Posted on 10/13/2012 10:12:48 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Three hours before the vice presidential debate here on October 11, Stephanie Cutter, a top spokesman and deputy campaign manager for Barack Obama, previewed Joe Biden’s explanation for the administration’s ever-changing narrative on the deadly 9/11 attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya. In short: The intelligence made us do it. The reason administration officials repeatedly told the country a story that was untrue—in virtually all its particulars—is that they got bad information from the intelligence community. Or so they say.
At the debate, moderator Martha Raddatz noted “there were no protesters” that day in Libya, and asked Biden why the administration’s talk of protests “went on for weeks.”
Biden answered directly: “Because that’s exactly what we were told by the intelligence community. The intelligence community told us that. As they learned more facts about exactly what happened, they changed their assessment.”
Cutter pointed to a September 28 statement from Shawn Turner, a spokesman for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI). “Take a look at the director of national intelligence’s statement, which you may disagree with, but you can’t accuse them of playing politics,” Cutter told Fox News anchor Bret Baier. “His statement, two weeks after the attack, said that there was an original conclusion that people were taking advantage of protests surrounding that [anti-Muslim] video to attack the embassy. We then learned weeks later that it was a deliberate, premeditated attack by terrorists.”
First, it’s worth noting that the statement did not come from Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, as Cutter claimed. It came from a spokesman. This isn’t a trivial distinction. Much thought is put into whose name goes on statements like this. Why wasn’t it Clapper’s?
Second, Cutter’s timeline and the ODNI statement are not consistent. Cutter claims the White House learned the truth about the attacks “weeks later.” The statement from the ODNI spokesman says only that the earliest assessment, “in the immediate aftermath,” turned out to be wrong. The statement reads, in relevant part: “In the immediate aftermath, there was information that led us to assess that the attack began spontaneously following protests earlier that day at our embassy in Cairo. . . . As we learned more about the attack, we revised our initial assessment to reflect new information indicating it was a deliberate and organized terrorist attack carried out by extremists.”
The obvious question: When did the intelligence community tell the White House (and other policymakers) that the assault on the compound was a premeditated terrorist attack conducted by al Qaeda-linked jihadists? Was it really weeks later as both Biden and Cutter claim?
It was not. Two U.S. officials familiar with the reporting on the Benghazi attack tell The Weekly Standard that revisions to the initial reports came within days—sometimes within hours. Intelligence products published on September 12, sources tell us, included detailed evidence that al Qaeda-linked jihadists were involved in the Benghazi attacks.
* As first reported by Newsweek’s Eli Lake, within hours of the attack, “U.S. intelligence agencies monitored communications from jihadists affiliated with the group that led the attack and members of Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), the group’s North African affiliate.” Lake reported that the intelligence was so detailed, U.S. officials “had even pinpointed the location of one of those attackers.”
* Senior State Department officials were in contact with security agents on the ground in Benghazi, in real time, as the attacks unfolded. In conversations that evening and the next day U.S. officials in Libya gave no indication that there had been any protest of any kind.
* On September 12, the New York Times reported: “American and European officials said that while many details about the attack remained unclear, the assailants seemed organized, well trained and heavily armed, and they appeared to have at least some level of advance planning.”
* That same day, Representative Mike Rogers, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said he had no doubt the attacks were planned. “It was a coordinated, military-style, commando-type raid.”
* Democrats said the same thing. Representative Adam Smith, a member of the House Armed Services Committee, said: “This was not just a mob that got out of hand. Mobs don’t come in and attack, guns blazing. I think that there is a growing consensus it was preplanned.”
* Senator Carl Levin, leaving a briefing with Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, was asked if the attack was planned: “There’s been evidence of that. . . . The attack looked like it was planned and premeditated, sure.”
* On September 14, a U.S. official told Reuters that while the question of planning was an open one, “Everything I have seen says this was a highly armed, organized attack. Not a mob reacting to a movie.”
The officials who gave these assessments—elected and unelected, Democrat and Republican—were in a position to do so for one reason: the intelligence. Most important: There is no intelligence whatsoever linking the Benghazi attack to the anti-Muslim video.
Notice that all of those assessments came before U.N. ambassador Susan Rice appeared on five political talk shows September 16 and linked the Libya attack to the video. And they came well before Barack Obama appeared on David Letterman on September 18 and did the same.
Obama: You had a video that was released by somebody who lives here, a sort of shadowy character who is extremely offensive video directed at Muhammad and Islam.
David Letterman: Making fun of the Prophet Muhammad.
Obama: Making fun of the Prophet Muhammad. And, so, this caused great offense. In much of the Muslim world. But, what also happened was extremists and terrorists used this as an excuse to attack a variety of our embassies, including the consulate in Libya.
There are two possibilities. Either the intelligence community had a detailed picture of what happened in Benghazi that night and failed to share it with other administration officials and the White House. Or the intelligence community provided that detailed intelligence picture to others in the administration, and Obama, Biden, Clinton, Susan Rice, and others ignored and manipulated the intelligence to tell a politically convenient—but highly inaccurate—story.
If it’s the former, DNI James Clapper should be fired. If it’s the latter, what happened in Benghazi—and what happened afterwards—will go down as one of the worst scandals in recent memory.
