Obama / Hillary lies blown to smitherines on BenghaziGate - YOU LIE!

[Soul Crusher]

Issa: State Dept. sitting on $2 billion-plus for embassy security
 
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Comments (12)

By JOHN BRESNAHAN |
10/14/12 11:13 AM EDT


Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) says the State Department is sitting on $2.2 billion that should be spent on upgrading security at U.S. embassies and consulates worldwide, but the Obama administration will not spend the funds.
 
Issa made his comment during an appearance on CBS's "Face the Nation" to discuss the recent attack in Benghazi, Libya, that left U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans dead. Issa, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, held a highly partisan hearing on the incident last week.
 
Issa claims the State Department will not spend the already approved funds because they didn't want to the appearance of needing increased security.
 
"The fact is, they [the State Department.] are making the decision not to put the security in because they don't want the presence of security," Issa said. "That is not how you do security."
 
With Republicans turning the Libya into a political issue, Democrats have countered that House GOP leaders actually sought to cut funding for embassy security, which Issa tried to refute.
 
"You can't always look to [new] money when there's money sitting there," Issa said. "We're going through a 'Mission Accomplished' moment. Eleven years after Sept. 11 [2001], Americans were attacked by terrorists who pre-planned to kill Americans. That happened, and we can't be in denial."
 
Issa said that U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice may be called before his panel for testimony. Rice said shortly after the Benghazi attack that the incident was caused by an anti-Muslim video, not terrorists, a position that even President Barack Obama has now refuted.

[Soul Crusher]

Sources have told the Daily Telegraph that just five unarmed locally hired Libyans were placed on duty at the compound on eight-hour shifts under a deal that fell outside the State Department's global security contracting system.
Blue Mountain, the Camarthen firm that won a $387,000 (£241,000) one year contract from the US State Department to protect the compound in May, sent just one British employee, recruited from the celebrity bodyguard circuit, to oversee the work.
The compound was overrun by a mob of Islamic extremists on the morning of September 12 in an apparent planned attack that resulted in the death by asphyxiation of the ambassador, Chris Stevens.
Blue Mountain, which is run by a former member of the SAS, received paper work to operate in Libya last year following the collapse of Col Muammar Gaddafi's regime. It worked on short term contacts to guard an expatriate housing compound and a five-star hotel in Tripoli before landing the prestigious US deal.
Other firms in the security industry expressed surprise that Blue Mountain had won a large, high profile contract from the US government. One industry executive said the level of service Blue Mountain provided did not appear adequate to the risks presented by a lawless city.
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"We have visited the consulate in Benghazi a number of times and have an excellent relationship with the Americans. Our assessment was the unarmed Libyan guards were extremely poor calibre," said one security source. "The Libyan Ministry of Interior are generally not happy with Blue Mountain and had them on their close observation/target list."
The New York Times last week reported that major security firms with a track record of guarding US premises elsewhere had made approaches to undertake work in Libya but were rebuffed.
"We went in to make a pitch, and nothing happened," a security firm official told the newspaper.
A five man security team from the US diplomatic protection service and three members of a local revolutionary brigade were also on duty on the night of the attacks.
But Blue Mountain's local woes appears to have hampered a coordinated response by the compound's defenders when the late assault kicked off.
Darryl Davies, the manager of the Benghazi contract for Blue Mountain, flew out of the city hours before the attack was launched. The Daily Telegraph has learned that relations between the firm and its Libyan partner had broken down, leading to the withdrawal of Mr Davies.
Abdulaziz Majbiri, a Blue Mountain guard at the compound, told the Daily Telegraph that they were effectively abandoned and incapable of defending themselves on the night of the attack.

"We were in uniform, unarmed except for taser guns and handcuffs, and had been told in the case of attack to muster by the swimming pool," he said. "I was separated from the others and couldn't get anywhere near the swimming pool before I was shot."

US congressional investigators have told the Daily Telegraph that consular staff had reported Blue Mountain guards to the Libyan police on one occasion last year. The diplomats believed that two disgruntled Blue Mountain employees were behind a minor pipe bomb attack on the facility.

However after questioning no action was taken by the police or company over the incident.

Nigel Thomas, the Blue Mountain director, refused to answer any questions about the companies activities in Libya, citing official US inquiries into the incident. He said: "The US State Department investigation is still ongoing at this time. Blue Mountain have no comment to make and all questions should be directed to the US mission."

[Soul Crusher]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/libya/9607958/British-firm-secured-Benghazi-consulate-contract-with-little-experience.html

Wow.   What a total fail. 

[Soul Crusher]

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Lying From Behind on Libya
Townhall.com ^ | October 15, 2012 | John Ransom
Posted on October 15, 2012 6:53:35 AM EDT by Kaslin

Let’s start where it first began.

No, not the election of Barack Hussein Obama, although that would be a good call.

Jump further ahead in the story.

Back in March 2011, when Obama started lobbing missiles at Libya, liberals assured us that we were NOT at war.

Instead the administration described it as time-limited, scope-limited, kinetic military activity- which is just another made up phrase that liberals use to remind us that they are the people Orwell warned us about.    

And thankfully, NPR-- yes THAT NPR, the Big Bird NPR-- allowed us to remain calm, by helping the administration keep it simple.

Just lie, they reminded the greatest communicator ever. Obama took his cue and lied from behind.

We are not at war, the Corporation for Public Race-baiting tells us, even if we are a bunch of Tea Party fascists and racists, I wrote in March 2011.

To bolster the NPR case, their totally, 100 percent, objective reporter found a college professor to tell us not to worry, we’re not at war.

"Would I consider us 'at war' with Libya at this moment?” Judkin Browning, a professor of Military History at Appalachian State, who studies the American Civil War, told NPR. “I would say no, simply because of the very limited nature of our military mission."

Wow. That was easy.

Kind of like an award-winning Sesame Street episode.

“No.”

N.O. spells “No.” This non-war was sponsored by the letters N & O.  

Remind me: Just exactly why does Romney propose killing and eating Big Bird?

It’s not like Big Bird was responsible for the subsequent capture and sodomizing of Muammar Gaddafi before he was killed by extra-legal means.

“No.”

N.O.

It was likely a contingent of NATO soldiers that made Gaddafi’s capture and beating death possible.

Don’t get me wrong. I think the guy deserved to get beaten to death.

But then there is a big difference between my personal opinion, and the obligations of the president of the United States to follow the laws of war, especially when he’s the “brilliant” legal scholar and Nobel Prize recipient, law-giver and leading cell-phone provider in the United States, Mr. Barack Hussein Obama.  

Not to worry, lied the man who condemned the trial and hanging of Saddam Hussein-- who, by the way, received justice under the laws of Iraq. Gaddafi got it on the side of the road by a mob enabled by the USA under president Obama.

And pay no attention to the men behind the dictator beating him says the guy who condemns U.S. detention of terrorists at Guantanamo Bay as inhumane.           

“U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton says she supports calls for an investigation into the death of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi as part of Libya's transition from dictatorship to democracy,” winked the Associated Press at the time.

“Clinton says a democratic Libya should begin with the rule of law and accountability, as well as unity and reconciliation. She says investigating Gadhafi's death is part of the process.”

It’s been 18 months since Obama got off his missiles in Libya.

There’s been no investigation, no declaration of war, no explanation as to why we are destabilizing the region deliberately.

