U.S. officials: CIA ran Benghazi consulate

UPI ^ | November 2, 2012 | UPI

[Cincinatus' Wife]

WASHINGTON, Nov. 2 (UPI) -- The CIA was the real commanding agency at the attacked U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, not the State Department, senior U.S. intelligence officials said....

[BIG SNIP]

Of the more than 30 U.S. officials evacuated from Benghazi, only seven worked for the State Department, officials briefed on the intelligence told The Wall Street Journal. Nearly all the rest worked for the CIA, under diplomatic cover, which was a principal purpose of the consulate, the Journal said.

Most public criticism for consulate security lapses has so far been directed at the State Department, not the CIA. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said last month she took responsibility for what happened.

The new information does not address the Obama administration's various depictions of whether the assault was a protest that turned violent or a planned terrorist attack. But the officials reiterated early intelligence was patchy and often contradictory. They said talking points for members of Congress and senior administration officials did not at first discuss possible links between the attackers and al-Qaida because the information was classified.

"It wasn't until after the points were used in public that people reconciled contradictory information and assessed there probably wasn't a protest around the time of the attack," a senior U.S. intelligence official said in a statement.

Congressional investigators say it appears the CIA and State Department weren't on the same page about their respective security roles at the consulate, which the Journal said raised questions about whether the Benghazi security arrangement was flawed.

[FredZarguna]

This is an attempt to diffuse the damage by extending it over multiple agencies over an extended period of time and nothing more.

Eventually, Leon Panetta will blame Ham or some other flag officer for the inaction, although he will say "I take full responsibility" adding another layer to absorb more damage.

The apex (or nadir) of this pyramid ends in one place. "Who gave the order that my son had to die?"

[Cincinatus' Wife]

I don’t know if you’ve read the entire WSJ article linked in Post #16.

Do if you haven’t.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

From the LINKED WSJ article (Post #16), it looks like Petraeus is being set up to be the scapegoat for this.

Will it fly? I don’t think so.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

If you can’t see the entire WSJ article, do this:

Type this headline, CIA Takes Heat for Role in Libya, into Google search and then CLICK on the 1st link to it.

That should take you around the firewall.

[winkadink]

Having great difficulty believing this story.

[nathanbedford]

Some time ago I speculated that perhaps Mitt Romney has been briefed and as a result concluded that the patriotic thing to do is to refrain from making an issue of this affair. That in turn implies that something very mysterious was going on in this "consulate" or "facility" or CIA establishment, of whatever label, which should remain classified.

That in turn implies that the overall mission being undertaken was legitimate and one which advances legitimate national interests of the United States. Gunrunning to Syria and to questionable rebels of undefined jihadist sympathies in Syria hardly qualifies in my opinion, but who knows? In my view it is unlikely that there was a legitimate mission being pursued because if that had been the case the administration, with its propensity to leak anything politically expedient, would surely have told the world by now.

The mystery only deepens.

[Twinkie]

“If the CIA was totally responsible for the consulate, why did the ambassador have to beg the State Dept. for more security?” - Good question.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

“If the CIA was totally responsible for the consulate, why did the ambassador have to beg the State Dept. for more security?” - Good question.

From the WSJ article, CIA Takes Heat for Role in Libya, those at the Benghazi consulate believed that the CIA annex was their "cavalry" but the CIA contingent at the annex didn't know that.

Or so the story goes......

[Cincinatus' Wife]

......The mystery only deepens.

Yes.

[ImNotLying]

So we have Obama implicated in two illegal gun-running operations (Fast and Furious and Benghazi) and the MSM is turning its usual blind eye to these travesties. Had the media done its job of rooting out the truth in these failed illegalities involving the deaths of Americans, this President would have been run out of town on a rail long ago. How many more innocent Americans have to die before the MSM stops being complicit in these crimes?

[piasa]

Speaking of Billy carter:

1979 : (LIBYA, BILLY CARTER & JAMES ABOUREZK -- See keywords ADC/AADC/AAADC) [SD Democrat James] Abourezk had been present in Libya with Billy Carter to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Muammar Qaddafi’s reign in 1979, and the next year he had founded the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), which allied with left-wing groups in providing legal support to advocates of Palestinian rights.80 ---- "Wilsongate: Motive, Means, and Opportunity," Original FReeper research | 11/21/2005 | Fedora

[Cindy]

ON THE INTERNET:

FOX NEWS.com: "SOURCES, EMAILS POINT TO COMMUNICATION BREAKDOWN IN ORBAMA ADMINISTRATION DURING LIBYA ATTACK" by Jennifer Griffin (November 2, 2012) (Read More…)

MEMRI.org - Spech Dispatch No. 5034: "ARAB TV REPORT EXPOSES LAX SECURITY AT U.S. CONSULATE IN BENGHAZI PRIOR TO AMBASSADOR STEVEN'S ARRIVAL AND SECURITY BREACH PRIOR TO ATTACK -- REVEALED BY DOCUMENTS GATHERED AT CONSULATE FOLLOWING ATTACK" (November 1, 2012) (Read More…)

MEMRI.org - Video Clip no. 3629 Broadcast: November 1, 2012: "TV CHANNEL EXPOSES SECURITY BREACH AT U.S. BENGHAZI CONSULATE IN DOCUMENTS GATHERED FOLLOWING ATTACK" (November 1, 2012) (Watch Here)

News.INVESTORS.com - IBD Editorials: "CRIMINAL NEGLIGENCE: BENGHAZI GAVE 1-MONTH WARNING" (November 1, 2012, 06:23 pm ET) (Read More…)

Link (Read More…)

Link [Post no. 37 & Post no. 38] (Read More…)

[neveralib]

They said talking points for members of Congress and senior administration officials did not at first discuss possible links between the attackers and al-Qaida because the information was classified.

