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WASHINGTON (AP) — The night of smoke, chaos, gunfire and grenades that killed four Americans in Benghazi, Libya, is well-documented. Eight months later, it is the decisions made back in Washington that remain murky and in perpetual dispute. Why was a diplomatic outpost left so poorly protected? Should the Pentagon have rushed jets or special forces to the rescue when the assault began? Did President Barack Obama's administration obscure the true nature of the terrorist attack to help him get re-elected? Congressional Republicans are poking for evidence of incompetence and cover-up in the ashes of the Sept. 11 anniversary attack....

According to an ABC News report, senators from the bipartisan “Gang of Eight” pushing immigration reform are expected to drop their bill, estimated at around 1,500 pages, on Tuesday, mere hours before the only scheduled Senate hearing on the topic. “A bipartisan group of senators plans to introduce its long-awaited immigration bill on Tuesday, Senate sources confirmed to ABC News,” Jim Avila and Jordan Fabian wrote on Friday. “Four Democrats and four Republicans, known as the 'Gang of Eight,' wrapped up months of hard-fought negotiations this week and will put forth a bill that includes a pathway to citizenship for...

Demoralizing Hagel tells military to prepare for cuts, ‘appreciate’ its ‘limits’ Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel tried to mollify worried military leaders Wednesday, speaking publicly for the first time about the Defense Department’s pressing budgetary woes. Widespread cuts to the defense budget have led DoD to impose furloughs on civilian employees, defer critical maintenance projects, and consider cutting benefits to military families. Military employees who attended Hagel’s speech at the National Defense University did not hesitate to express their fears, pressing Hagel to explain why benefits and salaries have been placed on DoD’s chopping block. “Why are we still furloughing?”...

Panetta: Obama Absent Night of Benghazi Daniel Halper February 7, 2013 12:05 PM Defense Secretary Leon Panetta testified this morning on Capitol Hill that President Barack Obama was absent the night four Americans were murdered in Benghazi on September 11, 2012: Panetta said that Obama left operational details, including knowledge of what resources were available to help the Americans under siege, "up to us." In fact, Panetta says that the night of 9/11, he did not communicate with a single person at the White House. The attack resulted in the deaths of four Americans, including Ambassador Chris Stevens. Panetta said...

It’s clear long time Democratic Party pollster Pat Caddell has had it with mainstream media suppression of Benghazi in this excerpt from the Jeanine Pirro on Fox Saturday night. (Caddell comes in at 1:15 after Ann Coulter). Juicy bit: I am appalled right now. This White House, this President, this Vice President, this Secretary of State, all of them, are willing, apparently, to dishonor themselves and this country for the cheap prospect of getting reelected — willing to coverup and lie. And the worst thing is the very people who are supposed to protect the American people and the truth,...

Is it treason when you put your own reelection above the good of your country and the lives of its citizens? If so, Barack Obama committed treason in leaving the four Americans to die in Benghazi. Our Constitution defines it this way: “Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort.” Aid and comfort to the enemy — what is that? When you ascribe an action to the protest of a video when it is actuality a planned terror attack by Ansar al-Shariah, an established...

Cold political play could cost him the election -- The Benghazi debacle may yet make Mitt Romney president. Barely 10 days before the election, the persistent whiff of scandal surrounding Barack Obama exploded into the banner headlines of a cover-up – at least among certain press outlets. Everything changed Friday afternoon with the stunning revelations by Fox News that CIA operatives defending the embattled consulate in Benghazi, Libya, called three times for emergency assistance while the attack was in progress. Each time, they were shamefully turned down.One of those defenders, Navy SEAL Tyrone Woods, was apparently able to use a...

As U.S. Africa Command waited for any order to rescue Americans on Sept. 11 at the besieged consulate and CIA annex in Benghazi, Libya, it was missing a key unit that the Pentagon gives every regional four-star commander — an emergency strike force. The new command’s lack of such a unit is another piece in the unfolding Benghazi timeline that shows an overriding theme: As radical Islamic extremism swelled in the chaotic coastal city, U.S. security assets in Libya diminished. From the State Department’s denial of diplomats’ requests for more security in Libya to Obama administration officials repeatedly saying the...

BOMBSHELL: US troops in Benghazi would not have been painting targets on the ground unless there was air support overhead. But someone called it off – And the decision most likely came from the White House. FOX News reported earlier today that security officers on the ground in Benghazi had a laser planted on a target that was firing on the annex. The team was in constant radio contact with their headquarters. In fact, at least one member of the team was on the roof of the annex manning a heavy machine gun when mortars were fired at the CIA...

Discussing Benghazi, Pat Caddell says the press has "been in the tank on this in a way I've never seen... I am appalled right now. This White House, this President, this Vice President, this Secretary of State, all of them, are willing apparently to dishonor themselves and this country for the cheap prospect of getting reelected...willing to cover up and lie. The worst thing is the very people who are supposed to protect the American people with the truth - the leading mainstream media...they have become a threat, a fundamental threat to American democracy and the enemies of the American...