One would think that the man strong enough to stop the seas from rising, as Obama says he has, might be strong enough to withstand his own administration’s rhetoric.

Democracy, rule of law, accountability and… lies.

Especially lies.

The lies are the glue that holds Obama’s Libyan policy together.

Because the line Obama must take at all costs is that, of course, we are NOT supporting Al Qaeda-- or radical Islamists-- in Libya, or Egypt, or Syria, when, OF COURSE that’s exactly what we are doing. 

Hence the coordinated terror attack by Al Qaeda on the American Embassy in Benghazi, Libya proves an inconvenient truth for Obama that must be blamed on someone else. The repeated call for increased security by the diplomatic staff before the attack, also proves awkward for the administration as it lies from behind.

"It's awkward for anybody. If you talk to people in the intelligence community and now at the State Department, they're not happy,” said CNN’s John King. “The leaders of the administration, in their view, Jay Carney speaks for the president, so that's the President of the United States, the Vice President last night, on stage last night, essentially publicly scolding, publicly blaming others for what happened in the administration. Those people don't like that."

They don’t like it because they have warned Obama that arming Al Qaeda in Libya and Syria, and likewise Islamists in Egypt, has spread the influence of terror networks just at a time when their bases of operation in places like Yemen are under pressure.

These are folks who have suffered through multiple deployments overseas fighting Al Qaeda, and personally know people who have died for Obama’s bumper-sticker wars in Afghanistan, Pakistan and now Africa.

Ask your kids a quick question: Arming Al Qaeda; good idea? Yes or No?

It’s an easy question only Obama could flunk.    

And now these brave people, who have born the brunt of the war on terror around the world, have a commander-in-chief who blames them for their own casualties, while he claims credit for their victories, like the death of bin Laden.

And like all his other failures, Obama can only blame others for his own mistakes and then lie from behind. 

[Soul Crusher]

Fresh scapegoats

White House Libya blame game
By MICHAEL A. WALSH
Last Updated: 11:25 PM, October 14, 2012
Posted: 10:39 PM, October 14, 2012
 


Michael A. Walsh

How is the Obama White House going to fit the entire State Department and the intelligence community under the bus?

Last month’s Benghazi fiasco saw four Americans — including our ambassador to Libya — murdered by elements of al Qaeda in a military-style assault timed to coincide with the 11th anniversary of 9/11.

The weeks afterward saw the administration blaming a video that, even the White House now admits, had nothing to do with it. And the months before the attack saw Washington adamantly reducing security in Benghazi — despite pleas for reinforcements from the folks on the ground.
 


UPI

 Blaming the State Department and the intelligence community: Joe Biden used both scapegoats to dodge Paul Ryan’s charges in last week’s debate.

Yet President Obama’s top spokesman — and Vice President Joe Biden, in last week’s debate — have been busy pointing fingers of blame at State and the IC.

It won’t work. Neither Foggy Bottom nor the intel community’s legion of spooks, analysts and secret-keepers is likely to go quietly.

Indeed, State has already started the pushback. It has pointedly released the transcript of an Oct. 9 media briefing in which Brad Klapper of the Associated Press asks what “led officials to believe for the first several days that this was prompted by protests against the video?”

Someone described only as “Senior State Department Official Two” answers, “That is a question you would have to ask others. That was not our conclusion.”

Of course, Biden and Obama spokesmen like Jay Carney have been claiming that “the intelligence” the White House received at first had blamed the attack on the video.

This part of the blame game will fail because it just doesn’t make any sense. The American IC is not infallible, but what part of it — the CIA? The National Security Agency? State’s own Bureau of Intelligence and Research? — would have leaped to such a ridiculous conclusion?

Mere hours after the attack, the nation’s spooks knew this was terrorism, not amateur movie criticism. There had been ample warning — including an assault on the British ambassador as well as earlier attacks on our consulate — that something was coming.

And yet the White House — which as recently as Oct. 8 was still insisting that a resurgent al Qaeda is “on its heels” — has chosen to stick to another exonerative fairy story: that it was unaware that Ambassador Chris Stevens had begged for more security at the beleaguered Benghazi compound.

The reasons for this denial may be best known to campaign guru David Axelrod. After all, the administration’s only indisputable foreign-policy triumph — the killing of Osama bin Laden — would be in serious jeopardy were Obama and Biden to publicly admit that the Libyan attacks were in part retaliation for bin Laden’s death and the ongoing US drone strikes in Yemen and elsewhere.

But it’s simply untrue that the government was unaware of the deteriorating security conditions in Benghazi. In last week’s congressional hearing, security officials testified that Washington repeatedly turned a deaf ear to their urgent requests for beefed-up forces at the Benghazi compound and CIA “safe house.”

Indeed, two separate security teams had recently been withdrawn from Libya after their temporary assignments had expired. And last week’s testimony made it plain that this was according to policy — a policy set by just what higher-ups, we still don’t know.

There’s more bad news to come. It now appears that the CIA “safe house” in Benghazi — which was tasked with tracking down the lethal weapons looted from the collapsed Khadafy regime — was also stripped of valuable information in the Sept. 11 attack.

That intelligence likely included the names of Libyans and others who’d been cooperating with the Americans, as well as possible double agents within Ansar al-Sharia (the al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula branch behind the Benghazi attack) and al Qaeda itself. This may explain why, on Thursday, masked gunmen shot and killed a local security officer in Yemen who’d been working with the US Embassy.

So the Benghazi attacks may well prove to be an intelligence disaster of the highest order, seriously compromising scarce US assets in the region.

Yet the White House response seems to be utterly political — a concerted effort to shift blame, even if it means risking a break with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, and payback from husband Bill. (Not to mention the chance of embarrassing blowback from the spooks who keep the secrets).

Maybe Team Obama can manage to dodge all the way to Nov. 6 — but they’re going to need a bigger bus.

[whork]

Lol at the people who didnt see 9/11 coming despite numerous warnings writing this shit.

Lets stop this blame game shit its getting really old.

Neither Bush nor Obama can see into the future. Deal with it shit happens everyday stop crying about it.

[Soul Crusher]

Lol at the people who didnt see 9/11 coming despite numerous warnings writing this shit.

Lets stop this blame game shit its getting really old.

Neither Bush nor Obama can see into the future. Deal with it shit happens everyday stop crying about it.

STFU.   Stop kneepadding obama like a 2 dollar hooker in Hunts Point.   

[whork]

STFU.   Stop kneepadding obama like a 2 dollar hooker in Hunts Point.   

I have said numerous times Obama is a weak greedy creep. However his policies is WAY more sound than Romneys. And he lies a lot less too.

You defend what the neocons did to RP if im a Obama kneepadder you are a Romney cock-socker

[Soul Crusher]

The Benghazi attack: No more lies
 

By Tribune-Review

Published: Saturday, October 13, 2012, 8:59 p.m.
Updated: Saturday, October 13, 2012



Regarding the circumstances surrounding the terrorist attack on a U.S. consulate in Libya last month that left this nation’s ambassador and three others dead, the Obama administration is:
 
a.) lying
 
b.) stupid
 
c.) living in a parallel universe, or
 
d.) all of the above
 
Go to the head of the class if you chose “all of the above.”

We’re all familiar with the administration’s first narrative of the Sept. 11 incident — it was the spontaneous reaction of a rioting mob upset over a low-budget anti-Muslim film. But that fiction began to unravel almost immediately.
 
