Posted on 01/08/2014 6:08:25 PM PST by smoothsailing
Updated 7:25 p.m. ET
The State Department renewed the lease for the U.S. compound in Benghazi two months before the Sept. 11, 2012 terrorist attacks without requiring the facility to meet normal security standards. That news comes from an interview Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., conducted with a survivor of the attacks. The survivor, a State Department diplomatic security agent whose name isn't being disclosed, spoke behind closed doors in late November to Senators Graham, Bob Corker, R-Tenn., and Robert Menendez, D-N.J. The previously-undisclosed existence of the year-long lease calls into question the State Department's designation of the compound as "temporary" and therefore exempt from normal security requirements.
According to the Accountability Review Board (ARB) that investigated security shortfalls, a "key driver behind the weak security platform in Benghazi was the decision to treat Benghazi as a temporary, residential facility...This resulted in the Special Mission compound being excepted from office facility standards and accountability" under federal law. The ARB said Benghazi's security was "far short" of standards from the start in November 2011 and "remained so even in September 2012, despite multiple field-expedient upgrades funded by [diplomatic security]."
A State Department official told CBS News that although the facility was exempt from normal requirements, a long list of improvements was made to physical security including concrete jersey barriers, barbed wire and hardened safe rooms with steel doors. As to what makes a facility considered "temporary" even with a year-long commitment, the State Department told CBS News "a temporary facility is one we occupy in a place where we have not yet decided to have a permanent diplomatic presence."
The lease renewal came shortly after a June 2012 assault in which an improvised explosive device blew a giant hole in the exterior wall of the facility. Graham also says he learned that in addition to other denied requests, the State Department's Regional Security Officer for Libya asked for stronger security for the compound in August 2012 but it was denied. The State Department told CBS News that the August 2012 request for more security was not submitted to headquarters, so there was no denial.
"Don't you imagine that if Congress had known that someone renewed a formal lease for one year at the same time it called the facility 'temporary' and exempted it from security standards that we would have had a lot of questions about it?" Graham said in an interview with CBS News.
Four Americans including U.S. ambassador Christopher Stevens were murdered in the terrorist attacks.
According to a document produced by the State Department, the U.S. was paying $168,000 annually for part of the U.S. Benghazi compound known as Villa B, and $336,000 for Villa C. Both leases were renewed for one year in July of 2012.
The State Department witness also said he never reported a protest. and watched 15-20 armed insurgents on video camera as they stormed the compound, according to Graham. The witness said the attackers carried a banner that was later identified to represent the radical Islamist group Ansar al-Sharia.
In late October, Graham temporarily blocked President Obama's nominees from being confirmed in the Senate until the State Department agreed to make survivors of the Benghazi attacks available for questioning. He's still pressing to speak with others. The State Department previously said that allowing witnesses to testify or release their statements could jeopardize a criminal investigation and had no immediate comment for this report.
The FBI will not release transcripts of interviews it conducted with all of the survivors immediately after the attacks, but Graham says the FBI told him over the Christmas break that none of the survivors mentioned protests.
And this is after Obama says that we should close the Vatican embassy and merge it with the Italian embassy, for “security” reasons.
The Vatican is more dangerous than Benghazi?
A more probable explanation is that Obama loves Muslim terrorists but hates Catholics and other Christians.
Are WE trying to make Graham look good here, maybe, perhaps?
FULG
Gee and Ansar al-Sharia just happened to headquarter themselves at the hospital that Stevens was taken to.
Impeachment File for “B. Hussein Obama,” aka Barry Soetoro, a documented legal citizen of the Sovereign Nation of Indonesia.
B^)
Crocodile tears from a politician trying to save his ass...
Still, no one was mentioned as the person, or persons responsible for this renewal, and downgrading of the security at this facility...
The interesting question here is does the administration want this Benghazi incident, or the failures of ObamaCare to be in the news cycle again???
