Posted on 10/31/2015 3:25:36 PM PDT by NKP_Vet
Michael Morell, former deputy director and acting director of the CIA, disputes former Secretary of State Hillary Clintonâs assertion that bad intelligence led her to blame the attack on the diplomatic facilities in Benghazi was a result of a You Tube video that ridiculed Islam.
In Morellâs 2015 book The Great War of Our Time, he writes that while the CIA knew âthe demonstration and violence in Cairo were sparked by people upset over a YouTube video,â intelligence âanalysts never said the video was a factor in the Benghazi attacks.â (p. 205-206)
Clinton told the Libyan President on the night of the attacks that âAnsar as-Sharia [sic] is claiming responsibility.â However, Clinton did not mention the video and Ansar al-Shariaâs senior leader in Benghazi, Ahmed Abu Khatallah, is the only person who was arrested for the attacks.
Clinton also sent an e-mail on the night of the attacks to her daughter Chelsea telling her that attacks were done by an âAl Qaeda-like group.â The e-mail did not reference the YouTube video.
One day after the attack, the Egyptian Prime Minister said the incident âhad nothing to do with the film. It was a planed attackânot a protestâ¦Based on the information we saw today we believe the group that claimed responsibility for this was affiliated with al Qaeda.â
Clinton, however, made public statements that were vastly different from private remarks about the attack. On the night of the attack, the State Department sent out a statement of Clintonâs where she blamed the attack on âinflammatory material posted on the internet.â
Clinton made a similar public statement the day after the attack.
âSome have sought to justify this vicious behavior, along with the protest that took place at our Embassy in Cairo yesterday, as a response to inflammatory material posted on the internet.â
Secretary Clinton continued to blame the video with the attack in Benghazi during public remarks two and three days after the attacks. These statements happened at a transfer of remains ceremony at Andrews Air Force Base with family members of the victims present.
However, on the day the remains of the four Americans killed were brought to Andrews, a State Department official at the Embassy in Tripoli wrote an e-mail to colleagues in Washington saying:
âIt is becoming increasingly clear that the series of events in Benghazi was much more terrorist attack than a protest which escalated into violence,â and urging them to âbe cautious in our local messaging with regard to the inflammatory film trailerâ because âthe films [sic] not as explosive of an issue here as it appears to be in other countriesâ¦Relatively few [Libyans] have even mentioned the inflammatory video.â
The Benghazi Select Committee released the e-mail in full on Saturday for the first time with some redactions:
From: [redacted]
To: [redacted]
Subject: messaging on the attacks in Libya
Date: Friday, September 14, 2012 6:43:39 AM
Colleagues, I mentioned to [redacted] this morning, and want to share with all of you, our view at Embassy Tripoli that we must be cautious in our local messaging with regard to the inflammatory film trailer, adapting it to Libyan conditions. Our monitoring of the Libyan media and conversations with Libyans suggest that the films not as explosive of an issue here as it appears to be in other countries in the region.
The overwhelming majority of the FB comments and tweets weâve received from Libyans since the Ambassadorâs death have expressed deep sympathy, sorrow, and regret. They have expressed anger at the attackers, and emphasized that this attack does not represent Libyans or Islam. Relatively few have even mentioned the inflammatory video. So if we post messaging about the video specifically, we may draw unwanted attention to it. And it is becoming increasingly clear that the series of events in Benghazi was much more terrorist attack than a protest which escalated into violence. It is our opinion that in our messaging, we want to distinguish, not conflate, the events in other countries with this well-planned attack by militant extremists. I have discussed this with [redacted] and he shares PASâs view.
Additionally, Morrell reveals in his book that CIA analysts âcomplet[ed] their first full report on what happenedâ and provided it to âsenior policy-makers and to Congress on the morning of September 13.â
He writes, âThe September 13 piece â the first piece to go beyond a simple factual update â said four things. First, that the assault on the TMF [Temporary Mission Facility in Benghazi] had been a spontaneous event that evolved from a protest outside the TMF. Second, that the protest and subsequent attack had been motivated by what had happened in Cairo earlier in the day (there was no mention in the piece of the YouTube video defaming the Prophet Muhammad).â
Morrellâs assertion is backed up by news reports revealed on October 2012. According to The Guardian, the CIA station chief in Libya reported to Washington within 24 hours of the attack that there was an indication it was carried out by terrorists, not a spontaneous mob angry about a You Tube video mocking the Islamâs Prophet Muhammad.
When asked at last weekâs Benghazi Committee hearing why she blamed the You Tube video when she knew very well it was not the cause of the attack, Clinton proclaimed, she âneeded to be talking about the video.â
âNone of us can speak to the individual motivations of those terrorists who overran our compound and who attacked our CIA annex. There were probably a number of different motivations,â she said, adding that the intelligence community âtook the leadâ in analyzing the information at the time.
âWe also knew, congressman, because my responsibility was what was happening throughout the region, I needed to be talking about the video, because I needed to put other governments and other people on notice that we were not going to let them get away with attacking us, as they did in Tunis, as they did in Khartoum,â she said.
Or murdered Vince Foster.
Yep...him too.
Didn’t remember that, but I do seem to recall now that she appeared in some brief government-funded propaganda film that was made for showing in the Mideast, also blaming the attack on the video but adding that although we believed in freedom of speech in the US we would never tolerate such evil sentiments as those expressed in the video - so wrong in so many ways......
Not a problem. The “video” story was concocted before the attack in Benghazi and even before the riots in Cairo. The more people who know it the better.
I posted about that in #38. It’s a shame that America tolerates evil like 0bama and Hillary.
What good would it do?
For one thing, they coul correct that abomination they published yesterday that awarded Rubio “two Pinocchios” for having lied that Hillary lied about Benghazi.
Do you actually believe that they would?
Why didn't the CIA clear up the story - tell the truth? What let the lie stand... if they knew better they should have said something.
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