There was no “protest,” only well-armed terrorists in a well-coordinated attack. Yet for weeks the White House stuck to its lie. And even now, after being forced to concede its tall tale was fact-bereft, many of Obama’s acolytes have not stopped lying.
 
Among the latest, during Thursday night’s vice-presidential debate, Joe Biden insisted that the consulate did not request additional security. That’s a lie, as the congressional testimony of four State Department officials proves.
 
Then there’s Obama campaign mouthpiece Stephanie Cutter, insisting that the unbelievable Benghazi attack narrative is an issue only because the Republican presidential ticket has made it one. How stupid is she and how stupid does she think the American people are?
 
Caught up in its repeated lies, the Obama administration has created a parallel universe. Where and when does it end?
 
In the polling booth on Nov. 6.


Read more: http://triblive.com/opinion/2765433-74/attack-obama-administration-benghazi-lies-stupid-consulate-editorials-lie-lying#ixzz29NWDrW8E

 Follow us: @triblive on Twitter | triblive on Facebook

[Soul Crusher]

Former USS Cole Commander on Benghazi: Obama only cares about power and getting reelected

 Posted by  The Right Scoop on October 13th, 2012 in Politics | 180 Comments




Lt. General Tom McInerney told Judge Jeanine tonight that the only reason the Obama administration ordered the FBI to investigate the Benghazi attack is to stall it through the election. He says this was an act of war against the United States and if this had been assigned to the military we would have known 2 days later what happened. He adds that we know who they are and where they are and that we should have already attacked those people.

Former USS Cole Commander Kirk Lippold said that the parallels between this case and the attack on the USS Cole are absolutely striking in that the Cole attack was one month before an election and that Clinton delayed just as the Obama administration is delaying all for political purposes. He further states emphatically:
 

The Obama administration in this thing, just like the Clinton administration, does not care about what the American people think about this incident. They care about power and getting reelected.

Watch:

[Soul Crusher]

Forbes, CNN destroy Obama administration’s Benghazi lie
 Legal Insurrection ^ | 10-15-2012 | Bryan Jacoutot

Posted on Monday, October 15, 2012 2:47:46 PM

Forbes contributor, Larry Bell, released an article late last night entitled, “Pants On Fire: Obama Administration Scrambles for Cover as Benghazi Lie Explodes.”

The article, drawing on reports from CNN, reveals a picture the Obama administration is desperately trying to sweep under the rug.

President Obama’s foreign policy is an absolute disaster.

Moreover, the things the Obama administration has told the American people in the days since September 11th reveal either gross incompetence, or willful deception. Perhaps, even, a combination of the two. [Emphasis added]


For more than a week after the Benghazi attack, the Obama administration which pledged to be the “most transparent administration in history”, continued to maintain a ruse that the outbreak of violence was nothing more than a spur-of-the-moment protest in response to the offensive video. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton repeated the fiction, and White House press spokesman Jay Carney told us all that there was “no evidence” that this was a “preplanned or premeditated attack.”

An October 2nd CNN report disagreed. It revealed that the administration repeatedly sent out talking points that contradicted top intelligence officials and sources for the network on the details of what caused the attack. It also said that: “CNN has learned tonight that the White House chose to leave out key intelligence from the attacks on Americans in Libya. There are three things U.S. intelligence has now confirmed to be true: the attacks were preplanned, terrorist attacks, and the work of Al-Qaeda- linked groups. None of these three points were in talking points distributed to congress and other government officials. U.S. intelligence knew of the al-Qaeda link within 24 hours of the attacks. And the now infamous comments by U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice that the attacks were not preplanned and not the work of terror came four days after that. This doesn’t add up.”

In addition to absolutely no evidence that the attack was connected to any objectionable video, information released in a letter from Representative Darrell Issa to Secretary of State Clinton shows that the situation in Libya had been deteriorating for months. It reads: “Based on information provided to the committee by individuals with direct knowledge of events in Libya, the attack that claimed the ambassador’s life was the latest in a long line of attacks on Western diplomats and officials in Libya in the months leading up to September 11, 2012.”

This is unacceptable behavior from a sitting administration. By any objective viewing of the facts, the Obama administration has deliberately misled the American people in an attempt to shield their claims of foreign policy superiority from scrutiny in the months leading up to the election.

What’s more, as Bell points out, this is no isolated incident. The shooting at Fort Hood, the 2009 Christmas Day bomber, and the assassination attempt on the Saudi Ambassador in D.C. all have links the al-Qaeda network.

Yet this reality contradicts the narrative President Obama has been pushing about his foreign policy experience, so the acts were said to have been singular and uncoordinated incidents of violence.

Bell notes this connection.


Finally, carefully contemplate what Obama said in his speech before the Democratic National Convention: “My opponent and his running mate are new to foreign policy. But from all that we’ve seen and heard they want to take us back to an era of blustering and blundering that cost America so deeply.”

Is it possible that the past blustering and blundering he referred to is really his own, and that we might truly be ready for new foreign policy leadership after all?

The American people don’t deserve to be jerked around by the Obama administration just so it can save face.

We deserve better.

[Soul Crusher]

Larry Bell, Contributor

 I write about climate, energy, environmental and space policy issues.


Op/Ed
|

 10/14/2012 @ 9:10PM |15,607 views

Pants On Fire: Obama Scrambles For Cover As Benghazi Lie Explodes















A Libyan man stands next to a wall apparently stained with blood at the main entrance of the US consulate in Benghazi on September 13, 2012, following an attack on the building late on September 11 in which the US ambassador to Libya and three other US nationals were killed.(Image credit: AFP/Getty Images via @daylife)

The carefully coordinated and heavily armed September 11th strike upon the American Consulate in Libya contradicted President Obama’s repeated narrative that, thanks to his tough policies and actions, al-Qaeda has been defeated.  And although misrepresented by U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice as a “spontaneous outbreak” of violence provoked by a “hateful” movie denigrating Muslim prophet Muhammad, he and other high members of his administration knew full well and early on that this was patently untrue. Congressional testimony reveals that the White House had been informed on day one that al-Qaeda terrorists were responsible for the murders of U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans in Benghazi.

For more than a week after the Benghazi attack, the Obama administration which pledged to be the “most transparent administration in history”, continued to maintain a ruse that the outbreak of violence was nothing more than a spur-of-the-moment protest in response to the offensive video. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton repeated the fiction, and White House press spokesman Jay Carney told us all that there was “no evidence” that this was a “preplanned or premeditated attack.”

An October 2nd CNN report disagreed. It revealed that the administration repeatedly sent out talking points that contradicted top intelligence officials and sources for the network on the details of what caused the attack. It also said that: “CNN has learned tonight that the White House chose to leave out key intelligence from the attacks on Americans in Libya. There are three things U.S. intelligence has now confirmed to be true: the attacks were preplanned, terrorist attacks, and the work of Al-Qaeda- linked groups. None of these three points were in talking points distributed to congress and other government officials.  U.S. intelligence knew of the al-Qaeda link within 24 hours of the attacks. And the now infamous comments by U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice that the attacks were not preplanned and not the work of terror came four days after that. This doesn’t add up.”

