Posted on 11/20/2012 9:05:26 AM PST by SeekAndFind
Meet James Clapper --- the latest fall guy for the White House on Benghazi. After last week's hearings in Congress showed that the talking points from the CIA had been changed to eliminate the mention of terrorism, Washington erupted into a whodunit. CBS reports today that the culprit has been found ... sort of:
CBS News has learned that the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) cut specific references to "al Qaeda" and "terrorism" from the unclassified talking points given to Ambassador Susan Rice on the Benghazi consulate attack --- with the agreement of the CIA and FBI. The White House or State Department did not make those changes. ---
However, an intelligence source tells CBS News correspondent Margaret Brennan the links to al Qaeda were deemed too “tenuous” to make public, because there was not strong confidence in the person providing the intelligence. CIA Director David Petraeus, however, told Congress he agreed to release the information — the reference to al Qaeda — in an early draft of the talking points, which were also distributed to select lawmakers.
“The intelligence community assessed from the very beginning that what happened in Benghazi was a terrorist attack.” DNI spokesman Shawn Turner tells CBS News. That information was shared at a classified level — which Rice, as a member of President Obama’s cabinet, would have been privy to. …
The head of the DNI is James Clapper, an Obama appointee. He ultimately did review the points, before they were given to Ambassador Rice and members of the House intelligence committee on Sept. 14. They were compiled the day before.
Note that this report doesn’t pin the blame on Clapper himself. It instead locates the change in Clapper’s “office,” allowing for a rather non-specific assignment that makes almost no sense at all. Are we to believe that a Clapper aide overruled David Petraeus’ assessment of Benghazi? If so, on what basis?
The report also states that the reason for the redaction was because the link to AQ was “too tenuous.” However, the presence of mortars and RPGs, as well as coordinated fire and attack strategies in play, made it clear “almost immediately” to Petraeus and others in the CIA that this was much more than a spontaneous demonstration run amok. That made the YouTube video explanation rather “tenuous” too, no? And yet that stayed in the talking points while terrorism got excised.
This explanation seems even more tenuous than the previous stories coming from the White House. If Petraeus knew “almost immediately” that this was an act of deliberate terrorism and included that in his talking points, then we need an explanation of who in the “office of the DNI” removed that explanation, and why — more than just the “too tenuous” excuse here that turned out to be totally wrong — and whether they got pressured to do so.
The criminal incompetence of assigning American diplomats to indefensible facilities and refusing to rescue them when their location was overrun by terrorists.
Why exactly was this necessary? Who put this lame plan together? What was the backup plan? What role did politics and the election play in this debacle?
Did he take it upon himself to edit the reports? Or was he ordered to do it? Of course, that won’t make any difference. We might as well get used to it. obama can do anything he wants because there is no opposition party. And there hasn’t been for four years.
So, we must fix the GOP from inside! sarc
The talking points are important, but the president and Hilary went to the UN and then on Pakistan tv, lying about the video. It was a full court press to deceive the American people before the election.
Clapper works in the WH and is in constant contact with Obama, especially in times like this. This is Clinton style parsing words to coverup the coverup. There is no doubt Obama himself gave the order to protect his juvenile bragging.
The GOP will prove to be utterly incompetent in ferreting out the truth about Benghazi. They had Petraeus on the stand and didn’t even ask the basic questions about what happened during the siege. Until those basic facts are established, the purpose for the coverup won’t become apparent. The Obama regime was looking for an excuse not to intervene in LIbya and the video narrative was what they chose. But in this case the crime is actually worse than the cover-up. Obama ordered the American military and intelligence branches to leave Americans in harms way. He was treasonous in doing so.
Okay?? I ‘m so glad that’s over. Maybe now we can find out what our US Ambassador was doing in a Benghazi “consulate”?
Why was he repeatedly denied additional protection.
Why were 40 some odd people originally left to die in a now confirmed Al Qaeda attack had they not been rescued by 3 American heroes?
Why were four US citizens, who were repeatedly denied rescue, left to die while “Senior Officials” watched on live TV.