Oh, that all makes sense now. That in a "Closed Session," members of Congress who are all supposed to be "cleared" for sensitive classified information and hold "OVERSIGHT" responsibility, now, are somehow, considered as NOT being "trustworthy" to have access to this information?

Makes sense to me. (major sarc)

So much bovine excrement....so little time!

Drip, drip, drip!

Just another attempt by this corrupt, Regime to obfuscate, dissemble, backtrack and muddy the waters hoping to run the clock out until next Tuesday.

This WILL turn out to be much more significant than Watergate and eventually, some heads will roll, but unfortunately, not in time to affect the outcome of the election...thanks to the sycophant, leftist, Lame Stream Media.

[neveralib]

Of the more than 30 U.S. officials evacuated from Benghazi, only seven worked for the State Department, officials briefed on the intelligence told The Wall Street Journal. Nearly all the rest worked for the CIA, under diplomatic cover, which was a principal purpose of the consulate, the Journal said.

This answers some questions and raises others.

If true, this would answer my and others' inquiry as to why these 30 or so personnel have disappeared off the face of the earth and no one has heard a peep about what happened to them or where they are.

That said, when I worked as a covert, military, intel agent I frequently interacted with CIA staff out of an embassy. Not only were we military personnel armed at all times, albeit, handguns (though we did have access to auto weapons in our own civilian compound) but so were the CIA staff.

These "agents" (and I have no reason to believe things have changed) were all "trained" and had gone thru rigorous courses prior to having been assigned overseas.

So why were these 23 or so CIA agents not armed as well and why (I would be surprised if this was not the case) did they not have auto weapons available to them in the Consulate with which to defend themselves.

Something does not compute and the more we learn, the less any of this makes sense.

[gotribe]

That’s an incredible article. Now, a big shell game being played by oblunder, hellery, and betrayus. All must go.

“The spy agency was the first to set up shop. It began building up its presence there soon after the Libyan revolution started in February 2011. The uprising overturned what had been a tight working relationship between the Gadhafi regime’s spy services and the Americans, creating a gap that the CIA presence sought to fill, officials said.

The CIA worked from a compound publicly referred to as the “annex,” which was given a State Department office name to disguise its purpose. The agency focused on countering proliferation and terrorist threats, said an American security contractor who has worked closely with CIA, the Pentagon and State. A main concern was the spread of weapons and militant influences throughout the region, including in Mali, Somalia and Syria, this person said.

Libyan officials say they were kept in the dark about what the CIA was doing in Benghazi. “The Americans had people coming and going with great frequency. Frankly, our records were never clear [about] who was out there” in Benghazi, said a senior Libyan government official in Tripoli.”

[gotribe]

So, now it makes sense. oblunder had met with pancetta ahead of the attack and was trying to keep the CIA cover throughout this thing which is why he never approved military support. four dead and the cover is blown anyway.

[livius]

None of this makes sense from any angle. The WH has changed its stories so many times and still not come up with a plausible one.

The consulate or post or whatever you want to call it served a variety of purposes and possibly the attackers themselves didn’t even realize the extent of it. They obviously knew that it was a vulnerable point, though, probably from earlier reconnaissance by locals who were employed there. So it is even more bizarre that it should have been so unguarded if it was, in fact, primarily a CIA facility.

I think this latest “information” from the WH is just an attempt to keep the old shell game going and hide the pea under yet another agency shell. Or perhaps the CIA has been chosen to be the definitive scapegoat in this; I think that Obama has never liked the agency and that he and Jarrett and Axelrod would be very happy to blame it to such an extent that he could claim a need to “reorganize” it (probably out of existence).

None of this addresses the fact that no matter what agency or entity it was, everybody knew that there were Americans under attack and fighting for their lives, and somebody made a decision not to help them.

[Best and Brightest]

Alinskyites like Hillary and Obama hate the CIA and the U.S. military. Q.E.D.

[livius]

One thing that has been forgotten on all this is that on that very same day, our seemingly lightly guarded embassy in Cairo was attacked and ended up with the black flag of Al Qaeda flying over it. And nobody is suggesting that the Cairo embassy was anything other than an embassy, probably with the same amount CIA involvement as any embassy.

I read one statement made early on that US facilities were kept lightly guarded to make it clear that we trusted our new friends in the Islamist - Er, I mean Arab Spring and to project an image of normalcy. This is similar to the policy in Afghanistan that send our troops out with supposedly trusty locals who turn around and blow them away, or the fact that our own troops are not allowed to carry weapons on some bases. I remember when Panetta visited, they were all disarmed.

So no matter what agency was involved, there is definitely a policy in place universally that keeps our facilities vulnerable, and it is all the result of Obama’s desire to suck up to the Islamists and blame America first.

Even the explanation that the CIA “responded” at the Benghazi compound within 25 minutes is ridiculous: the CIA is not the military and was clearly under equipped to deal with this. The fact that the terrorists (because AQ is classified as a terrorist group and thus this was a terrorist attack, semantics aside) started their attack, as I recall, by bombing the consulate wall so they could get I should certainly have given them a hint that this was something that needed a forceful response.

So Obama &Co. can blame any agency they want, but it is still clear that they had a policy of not defending American interests.

[rockinqsranch]

Regardless of CIA, State Department, whomever there is one person responsible for this mess, and this article is just another ingredient tossed in for the purpose of obscuring focus on that fact. Obama is the POTUS, the Commander in Chief of the military, and all associated departments, divisions, etc involved with the fiasco.

Don’t let the bastards divert attention from the fact Obama is da man.