...Then there’s this bombshell at BlackFive from a former Delta operator: Having spent a good bit of time nursing a GLD (ground Laser Designator) in several garden spots around the world, something from the report jumped out at me. One of the former SEALs was actively painting the target. That means that Specter WAS ON STATION! Probably an AC130U. A ground laser designator is not a briefing pointer laser. You do not “paint” a target until the weapons system/designator is synched; which means that the AC130 was on station. Only two places could have called off the attack at that...

Full Tittle: Former National Security Adviser Bud McFarlane: For Obama to Do Nothing During Benghazi Attack is “Dereliction of Duty” Video at link... Former National Security Adviser Bud McFarlane told FOX News today: “You don’t just passively allow Americans to remain under attack for eight hours at a time when you have forces within range and do nothing. The Secretary of Defense was in the White House at five o’clock within an hour of when the attacks started. He could have told him, “Yes. We have special operations peope and F18 aircraft that could be deployed right away. To have...

# Revelations shed new light on the effectiveness of the CIA at Benghazi and the level of support they were given # When the CIA annex come under attack they were denied a request for military help despite a counter terrorism team being two hours away in Italy # There was full communication between operatives on the ground and headquarters - with the ability to laser guide drones, planes or special forces to enemy targets It has been claimed that CIA operatives on the ground during the deadly attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi twice asked for permission to...

Fox News has learned from sources who were on the ground in Benghazi that three urgent requests from the CIA annex for military back-up during the attack on the U.S. Consulate and subsequent attack nearly seven hours later were denied by officials in the CIA chain of command -- who also told the CIA operators to "stand down" rather than help the ambassador's team when shots were heard at approximately 9:40 p.m. in Benghazi on Sept. 11. Former Navy SEALs Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty were part of a small team who were at the CIA annex about a mile...

They fought for their lives for seven hours. 9/11/ 2012. Benghazi. The White House watched. No help was sent and they died. Four Americans died in the jihadi attack on our consulate in Benghazi. Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods, two retired SEALS who were working as civilian security specialists in Benghazi, learned that Ambassador Stevens and nine other people at the consulate were under attack and rushed to their defense. The fourth man was Sean Smith, father of three, an Air Force veteran, working for the State Department in Libya. The White House, the Pentagon, the State Department, and our...

CBS News has been told that, hours after the attack began, an unmanned Predator drone was sent over the U.S. mission in Benghazi, and that the drone and other reconnaissance aircraft apparently observed the final hours of the protracted battle… But it was too late to help the Americans in Benghazi. The ambassador and three others were dead. Retired CIA officer Gary Berntsen believes help could have come much sooner. He commanded CIA counter-terrorism missions targeting Osama bin Laden and led the team that responded after bombings of the U.S. Embassy in East Africa. “You find a way to make...

Across 166 pages of internal State Department documents -- released Friday by a pair of Republican congressmen pressing the Obama administration for more answers on the Benghazi terrorist attack -- slain U.S. Ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens and the security officers assigned to protect him repeatedly sounded alarms to their superiors in Washington about the intensifying lawlessness and violence in Eastern Libya, where Stevens ultimately died. On Sept. 11 -- the day Stevens and three other Americans were killed -- the ambassador signed a three-page cable, labeled "sensitive," in which he noted "growing problems with security" in Benghazi and "growing...

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration’s handling of the Libya attack has opened up a new front in the presidential campaign just weeks before Election Day, as Republicans seize on it to question the president’s performance as commander in chief. The dispute over the episode escalated after Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. said during the debate on Thursday night that “we weren’t told” that Americans on the ground wanted security bolstered, despite testimony that requests were made to and turned down by the administration. Mitt Romney’s campaign on Friday accused the vice president of trying “to mislead the American public.”...

Yesterday, we reported that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was responsible under the law for the “security policies and programs that provide for the protection of all US government personnel … on official duty abroad.” Clinton herself seemed bewildered by the attacks on the Libyan consulate, asking, “How could this happen in a country we helped liberate, in a city we helped save from destruction?” --SNIP-- But according to the Independent, she had no reason to be puzzled. Quoting senior diplomatic sources, the paper reports, “the US State Department had credible information 48 hours before mobs charged the consulate in...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: This is Marc Thiessen, opinion writer, Washington Post: "Obama Alone: This President Does Not Need Intel Briefers." Wait 'til you hear this spin. We've already got Obama walking back a major gaffe, this statement that Egypt is not an ally. They have been since 1989. Regardless the Muslim Brotherhood situation now, they've always been an ally. Folks, they've had to walk that back now. This is a major gaffe, and even foreign policy media people know this, and that's why they're walking this back, because there are some people who are not in the media laying down...