It seems far more likely that it’s the latter. After all, is it conceivable that White House officials at the highest levels were not actively engaged in interagency meetings to determine what happened in Benghazi? Is it conceivable that intelligence officials, knowing there was no evidence at all of a link between the film and Benghazi, would fail to tell the president and his colleagues that their claims were unfounded? Is it conceivable that somehow the latest intelligence on the 9/11 attacks was left out of Obama’s intelligence briefings in the days after 9/11? It would have been a priority for every professional at the CIA, the State Department, and the National Security Council to discover exactly what happened in Benghazi as soon as possible. Is it conceivable that the information wasn’t passed to the most senior figures in the administration?
No, it’s really not. And therefore, the fact that these senior figures misled us—and still mislead us—is a scandal of the first order.
I'm surprised at the Weekly Standard. The answer is a third likelihood (not possibility)... that the whole thing was preplanned and staged and somehow failed. It's becoming pretty clear that this is a scandal of enormous proportions.
I agree with the conclusion that we were lied to, but hard to understand why. No matter what the truth was going to come out. The CHAOS mongers will meet their day of reckoning...sooner than later I hope.
Everyone keeps saying this was Al-qaida, but where’s the proof on that?
They’re too beltway establishment to go there. Remember: Bill Kristol owns that outfit.
Let’s not forget about the dozens of people that were killed and injured around the world protesting at our Embassies because this administration put the focus on a film that no one would have even know or heard about if they weren’t so adamant about blaming it and talking about it.
It seems to stand as a fact they did not lift a finger before or during the attack to project anything but groveling before our enemies, so yes, it is conceivable they would be negligent in any follow up as well, even to the point of forensically destroying the scene of the "crime".
BTTT
VOTE HIM OUT.
His entire regime must go.
Intellegence agencies Intercepted communications detailing attack right after attacks. That has been repeatedly reported this week..
Thank you posting this. Finally, the first coherent version of the right questions being asked and threads being pulled.
I get it that a reflexive assumption could possibly be made that desk jockies might assume a protest, given the Cairo protest going on nearly simultaneously, but only for about 15 minutes, until you see full assault under way with major weapons, and you hear screams, “ATACK!” over and over. But two weeks calling it a protest? Come on...
What I don’t get is WHO came up with the youtube video fiction? What was THAT fiction suppose to accomplish?
You know there are people who think this was about scoring a point against free speech and give the treatment of the American Coptic Christian who produced it, you have to wonder.
That is another thread that needs to be pulled by Issa.
The Bengzazi consulate was in continuous radio communications with what would be a large group of people beyond just the State Department. It wasn’t a communications failure. We are to believe that during a six hour attack, with a one hour lull in the action, that nobody asked for approval to react or at least stage personnel and equipment? Patently absurd. The White House has a situation room for “situations”. This all was happening in the middle of the afternoon in Washington. Benghazi isn’t a story about failed intelligence...it’s about failed decision making before, during and after the attack.
Here is a thoughout assessment...
Col. Hunt On The Newest Libyan Revelations http://audio.wrko.com/a/64657882/col-hunt-on-the-newest-libyan-revelations.htm
Makes one wish again for a parliamentary democracy. The entire Cabinet resigns.
Very darn good point! Hillary and brack must have gotten a kick out of that. An open invitation to a party against free speech across the Middle East, and dang, they couldn’t make it.
Therein lies the rub. He was NOT a Coptic Christian either, let alone American. He was an Egyption muslim felon, an FBI snitch, whose partner was a known falsestinian terrorist.
First they tried to blame Israel, (Israeli Jew billionaire.) That didn’t work so then they tried to blame Egyptian Christians, but that was foiled because the terrorist’s partner was Walid Shoebat’s first cousin and he KNEW these people.
The maker of the film is either dead or in ‘protective’ custody. Either way, he is disappeared.
There is a blogger, Walid something, who credibly claims that Nakoula Nakoula, the producer of "Innocence of Muslims", is:
1. Not Nakoula Nakoula, nor an American, nor a Coptic Christian.
2. Instead, he is, in fact, a Palestinian.
And that the production was a Pallywood propaganda special -- perhaps designed for this administration's use.
This subject was discussed in depth and MORE in the above thread. This article must be read by everyone and then we have to once again be the town criers and get this information out to all conservative media sources, to everyone you know. Listen to what Col. said at the link. Read about what was said by the State Dept. at Congressman Issa’s investigative committee and view the CNN video of same. All roads are leading to oboma, and that what happened at Benghazi was all by design. Read the article and the comments, which contains much new information and links. This story is huge, and the blood of Ambassador Stevens and those who died with him are on the hands of oboma, hillary, valerie jarrett and everyone else who was involved in this coverup of the truth.
Right here...
* As first reported by Newsweek’s Eli Lake, within hours of the attack, “U.S. intelligence agencies monitored communications from jihadists affiliated with the group that led the attack and members of Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), the group’s North African affiliate.” Lake reported that the intelligence was so detailed, U.S. officials “had even pinpointed the location of one of those attackers.”
No, I didn’t know these updates on this guy’s identity, who was arrested in CA. Last I heard was Rush understanding why he had his face covered while being perp walked by police.
The video cartoon on utube was about the most absurd fairy tale to try and tack on to the fiction of a “protest” in Benghazi. And to keep both pieces of fiction going for days when the world sources were all intercepting the truth through their own feeds for themselves is too bizarre.
One theory is that it was suppose to be a hostage situation to make obama look good by getting the ambassador released right before the election but it went south instead. It would also explain the low security and why they were told to quit asking for more. Not my theory but it kind of makes sense if you look at the details.
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