In addition to absolutely no evidence that the attack was connected to any objectionable video, information released in a letter from Representative Darrell Issa to Secretary of State Clinton shows that the situation in Libya had been deteriorating for months. It reads: “Based on information provided to the committee by individuals with direct knowledge of events in Libya, the attack that claimed the ambassador’s life was the latest in a long line of attacks on Western diplomats and officials in Libya in the months leading up to September 11, 2012.”

Those attacks began in April when two Libyans threw an improvised explosive device into the consulate compound. In June, postings on a pro-Gaddafi Facebook page encouraged Libyans to attack Ambassador Stevens during one of his early morning runs around Tripoli. And in the weeks leading up to September 11th, Libyan guards were being warned by their family members to quit their consulate jobs because of rumors about an impending attack. These are but a few of the escalating series of incidents. There were also carjackings, shoot-outs, and even a rocket-propelled grenade being shot at a convoy carrying the British ambassador.

It is now evident that al-Qaeda hit four, not just one, embassies last month, with none of the other three ever attributable to a video either. The Weekly Standard reports that in addition to the American Consulate in Libya, terrorists tied to the same group that attacked our homeland on 9/11 were also behind U.S. Embassy sieges in Egypt, Tunisia, and Yemen. All were timed around the 9/11 anniversary.

One of the most ironic and inexcusable aspects of the fatal Benghazi tragedy is that Ambassador Stevens, who after recognizing and communicating the special 9/11 security threat, was denied protection he requested. Yet remarkably, Vice President Joe Biden claimed during last Thursday’s debate that the administration was unaware of security requests. This seemingly contradicted evidence presented to the Congressional Oversight and Government Reform Committee just a day earlier. Biden said “We weren’t told they wanted more security, we did not know they wanted more security.”  But if so, why wouldn’t the president, vice president and secretary of state have been be briefed?

During the debate, Representative Paul Ryan accused the Obama administration of having an “unraveling” foreign policy, pointing particularly to “the larger failures of the administration to be completely transparent about the terrorist attacks in Benghazi and the security situations leading up to the attacks.” He rhetorically asked Biden, “This was Libya…a country we knew had al-Qaeda cells. And we did not give our ambassador in Benghazi a marine detachment?”

The congressional committee was presented with a diplomatic cable sent by Stevens to the state department in Washington on August 2nd asking for an additional 11 security personnel to be added to the rotation of 24. Though the 11 were to replace temporary security staff, Stevens had made it clear that violence and terrorism were a threat amid a volatile political landscape. He wrote: “Due to the level of threat in regards to crime, political violence and terrorism, post feels this is an appropriate number of LES [locally employed staff] security personnel needed to further embassy diplomatic outreach missions. Violent security incidents continue to take place due to the lack of a coherent national Libyan security force and the strength of local militias and large numbers of armed groups.” He further emphasized that “Host national security support is lacking and cannot be depended on to provide a safe and secure environment.”

Two former U.S. security chiefs in Libya who testified before the committee also reported that they had found it impossible to get the message across back home that security was a critical problem. Andrew Wood, former head of a U.S. military team in Libya, told the committee that “…the security in Benghazi was a struggle and remained a struggle throughout my time there”. He added that the head of U.S. security in the region had pushed for more people “…but was never able to attain the numbers he felt comfortable with.”

 Eric Nordstrom, the former security chief for U.S. diplomats in Libya, observed that he had been fighting a losing battle over numbers in which “ …we couldn’t even keep what we had.” He finally concluded after his contact with state department bosses that “…we were not going to get resources until the aftermath of an incident”.

There are only two possibilities that can explain this senseless debacle. Either it reflects gross incompetence and irresponsibility on the part of the president and many others who answer to him, or it also represents this along with an egregious disinformation campaign aimed at concealing foreign policy failures to diminish known terrorist threats under his watch.  Some additional events occurring during his term in office give credence to the latter scenario.

For example, we might recall the Fort Hood, Texas massacre when Major Nidal Hasan screaming “Allahu Akbar” opened fire on a room full of Army soldiers on November 5, 2009 was dismissed by Obama as a random act of “one individual”. It was formally classified by his administration as a case of “workplace violence” rather than a terrorist act.

And we might remember that, just days after of the 2009 Christmas day attack on a U.S. airliner, the president assured our nation that the so-called underwear bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was “an isolated extremist”. Yet within the first hours of the investigation, Obama and his national security team had known, as Abdulumutallab told the FBI under interrogation, that he had been trained by al-Qaeda in Yemen.

Plus, consider that shortly after Faisal Shahzad attempted to detonate his explosives-packed SUV in downtown New York on May 1, 2010, the White House described it as a “one-off” incident, confidently indicating that it wasn’t part of a planned series. Yet intelligence clearly showed that Shahzad had been trained at a Taliban camp inside Pakistan, and was funded by a terrorist group.

Finally, carefully contemplate what Obama said in his speech before the Democratic National Convention:  “My opponent and his running mate are new to foreign policy. But from all that we’ve seen and heard they want to take us back to an era of blustering and blundering that cost America so deeply.”

Is it possible that the past blustering and blundering he referred to is really his own, and that we might truly be ready for new foreign policy leadership after all?


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 This article is available online at:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/larrybell/2012/10/14/pants-on-fire-obama-scrambles-for-cover-as-benghazi-lie-explodes


 


 

[Soul Crusher]

WHITE HOUSE INSIDER: Obama’s Benghazi Lie – Valerie Jarrett’s West Wing Meltdown

 by Ulsterman on October 15, 2012 with 7 Comments in News

Like I promised you, the current 72 hour event cycle appears to be ramping up the Benghazi Massacre scandal that has now likely shot up to concern #1 for the Obama White House before the second debate.  Romney campaign feeling good about things. Real good.   Not sure if you got this timeline published by The Hill.  I am sending you some of that outline with my own comments.  Feel free to publish or just keep it for yourself.  This is to let you get an idea how we/they are forming this up leading into tomorrow night’s debate.
 


(Our White House Insider indicates senior adviser Valerie Jarrett takes great pleasure in being known as the “defacto president” of the Obama White House – though she was recently enraged at campaign staff for Barack Obama’s failure during his first presidential debate against Mitt Romney.  The following is the most recent communciation from this longtime D.C. political operative who helped elect Barack Obama in 2008, and has been working tirelessly for the last three years to correct what they since have described as a “Terrible mistake for America.”)
 


________________________ ________________
 • April 5, 2011: Special envoy Christopher Stevens arrives in the rebel stronghold of Benghazi to forge ties with the forces battling Moammar Gadhafi. President Obama appoints him as ambassador to Libya on May 22, 2012.
 
(NOTE: Now I want to make it real clear here.  America just helped take out a leader who had ruled a country for over 40 years.  That’s a big f-cking deal.  You can’t tell me the safety of an American ambassador into the region right after that should not be a huge concern to any administration. So when they say they didn’t know about all the worries about safety that were shared in the months before the attack.  BULLSH-T.  THEY KNEW)


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« New York Times Feels Pressure Over Lack of Benghazi Massacre Coverage (WSI RELATED)


• March, 2012: State Department Regional Security Officer Eric Nordstrom sends a cable to Washington asking for additional diplomatic security agents for Benghazi, later says he received no response. He does so again in July, with the same result.
 