Or will the other drama be protrayed as the news of the day, like the unemployment extentions, and wintery weather be the topic of the week some more...Ohhhh, and don’t forget about the immigrations reform being championed by the quisling republican leadership elites...
11 months people...
Does anyone have the guts to toss every single one of these schumps to the street???
I’m not going to hold my breath...
So the Accountability Review Board failed to do its job. You know, the board that never interviewed Hillary.
Why did Hillary and Obama use American taxpayer provided facilities, personnel, equipment and funds to overthrow the government of Libya?
I don’t know but I do wonder if we were also paying Ansar al-Sharia.
“A lot of people don’t like Ansar al-Sharia, but their behaviour here has been faultless,” she said. “Most of them are unemployed, they do all this without pay.”
This does not necessarily mean the members are not receiving some other salary. Other sources, including Libya’s deputy defence minister Mohamed Taynaz, say it is likely that Ansar al-Sharia and Rafallah el-Sehat are receiving foreign funding.
The group’s role in the hospital was not just about security. They also acted as “moral guardians”.
Ahhhhhh.....look at the last sentence. Graham said that he talked to the FBI over the Christmas break and they told him that none of the survivors mentioned anything about protests. Remember, the New York Times came out with a story over the Christmas break saying that their investigation showed that there were protests. Oops! Bad news New York Times!
The New York Times.....paid Democrat liars.
Look up the definition of “treason”.
Is Al Qaeda our enemy?
Would members of the Obama administration providing aid to Al Qaeda possibly be guilty of treason?
Look up our punishment for treason.
Graham, Corker, Menendez..three amigos from Santo Moko.
“moral guardians” as in.....if a woman wasn’t covered head to toe in black, if an infidel was being treated at the hospital, they are to guard against the immorality? That kind of moral guardian?
“If any person or persons, owing allegiance to the United States of America, shall levy war against them, or shall adhere to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States, or elsewhere, and shall be thereof convicted on confession in open Court, or on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act of the treason whereof he or they shall stand indicted, such person or persons shall be adjudged guilty of treason against the United States, and SHALL SUFFER DEATH; and that if any person or persons, having knowledge of the commission of any of the treasons aforesaid, shall conceal, and not, as soon as may be, disclose and make known the same to the President of the United States, or some one of the Judges thereof, or to the President or Governor of a particular State, or some one of the Judges or Justices thereof, such person or persons, on conviction, shall be adjudged guilty of misprision of treason, and shall be imprisoned not exceeding seven years, and fined not exceeding one thousand dollars.”
Seems like a whole lot of Legislative and Executive branches should be “pruned”.
Hillary, Barack, Biden, and much of the cabinet should hang. Many of their seconds, thirds, and the same should be in prison. Just on what we know as fact.
It’s interesting though, what if the POTUS is the person guilty of high treason? What if it is POTUS, all those around him, much of the legislature, and half or less of the judiciary branch? Whose ear do you grab then?
I wanna see the stupid moron dumb enough to accept the Ambassador to Libya position....
Now who said His Arrogance would double down on stupid?
Yep, something like that.
“A Filipino nurse became nervous when asked how he felt about the new guards.
“I have a wife and daughter here,” he said, declining to comment further.”
“Posters promising patients punishment in the afterlife for smoking, and advising them of the best way to pray, lined the corridors of the hospital.”
Abu Mohammed rejected the assertion by President Mohamed al-Magarief that a sub-faction of Ansar al-Sharia linked to al-Qaeda had planned the attack. The assault was orchestrated by Gaddafi loyalists in the government, he argued.
“The top priority for Ansar al-Sharia is to protect Benghazi and to encourage people to respect sharia law,” he said.
“Asked about the recent attacks on Sufi shrines, which many said his group was responsible for, Abu Mohammed said that Ansar al-Sharia is opposed to the way Sufis practise Islam”
oops, I didn’t provide a link.
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2012/09/201292218380199890.html
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