in Libya reported to Washington within 24 hours of last month’s deadly attack on the U.S. Consulate that there was evidence it was carried out by militants, not a spontaneous mob upset about an American-made video ridiculing Islam’s Prophet Muhammad, U.S. officials have told The Associated Press.
It is unclear who, if anyone, saw the cable outside the CIA at that point and how high up in the agency the information went. The Obama administration maintained publicly for a week that the attack on the diplomatic mission in Benghazi that killed U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans was a result of the mobs that staged less-deadly protests across the Muslim world around the 11th anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks on the U.S.
…
The two U.S. officials said the CIA station chief in Libya compiled intelligence reports from eyewitnesses within 24 hours of the assault on the consulate that indicated militants launched the violence, using the pretext of demonstrations against U.S. facilities in Egypt against the film to cover their intent. The report from the station chief was written late Wednesday, Sept. 12, and reached intelligence agencies in Washington the next day, intelligence officials said.
Yet, on Saturday of that week, briefing points sent by the CIA to Congress said “demonstrations in Benghazi were spontaneously inspired by the protests at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo and evolved into a direct assault.”
Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) cited the same 24 hour conclusion about the Benghazi attack in an interview with Bob Schieffer of CBS News on Face the Nation Sunday, October 14, 2012. Below is a crucial part of that interview:
GRAHAM: "My belief is that that was known by the administration within 24 hours. And, quite frankly, [U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations] Susan Rice, on your show on September 16, the president on the 18th, and the 25th, kept talking about an attack inspired by a video. They`re trying to sell a narrative, quite frankly, that the Mid-East, the wars are receding and al Qaeda's been dismantled, and to admit that our embassy was attacked by al Qaeda operatives and Libya leading from behind didn't work. I think undercuts that narrative. They never believed the media would investigate. Congress was out of session, and this caught up with them.
"I think they have been misleading us, but it finally caught up with them."
SCHIEFFER: "Well, that is a very serious charge you just leveled, Senator Graham. Are you saying the administration deliberately misled the American people to make it look as if terrorism is not as much of a threat as apparently it is?"
GRAHAM: "Either they are misleading the American people or incredibly incompetent. There was no way with anybody looking at all that you could believe five days after the attack it was based on a riot that never occurred. There was no riot at all. So, to say that, you`re either very incompetent or misleading."
....
SCHIEFFER: "Where did you get this information that led you to this conclusion? Did you talk to officials there? Did you talk to people in the CIA? Did you talk to people in the administration? How are you so convinced of what you have just stated?"
GRAHAM: "The intelligence community on the ground in Libya has told Senators Corker and myself that within 24 hours, they communicated up to Washington that this was a terrorist attack."
Clinton Sidesteps Blame Even As She Accepts It
Diana West
Honestly, did the buck really stop with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Benghazi-gate, or did the buck just stop?
Here's what Clinton said: "I take responsibility. I'm in charge of the State Department's 60,000-plus people all over the world, 275 posts. The president and the vice president wouldn't be knowledgeable about specific decisions that are made by security professionals. They're the ones who weigh all of the threats and the risks and the needs and make a considered decision."
Stop. Clinton's taken responsibility, she's in charge -- and then she declares that "security professionals" make the decisions? Not only is this a non sequitur, it's nonsense. One thing Americans learned from recent House hearings about the Sept. 11 orchestrated terrorist attack on the U.S. Consulate in Libya -- which killed four Americans and which President Barack Obama insisted for two weeks was sparked by a YouTube video -- is that the security professional in question, Eric Nordstrom, asked Clinton's State Department for more security and was denied.
Clinton went on to say an internal investigation was under way. And who is leading the investigation? Former Ambassador Thomas Pickering, a noted career diplomat. Part of what he's noted for, however, is sitting on boards of two pro-Tehran groups, the American Iranian Council and the National Iranian American Council, and for meeting with Hamas and promoting negotiations with the Taliban. Perhaps not the most "responsible" choice.
Then again, is "responsibility" Clinton's goal? "What I want to avoid is some kind of political 'gotcha' or blame game," she said. Translation: Taking "responsibility" -- an empty phrase without resigning -- avoids the "blame game" and eliminates the need to air the facts. She continued: "I know that we're very close to an election. I want to just take a step back here and say from my own experience, we are at our best as Americans when we pull together." Translation: I know we're very close to an election, so, as good Americans, shut up already about Benghazi.
The secretary of state took to the airwaves, where CBS brought up U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice's five appearances on Sunday talk shows on Sept. 16 to beat the drum that the Benghazi assault began as a "spontaneous protest" over a YouTube video that "spun from there into something much, much more violent." It is now part of the established record that there was no protest outside the consulate in Benghazi, and the U.S. government knew it from the start.
CBS News correspondent Margaret Brennan asked Clinton if she approved the message Rice
"I think she very clearly said, 'Here's what we know now, but this is going to change,'" Clinton said, which is not at all what Rice said. "This is what we have at present, but it will evolve -- and the intelligence community has said the same thing." Is that taking responsibility? CBS reported: "Clinton said she did not speak to Rice prior to her Sunday talk show appearances, but added that 'everyone had the same information.'"
Not everyone. The State Department knew right away that 9/11/12 was a quiet day and night in Benghazi until the attack began at 9:40 p.m. But there was another point to make. The secretary of state said: "I have to say I know there's been a lot of attention paid to who said what, but I think what happened is more important."
What was that again? "I have to say I know there's been a lot of attention paid to who said what" -- who said what lies, to be specific -- "but I think what happened is more important." No doubt Bill's hat is off to the little woman -- unless he is the phrase crafter himself!
Clinton also cautioned against making premature assumptions about the security situation at Benghazi as the investigation continues. "I don't want us to reach any conclusions about what we did or didn't do without the full context."
Wait, I thought she already took "responsibility"!
"I understand why people want to ask questions, but I just caution that we need to look at everything, and everything needs to be explained at the same time," Clinton said.
Translation: after the election.
Meanwhile, Clinton said: "I'm not going to get into the blame game."
Such a declaration is always a preface to getting into the blame game. She continued: "I think intelligence is very hard to do, and what we're going to find out as we do this accountability review and we get what will be the best possible chronology, that will be attached to what we knew when, which takes time. I understand the, you know, the anxiety and the desire to try to get answers. Nobody wants to get answers more than I do."
What was that again? "I think intelligence is very hard to do ..."
Intelligence. It's their fault.
And we thought Hillary went noble on us.
(Diana West is the author of "The Death of the Grown-up: How America's Arrested Development Is Bringing Down Western Civilization," and blogs at dianawest.net. She can be contacted via
dianawest@verizon.net. Follow her on Twitter @diana_west_.)