(NOTE:  So who do we believe?  The on the ground guy who is risking his damn life or Barack Obama and the assh-les surrounding him who are now saying they didn’t know?  Nordstrom has no reason to lie.  No reason to risk his own future by speaking out against the administration.  I’ll say it again.  State knew.  Obama knew.  THEY ARE ALL LYING.  Yeah.  Hillary?  F-ck her too.  We told her to stay away from these people.  2016 huh?  Good luck with that now.)
 
• April 6: Two fired Libyan security guards throw an IED over the consulate fence.
 
(NOTE:  Six months before the September 11th attack.  No need for more security huh?)
 
• May 22: An Islamist attack on the Red Cross office in Benghazi is followed by a Facebook post that warns “now we are preparing a message for the Americans.” Another Facebook posting a month later highlights Stevens’ daily runs in Tripoli in an apparent threat.
 
(NOTE:  So we got sh-t like this happening and the Obama White House tried to say it wasn’t a terrorist attack that killed those Americans on September 11th?  Terrorists were posting the Ambassador’s daily schedule for f-ck’s sake.)
 
• June 6: Unknown assailants blow a hole in the consulate’s north gate described by a witness as “big enough for 40 men to go through.” Four days later, the British ambassador’s car is ambushed by militants with a rocket-propelled grenade.
 
(NOTE:  Take this June 6th event and put it up against what the White House will say after the September 11th attack that they had no “actionable intelligence” regarding a pending attack.  This was clearly a test run.  We got people in the White House who are purposely ignoring threats to the United States.  Their entire foreign policy is a bunch of new age talk nice bullsh-t.  Period.  Terrorists blew a huge hole in the wall of the consulate four months before September 11th and the White House will say they had no clues there was a situation brewing? )
 
• July: Anti-Islam video “Innocence of Muslims” posted on You Tube.
 
(NOTE:  There was already several attacks against American personnel prior to this video being released.  How then is the video to blame for those and subsequent attacks?)
 
• Aug. 14: SST team leaves Libya. Team leader Lt. Col. Andy Wood has testified that Stevens wanted them to stay on.
 
(NOTE:  My understanding is the man begged them to stay on.  Stevens was afraid.  Really worried.  Borrowed time worried.  And the Obama White House could have given a sh-t.  Or, they were up to some weird save the day plan like you forwarded me earlier.  I am not pushing away any conspiracy on this thing.  It stinks all the way.  Top to bottom this thing stinks like week old road kill in July.)
 
• In the weeks before Sept. 11, Libyan security guards are reportedly warned by family members of an impending attack. On Sept. 8, the Libyan militia tasked with protecting the consulate warns U.S. diplomats that the security situation is “frightening.”
 
(NOTE:  That date of September 8th.  So they had Libyan militia telling diplomats the sh-t was about to hit the fan.  If State had been on the ball.  If the administration had been on the ball, they had 48 hours to secure the safety of American personnel.  Here’s a big red f-cking siren going off here.  After these reports 48 hours earlier though we have the ambassador flying INTO Benghazi?  When I first read that report of the Libyans telling us on the 8th that the danger level had become critical and then we have Stevens flying INTO Benghazi after those warnings, gave me chills.  That means there is something way more going on here.  I got no real answer as to what.  Just that there was something really strange going on.  The missing weapons?  Maybe.  But maybe more.  Like I said.  Gave me chills.  My gut telling me there is something there and they want it buried so deep now they are willing to look like idiots doing it.  Better to look like idiots than murderers??
 
• Sept. 10: Al Qaeda leader Ayman al Zawahiri calls on Libyans to avenge the death of his Libyan deputy, Abu Yahya al Libi, killed in a June drone strike in Pakistan.
 
(NOTE:  Hello??? No actionable intelligence?  Really Jay Carney?  Really?)
 
• Sept. 11: Protesters converge on the U.S. embassy in Cairo, scale its walls and replace the U.S. flag with the Islamist banner. The protests eventually spread to 20 countries around the world. That night, Republican candidate Mitt Romney criticizes an embassy statement denouncing the video before the events unfolding in Libya are known to the world. Late that night, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says in a statement that “some have sought to justify this vicious behavior as a response to inflammatory material posted on the Internet.”
 
(NOTE:  Mitt Romney was RIGHT.)
 
• Sept. 12: Media outlets report that Stevens and three other Americans have been killed in an attack by well-armed militants. Obama denounces an “outrageous and shocking attack” without mentioning the video or terrorism. Reuters reports for the first time that some administration officials believe the assault “bears the hallmarks of an organized attack.”
 
(NOTE- within 24 hrs media reports indicated the Benghazi Massacre was clearly a coordinated attack while the Obama administration aggressively pushed the “not our fault it was the video” excuse.  The cover-up is fully engaged at this point.  The question I still have is WHY???  It’s got to be more than they just didn’t want Obama to look dumb.  He does that enough all on his own.  What the f-ck was going on in Libya? Why was Stevens flying into Benghazi when all the warnings were screaming to do the exact opposite?  Who ordered him to go?  No way he does that on his own.  The guy was afraid.  He was ordered in.  Who made that call?  And why?)
 
• Sept. 13: White House spokesman Jay Carney says “the protests we’re seeing around the region are in reaction to this movie.”
 
(This is about 48 hrs after the Benghazi attack.  Intelligence in Libya and back to DC knew by then it was most likely terrorists.    You asked if it was possibly something that had been staged by Obama operatives and it went bad?  I’ve run that scenario around and around and there are some missing peices that I can’t quite fit together.  But I’m not saying it isn’t possible.  With these people, not possible no longer applies.  That would be a huge f-cking risk though.)
 
 
 
• Sept. 14: Carney says the administration had “no actionable intelligence” about a pending attack.
 
(READ THAT STATEMENT AGAIN.  THIS IS THREE DAYS AFTER THE BENGHAZI MASSACRE.  THER HAD BEEN NO LESS THAN THREE RECENT ATTACKS AGAINST THE AMERICAN CONSULATE IN BENGHAZI BEFORE SEPTEMBER 11TH.  WHY ARE THEY SO WILLING TO LIE LIKE THIS WHEN ALL THIS EVIDENCE POINTS TO A TERRORIST ATTACK???  HAS TO BE SOMETHING BIG THEY ARE COVERING UP.  BIG.  BIG. BIG.)
 
 
 
• Sept. 16: Susan Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the UN, does the rounds on the Sunday talk shows and says the video is the “proximate cause” of the assault in Benghazi. “Our current best assessment, based on the information that we have at present, is that, in fact, what this began as, it was a spontaneous — not a premeditated — response to what had transpired in Cairo,” Rice tells ABC. That same day, interim Libyan president Mohamed Magarief insists on CBS that “it was planned, definitely.”
 
(NOTE:  Apparently Libyan intelligence is better than American intelligence under the Obama regime.  Susan Rice was directly prepped by the Obama White House.  She was told EXACTLY what to say when she went on television and repeatedly LIED to the American public. And she doesn’t answer to Hillary.  She answers to Obama/Jarrett.)
 
• Sept. 19: National Counterterrorism Center director Matthew Olsen testifies before the Senate Homeland Security Committee that the assault was a “terrorist attack” but goes on to call it an “opportunistic” attack in which armed militants took advantage of an ongoing protest.
 
(NOTE:  This is where the first real rift between the United States intelligence community and the Obama White House is put out in the open. This is when I started to really get chatter about some people getting real pissed with the Obama WH because they are learning they are gonna be set up as the blame for the attack.)
 
