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 Clinton’s 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 Morell’s 2015 book The Great War of Our Time, he writes that while the CIA knew “the demonstration and violence in Cairo were sparked by people upset over a YouTube video,†intelligence “analysts never said the video was a factor in the Benghazi attacks.†(p. 205-206)
Clinton told the Libyan President on the night of the attacks that “Ansar as-Sharia [sic] is claiming responsibility.†However, Clinton did not mention the video and Ansar al-Sharia’s 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 “Al Qaeda-like group.†The e-mail did not reference the YouTube video.
One day after the attack, the Egyptian Prime Minister said the incident “had nothing to do with the film. It was a planed attack–not a protest…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 Clinton’s where she blamed the attack on “inflammatory material posted on the internet.â€
Clinton made a similar public statement the day after the attack.
“Some 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:
“It is becoming increasingly clear that the series of events in Benghazi was much more terrorist attack than a protest which escalated into violence,†and urging them to “be cautious in our local messaging with regard to the inflammatory film trailer†because “the films [sic] not as explosive of an issue here as it appears to be in other countries…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 we’ve received from Libyans since the Ambassador’s 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 PAS’s view.
Additionally, Morrell reveals in his book that CIA analysts “complet[ed] their first full report on what happened†and provided it to “senior policy-makers and to Congress on the morning of September 13.â€
He writes, “The September 13 piece – the first piece to go beyond a simple factual update – 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€
Morrell’s 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 Islam’s Prophet Muhammad.
When asked at last week’s 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 “needed to be talking about the video.â€
“None 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,†she said, adding that the intelligence community “took the lead†in analyzing the information at the time.
“We 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,†she said.
Important post.
But it shouldn’t have mattered anyway.
Reagan would have said “if it was this video, then your country is even more insane than I thought it was”
or something along those lines.
â€Ã¢â‚¬Å“!
Trump will bring the witch down with this.
This is a little weird.
Michael Morell is the guy who edited the talking points and put the “Video” excuse in. Basically he’s a very squared-away, articulate criminal.
At whose direction Morell make the talking points we do not know, though it’s LizardLady, Hillary Clinton, Obama, all of those or some combination of more than one of those.
Also it’s the judgement of a lot of people that Morell is more or less a Hillary Clinton protoge, and I believe now one of his jobs is working for a Clinton-associated think-tank.
Why is he saying this...?
We’ll never know who came up with the idea to use the video as an excuse for Benghazi, just like we’ll never know who hired Craig Livingstone.
I bet the Obama administration got the video riots started to support their lie. Hillary lied, people died.
Obama's not making it easy for Trump to crush the witch.
Then what would his motive be?
U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice is under fire for going on several Sunday talk shows five days after the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi and providing apparently erroneous information to the public. But President Obama’s own public statements about Benghazi, made in three separate nationally televised interviews in the days after Rice’s appearances, were equally misleading and have received scarcely any attention.
Read more: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2012/11/30/what_the_president_said_about_benghazi_116299.html#ixzz3qBhjcdio
Follow us: @RCP_Articles on Twitter
It was just a little lie to clinch the election. And they all knew they were lying. However, I blame Clinton the most for ignoring the safety Ambassador and his immediate security detail. Negligent homicide at the very least.
I re-read it and:
Yeah, when he was emailing his own guys he was pretty honest, probably indicating he then believe those emails would not become public, but then when he worked in capacities that involved the public or presstitutes, he lied his azz off.
Pretty much like his current quasi-boss, Hillary Clinton.
No huge mystery there.
...â€Ã¢â‚¬Å“!...
I heartedly agree.
Doesn't matter who made up the video story.
What does matter is that Hillary and Obama knew the story was false but they used the story anyway.
Bottom line:
4 Americans died, the government lied just to get obuma elected AGAIN!!!
Proving H. Clinton a liar will not bring her down since it's already been amply proven. Those who will support her simply don't care. Lying is now SOP for politician of her ilk. Documented emphasis on the damage she and the 0bomb have done for political and monetary advantage, and he is still doing, is the only weapon aganst the Hildebeest.
Exactly.
The election was then just 2 months away, and they needed for all this to go away, or at least to minimize it.
EVERYONE then knew the impending election was going to be a photo-finish SQUEEKER and that rightly terrified them.
It was best to let them all die quietly (the number they were then resolved to was probably FAR north of just 4 KIA) and then lie their azzes off until after the election.
And then they’d take their sweet time further covering it up and handling it.
It was a little like Bill Clinton’s re-election and TWA800, which which the re-election theme was “peace and prosperity” and the FBI was more or less ordered to investigate in a way that would buttress the “Spontaneous Center Fuel Tank” narrative.
In June of 2012, When Mohamed Morsi assumed the presidency of Egypt, he began making pronouncements about freeing the blind sheik, and it was later reported the US and Egypt were having back-channel discussions. I still think the goal was to kidnap Amb. Stevens and use him as a bargaining chip. That plan went south when the islamists met some unexpected resistance from a handful of Americans who fought back.
I agree that the 0bomb (and his closest advisor) conceived of the video lie, perhaps in concert with Hillary, and who better to help advance it than the veteran-liar Clinton. The withheld emails between the 0bomb and Hilde would likely tell the tale.
...â€Ã¢DITTOS€œ!...
True, but do you think she or anyone else will ever get punished for it?
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