It’s all Kabuki Theater, the Republicans’ role is to play the Washington Generals to the Harlem Globetrotters.
Still doesn’t tell who invented the “video” meme.
Clapper is “good soldier” taking one for his boss.
He shoulda stayed at Space Command.
Clapper going down the crapper...
“Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., told Fox News that intelligence officials who testified in a closed-door hearing a day earlier, including Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and Acting CIA Director Mike Morell, said they did not know who changed the talking points. He said they went out to multiple departments, including the State Department, National Security Council, Justice Department and White House.”
Sen. Chambliss told Chris Wallace, “We’ve got to get some State Department officials in to really explain why you send an ambassador basically unguarded with a few Libyan guards.”
Sen. Lieberman added, “In my opinion it was irresponsible to have our State Department personnel there with only three security guards.” He went on to say that, “Either we should’ve given them the protection they deserved, or we should’ve closed that mission in Benghazi as the British government had done a short while before.”
In 2003, Clapper, then head of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, attempted to explain the absence of WMDs in Iraq by asserting that the weapons materials were "unquestionably" shipped out of Iraq to Syria and other countries just before the American invasion, a "personal assessment" which Clapper's own agency head at the time, David Burpee, "could not provide further evidence to support."[10]
In an interview on December 20, 2010 with Diane Sawyer of ABC News, Clapper indicated he was completely unaware that twelve alleged would-be terrorists had been arrested in Great Britain earlier in the day.[11][12]
In February, 2011, when mass demonstrations were bringing down Mubarak's presidency in Egypt, Clapper told a House Intelligence Committee hearing that: "The term 'Muslim Brotherhood'...is an umbrella term for a variety of movements, in the case of Egypt, a very heterogeneous group, largely secular, which has eschewed violence and has decried Al Qaeda as a perversion of Islam," ... "They have pursued social ends, a betterment of the political order in Egypt, et cetera.....In other countries, there are also chapters or franchises of the Muslim Brotherhood, but there is no overarching agenda, particularly in pursuit of violence, at least internationally." [13]
In March 2011, Clapper was heard at the United States Senate Committee on Armed Services and commented on the 2011 Libyan civil war that “over the longer term” Gaddafi “will prevail”. This position was loudly questioned by the White House, when National Security Advisor Thomas E. Donilon qualified his statement as a "static and one-dimensional assessment" and argued that “The lost legitimacy [of Gaddafi] matters".[14]
During the same hearing he was also questioned when he neglected to list Iran and North Korea among the nuclear powers that might pose a threat to the United States
Clapper has an interesting history. Doesn't change the fact that Obama "phoned it in" and left for Vegas.
I don’t trust wiki’s reporting on the frst point. When was the last time that page was edited/updated?
So it’s too “tenuous” to mention terrorism, even with patent evidence of terrorism, prior knowledge that an attack was planned, and Al Qaeda groups claiming responsibility.
But it is NOT too “tenuous” to pronounce that the whole episode was just some good ole boys reacting reasonably to video blasphemy. Even though that was known to be false before Rice, whose UN job has nothing to do with Benghazi, was trotted out as the designated liar.
I actually hope they were lying for domestic political purposes. The alternative, that the Obamans are really this stupid, is terrifying (if saying that’s not too tenuous).
Do you have a link to that wiki page?
lol
The GOP will prove to be utterly incompetent in ferreting out the truth about Benghazi. They had Petraeus on the stand and didn’t even ask the basic questions about what happened during the siege. Until those basic facts are established, the purpose for the coverup won’t become apparent. The Obama regime was looking for an excuse not to intervene in LIbya and the video narrative was what they chose. But in this case the crime is actually worse than the cover-up. Obama ordered the American military and intelligence branches to leave Americans in harms way. He was treasonous in doing so
So True.
Key question is directly to Obama. Did you issue a Cross Border Authorization??
Without that, the only assets who could be deployed were inside Libya....
O wanted no semblance of a war with Libya......
Until this becomes a constant drumbeat the Dems will play rope a dope figuring
the general public will lose any semblance of interest in Bengazhi....
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