• Sept. 20: CBS reports that witnesses in Benghazi say there was no protest prior to the armed assault against the consulate. Magarief tells NBC the same thing on Sept. 26. Also on Sept. 20, Obama at a town hall meeting says: “What we do know is that the natural protests that arose because of the outrage over the video were used as an excuse by extremists to see if they can also directly harm U.S. interests.”
 
(NOTE:  Obama is openly lying to the American people.  I’m screaming at the TV asking why?  Why did Jarrett send him out there to lie like this?  Why risk that kind of damage?  Are they that stupid?  That confident?  And lots of people are asking these questions at this point.  Talking Senators starting to ask some tough questions of the administration.  Behind the scenes still. But pushing for answers.  Obama is looking like he really could be one and done, so some of them are willing to push them around a bit. Not as much as I would like, but it’s a start.)
 
• Sept. 21: Clinton says “what happened in Benghazi was a terrorist attack,” highest official until then to say so.
 
(NOTE:  Within 24hrs of Barack Obama telling America the video was to blame and calling it a “natural protest” Hillary Clinton goes on record with the term “terrorist attack”.  Clinton and Obama are now in direct opposition – though publicly still circling their own wagons against growing accusations of a cover-up.  I got little to no sympathy for Hillary.  But I am watching Bill’s reaction to this. Real close. So far it’s been very quiet and if I was Obama and Jarrett, that would make me very very nervous.  I have known very few people that can snap a leash as hard and unexpected as Bill Clinton, and he’ll be smiling ear to ear and look like the nicest guy you could ever know while he does it. That first debate, BC had a hand in some of that.  How Obama was left hanging a few times.  How he looked over at the moderator for help and it didn’t arrive.  “He don’t want to listen - he don’t want to prepare?  Let him be on his own then.”   The only one I’d want to piss off less than BC is the Old Man.  He don’t snap a leash.  He makes you hang yourself with it and has you thanking him for giving you the opportunity to do so.)
 
• Sept. 25: In his address to the U.N. General Assembly, Obama doesn’t mention terrorism but makes repeated references to the video. Asked about Clinton’s statement on ABC’s “The View” show, the president skirts the issue by saying: “We’re still doing an investigation,” blames “extremist militias.”
 
(NOTE:  Why does our current president REFUSE to use the term TERRORIST when it involves Muslim extremists?  Even as his own Secretary of State and National Counterterrorism Center director have gone on record  DAYS EARLIER calling the Benghazi killings a terrorist attack, Barack Obama refuses to do so.)
 
• Sept. 27: Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta says it’s “clear that there were terrorists who planned that attack.”
 
(NOTE: Panetta had been pretty low profile up to this point.  Two days after Obama’s UN speech, Panetta is using the term terrorist attack in regards to the Benghazi Massacre that pushes Obama into a corner while he comes to the defense of the intelligence community.  And then we get a new report out about how Obama didn’t really make the call on Bin Laden from a former military intelligence guy.  Coincidence?  F-ck no.  That was a firm tap to the top of Obama’s head reminding him there are people who KNOW things, right?  We got these very powerful people all facing off against each now.  Each one of them is hoping nobody goes THERE, but each one of them is letting it be known they will go there if they have to.  And all the rest of them are just scrambling for cover hoping they don’t get stepped on.)
 
• Oct. 6: In a letter to Senate Republicans demanding an explanation for the shifting rhetoric, Rice lays the blame on the intelligence community, says she “relied solely and squarely on the information the intelligence community provided to me and other senior U.S. officials.”
 
(NOTE:  Now the rift between the Obama White House and the intelligence community is really opening up here.  Some might not realize that as U.N. Ambassador, Susan Rice answers FIRST to President Barack Obama NOT to Hillary Clinton. Rice is a cabinet member.  Her loyalty is to the WH not State.   That letter she sent blaming the intelligence community was drafted and approved by high ranking Obama White House advisers…JARRETT.)
 

[Soul Crusher]

• Oct. 9: Senior State Department officials for the first time acknowledge that there was never any protest in Benghazi during a background call with reporters. They say linking the attack to the video was “not our conclusion,” suggesting they’re blaming intelligence officials.
 
(NOTE:  Hillary now using the Obama White House tactic of blaming the U.S. intelligence operations.  Possible rift now between her and Leon Panetta?  If so, dangerous for her to roll that dice unless it has been agreed beforehand some poor no namer is going to be given up as the sacrificial lamb in this current blame game scenario.  Actually, it’s dangerous regardless, because if she is crossing Panetta in any way, she won’t win unless Bill does a full on intervention and I don’t know if he wants to go there.  Don’t ever underestimate Leon Panetta.  He is powerful in a way that only comes from information.  And information he’s got.  On a whole lot of them and us.)
 
• Oct. 10: Lt. Col. Andy Wood and Eric Nordstrom testify at a House oversight committee hearing on security lapses in Libya. They say their requests for more security were denied by their superiors in Washington, testimony confirmed by cables made public by chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.).
 
• Oct. 11: During the vice presidential debate, Biden says, “We weren’t told they wanted more security there.” He also denies responsibility for the administration’s shifting explanation: “The intelligence community told us that. As they learned more facts about exactly what happened, they changed their assessment.”
 
(NOTE:  Has there ever been an administration so willing to throw some of the very bravest who serve to protect the safety of American citizens right under the wheels of the f-cking bus?  In all my years of being around these kinds of people I have never seen this kind of thing.  Never.  There’s been scraps between officials.  There’s been firings and resignations. That’s all part of the deal.  But to blame the entire intelligence community when the record clearly shows people were aware of how bad the situation had gotten?  When the Libyans knew but we are saying we didn’t know?  Bullsh-t.  Barack Obama is lying.  Everyone around him is lying.   And that lie comes at a whole lot of risk.  So what is the motivation to lie?  Why do it?  What are they covering up?  Sorry  I got more questions than answers on there but that’s what it is.)  LINK
 
________________________ _
 
What I can tell you is the Benghazi issue is playing out in the media much more than it was just a week ago.  That took some effort, but it’s reaching a closer version of critical mass.  We got the debate tomorrow.  The townhall thing makes me nervous and hopeful.  The Obama team will try and pack the house with their people.  Not sure how successful the Romney people will be able to counter that.  It’s New York.  Happy to report though that there is some serious endowment influence to be leveraged here with Hofstra.  You know who has apparently made some friendly “don’t make me pull the plug on you” calls in our favor.
 
One last thing.  Got a story that came back my way.  A little dated now but figured you’d like to hear it.  Few days or so after the first debate.  When it finally started to sink in just how badly Obama did and how Romney was really starting to look like he could win this thing.  Jarrett went ballistic upstairs.  Inside her office in West Wing 2.  Remember how I told you how there is her office upstairs and then Obama’s study just down the hall?  How Obama spends most of his time in the study and hardly any time downstairs in the Oval?
 
Anyways, Jarrett was blaming everyone around her for Obama’s performance on the debate.  This got back to Plouffe who has apparently become more and more agitated over Jarrett’s influence.  She’s not only trying to coordinate Obama’s brain but now telling the operatives how to handle the campaign and that’s got Plouffe biting nails over what to do with her.  So she is holed up in a meeting with somebody from the White House Counsel in her office and comes out pissed.  Sends staff to go get Plouffe.  His office is downstairs right next to the Oval. Where Axelrod used to be.  Plouffe is down there a lot more than Obama is.  The poor bastard is trying to coordinate the plans from Chicago, and Jarrett’s interference from upstairs.  Not an easy job.  Jarrett decides to make the trip downstairs herself.  Now this kind of thing with Jarrett, her pushing people around, it happens a lot these days.  It’s become her thing.  When it gets back to her how people call her the defacto president, she likes that.  A lot.  Makes her smile to hear it.  Like she told Obama a while back.  He might not like his life but she does.  And she’s living it.
 
I’m guessing she’s not even sure if Plouffe is on the premises because he has been spending more time in Chicago with all the others, but down she goes.  No word on if Obama was around in the version I got.  Maybe he was still in his study.  Or over at the residence.  Doesn’t really matter.  He has depended on the script more and more these days and that script either comes from Jarrett or is approved by her if it comes from someone else.  She controls everything going to and from the president.
 
So down she goes to West Wing 1, and she’s got that look everyone around there is so familiar with.  Queen Jarrett on the warpath.  Needs somebody to blame for her boy f-cking up so bad during the first debate.  Got polls getting shaky.  Got a fundraising red alert going out.  She enters Plouffe’s office.  Comes right back out.  Has words with an assistant down there.  Not sure who.  But the assistant apparently gives as good as she gets.  Then another woman steps in.  From the description I’m thinking it’s Smoot, though I thought she was out of town at that time but the description fits her. Like so many of them, she’s been back and forth to Chicago as well.  Now you got to know that Julianna is a good company individual.  Good at what she does.  Wall Street connected.  Carolina girl.  Especially well thought of with some high profile members of Congress.  A hell of a lot more thought of than Valerie Jarrett.  Good at the cash box.  And for those people, cash is always king.  So if Jarrett was going after Smoot on that day, I can see her discovering a woman more than willing to push right back.
 


So Jarrett is told by this other woman to step back into Plouffe’s office area.  The door closes and they have it out.  Jarrett is screaming at her.  Now you got to understand, this is maybe 20 feet at most from the Oval.  So if Obama was in there, he wasn’t coming out.  And there’s security of course.  But apparently they don’t intervene like they have before.  Guessing these kinds of altercations have become so common they don’t bother.  Just another day in paradise inside the Obama White House.
 
What I do know is that the phrase “He said he was one of ours!  What the hell happened?  He was one of ours, that’s what we were told.   What the hell happened?” was repeated at least a few times during that altercation.
 
That was coming from Jarrett and it had to have been overheard by at least ten people in and around the West Wing at the time.  It was loud enough to get Lew to quickly trot down to that end of the hall and into the office where the two women were still squaring off.  He only made it about 30 seconds before Jarrett was heard telling him “You – OUT!”  And that’s what he did.  Right back down the hall and back to his office without saying a word to anyone about it.  Just shook his head a bit as if to say “what are you gonna do?”
 
Both women came back out and Jarrett made her own way back down the hallway with the other woman following her.  Jarrett swung around again and the two were face to face before a male member of the staff intervened between them.  Told it was an intern.  Poor bastard.  Also told Jarrett very clearly looked like she didn’t want to take it any further but the other woman looked like she was ready to go.  You ever cross a Carolina woman when she’s pissed?  Wouldn’t recommend it.  She wasn’t giving any indication of being one bit afraid of Valerie Jarrett on that day in that hallway.
 
Now it’s not so much the argument I want to point out here but what Jarrett said to that other woman, who I believe was Julianna Smoot.  When she was screaming about “he was one of ours” I am thinking it was a reference to Jim Lehrer, the moderator of that first debate.  I went back and rewatched that debate a few times and there are several examples where Obama looks right over at Lehrer and appears to be waiting to be bailed out.  And I’m guessing Lehrer tried to do just that but Obama was so bad so often and Romney was so good nobody could have saved Obama’s ass that night.  Nobody.
 
And that means they will try to ensure they get that kind of help even more for the second debate.  But just like he was prepared for the first debate, the governor will be even more prepared the second time around.  And this time we are pushing Benghazi out there hard.  A whole lot of us.  They will try and pack the house. They will try and play out a gotcha moment.  But we are prepared.  The governor doesn’t have to win big like he did last time.  He’s just got to win.
 
We get that, we get a one and done pile of sh-t pretender out on his ass where he belongs.  There’s the riots though.  They got some plan to have him come out and calm the f-cking racist seas after the election.  Heal the country.  Get the rioters to go back home and move on because “that is what America does”.  That will help secure him sainthood status in the history books  and line up about a $100 million for his United Nations One World World  bullsh-t Tour in 2014.
 
You didn’t think we’d be rid of this guy for good once he’s out of the White House did you?
 
They got big plans to go.  And on that end of things,  I don’t think there’s a damn thing to be done about it.
 
 
 
-WHI
 
_____________________
 
 
 
Note from Ulsterman:
 
There was a section in this update from Insider in which they were referencing a scenario related to the Benghazi Massacre that I had reviewed recently and forwarded on to them to get an opinion as to its plausibility.  That scenario originated from the Lame Cherry blog and is linked  HERE .
 
While it makes for some highly speculative and at times uniquely styled  reading, there is much there to suggest the possible.  As Insider repeatedly communicated, they like so many of us, are increasingly confused as to why so many high ranking Obama administration officials would lie about the Benghazi Massacre in spite of ample evidence within 24 hours of the tragedy that it was a well coordinated, well armed, and clearly terrorist driven attack.
 
I deem the Lame Cherry scenario on this topic worthy of your attention.  How you wish to view it from there is up to each of you…

[Soul Crusher]

Report: White House Considering Retaliatory Libya Strike
Politico ^ | 10/15/12 4:17 PM EDT | Byron Tau

Posted on Monday, October 15, 2012 5:03:40 PM by drewh

The Associated Press reports:

Administration officials say the White House has put special operations strike forces on standby and moved drones into the skies above Africa, ready to hit militant targets from Libya to Mali, if U.S. investigators can find the al-Qaida-linked group responsible for the death of the U.S. ambassador in Libya.

But the officials say the administration also is weighing whether the short-term payoff of being able to claim retribution against al-Qaida is worth the risk that such strikes would be ineffective and rile governments in the region.

Details were provided by three current and one former administration official, as well as an analyst who was approached by the White House for help. All four spoke only on condition of anonymity.

The White House would not confirm the reports.

(Also on POLITIOC: Clinton defends State on Benghazi)

"The investigation is on-going and we have nothing new right now. As [Pentagon spokesman] George Little has briefed recently, the DoD continues to monitor the situation closely and we are ready to respond with additional military measures when directed by the president," Robert Firman, a spokesman for the Department of Defense, told POLITICO.

Philip Ewing contributed to this report.


(Excerpt) Read more at politico.com ...





WAG THE DOG

[Soul Crusher]

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/330397/october-surprise-may-be-libya-john-fund



What if we’ve already had an October surprise in this campaign, in September, and the mainstream media are failing to follow up? An issue becomes a real issue only if enough people give it the attention it’s due.
 
Many people in the diplomatic and intelligence communities say that the Obama administration, behind the scenes, is in complete disarray in the aftermath of al-Qaeda’s attack on the U.S. consulate in Libya that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans. That tension burst into the open during last Thursday’s debate, when Vice President Joe Biden said the administration “did not know” that U.S. personnel in Libya had made repeated requests for more security before the September 11 attack. “We did not know they wanted more security there,” Biden claimed.
 
That directly contradicted sworn testimony given by several officials just the day before, during a House Oversight Committee hearing. Lt. Colonel Andrew Wood, who led a 16-member security team in Libya for six months, testified: “We felt great frustration that those requests were ignored or just never met.” Wood’s team was ordered by the State Department to leave Libya in August, about a month before the terrorist assault.
 
After the debate, Obama-administration officials knew that Biden’s statement was untenable, so they explained that by “we” — the “we” who were in the dark about security concerns — Biden meant only two people: himself and President Obama. It’s a parsing of words worthy of Bill Clinton’s famous “it all depends on what the meaning of ‘is’ is.”
 
It’s not the first time that the intelligence community has been thrown under the bus by an administration trying to paper over a foreign-policy failure, but Biden’s move was breathtaking in its brazenness. In front of tens of millions, he squarely blamed the intelligence officials for the administration’s pathetic, erroneous claim that an anti-Islam video had sparked spontaneous protests that later turned violent at the Libyan consulate.
 
“The intelligence community told us that,” Biden said during the debate. “As they learned more facts about exactly what happened, they changed their assessment.”
 
But a former senior intelligence official scoffed at that assertion. “The administration designated Benghazi as a terrorist attack within 24 hours while at the same time declaring the attack was a ‘spontaneous protest’ that ‘spun out of control,’” he told me. “They can’t get their story straight, so the cover-up is deepening.” Even some Democratic senators have been pressing for immediate hearings on Libya, but Majority Leader Harry Reid has blocked them, the official added. Is the need to discover problems with U.S. security taking a back seat to electoral politics?
 
On CBS’s Face the Nation on Sunday, Republican senator Lindsay Graham of South Carolina said he knows for a fact that the administration was told within 24 hours of the incident that it was al-Qaeda operatives who carried it out. “They’re trying to sell a narrative, quite frankly, that the Mideast, the wars are receding, and al-Qaeda’s been dismantled,” Graham said. “And to admit that our embassy was attacked by al-Qaeda operatives and [that] Libya ‘leading from behind’ didn’t work, I think undercuts that narrative. They never believed the media would investigate. Congress was out of session, and this caught up with them.”
 
John Batchelor, a syndicated radio talk-show host who often features intelligence analysts on his program, reported only two days after the attack that Ambassador Stevens was probably lured by al-Qaeda to Benghazi, where he was then assassinated. This massive security failure has prompted the administration to order a rather inartful cover-up, Batchelor contends. “These are the responses of marketers, not policymakers, the reactions of electioneering and not national security,” he told me. “The White House appears to be in disarray in running its permanent-campaign model. All decisions are being made on the run and without strategic planning. It may now be unraveling.”
 
Obama officials may have made a key mistake when, in their panic, they attempted to lay blame for the Libyan fiasco solely on others. White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters that responsibility for Libya lay with the State Department, not the White House. Ed Klein, a former New York Times editor who has authored recent biographies of both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, says his sources tell him that Bill Clinton is already pulling together an informal legal team to create a defense in case Obama officials continue to point the finger in Hillary’s direction.
 
“If she is left with this stain on her reputation, it could seriously damage her chances for election” as president in 2016, Klein told the Daily Caller.
 
Michael Baker, a former covert CIA officer who now runs a division of the Diligence intelligence company, says that most career agency professionals will keep their mouths shut between now and Election Day. “But you can bet some of the more political people in the administration will tell their side of the story,” he told me. “We could soon learn a lot more.”
 
So if the Libyan attack turns into a full-fledged scandal, will it become an issue in the campaign, or will it be even noticed?
 
This all recalls the last month of the 1996 presidential campaign, when the Clinton administration was trying to run out the clock on the John Huang fundraising scandal. A former Commerce Department official, Huang was a top fundraiser who scooped up suspect foreign cash for Team Clinton. Throughout October 1996, Huang dodged subpoenas and reporters. The dimensions of the scandal became clear only after the election, when reporters uncovered ties between Huang associates and the Communist regime in Beijing.
 
Even so, the Huang scandal had an impact on the election; it may have helped Bob Dole tighten up the race at the last minute (he wound up losing by only eight points). In her book on the campaign, journalist Elizabeth Drew quoted Bill Clinton as saying that negative coverage of the Huang fundraising scandal allowed Republicans to keep the House in the 1996 election.
 
It’s no surprise that everyone in and around the Obama administration is trying to keep the lid on the Libyan scandal. It’s also not surprising that the media — so far — haven’t been asking nearly enough questions about the administration’s conduct in the scandal. Up until now the White House has been touting the Middle East as a singular success. Many reporters seem willing to go along with that storyline. But there is still time for the media to redeem themselves.
 
— John Fund is national-affairs columnist for NRO.

[Soul Crusher]

Did Obama stage the Benghazi attack?
 Impeach Obama ^ | 10/15/2012 | CO Jones

Posted on Monday, October 15, 2012 5:40:22


I received a phone call from an old friend that has been in Washington D.C. for years and is fairly well-connected politically. What she told me was ugly and sinister, yet very compelling. She said she had received information from someone high up in White House circles, and wanted my thoughts. No, there is no leaked email, no concrete proof, and this article is based on “hearsay.” I’m not one that usually engages in or repeats hearsay, but if this is true, it could be the biggest story in 50 years. According to her, Barack Obama, wanting an “October Surprise,” had secretly arranged with the Muslim Brotherhood for a kidnapping of our ambassador. Then sometime in October before the election Obama was to orchestrate some great military action to rescue Ambassador Stevens, causing all of America to cheer Obama’s strong foreign policy and bravery and making him look like a hero. After all, his supposed killing of Osama Bin Laden bounce had long since faded. Thus, sweeping him to victory in November. Imagine the headlines and talking points. The election would be a lock. The Muslim Brotherhood has every reason to want Obama re-elected in November and have an American President sympathetic to their causes. Not to mention an administration filled with Muslim appeasers. Therefore, they agreed to aid in these theatrics. Unfortunately for Ambassador Stevens and three others, the Brotherhood could not control the hired thugs that were to perform the kidnapping and things escalated and four American lives were lost. Panic set in at the White House and with little time to place blame as far away from Obama as they could, they settled on a ridiculous fairy tale about an irrelevant video posted four months prior on YouTube and ran with it. Barack Obama even ran with it after evidence showed he knew better and ran with it all the way to his speech at the U.N.

So now, they are admitting it was a terrorist attack. They are admitting that the State Department had denied requests for more security from Washington, but nobody told them. Blame anyone but Barack Obama. I’m betting the White House is smirking and perfectly happy to be accused of having a breakdown in communication as opposed to the alternative. This scenario, if true, more than satisfies my common sense gland. Photo Credit: osipovva

[Soul Crusher]

Timeline of Libya Consulate attack reveals administration contradictions

By Julian Pecquet - 10/14/12 06:00 AM ET



The timeline of events leading up to last month’s deadly attack in Benghazi and the administration’s shifting explanations have become a major problem for Democrats less than a month before Election Day.
 
Already under criticism for linking the assault on the U.S. consulate to an anti-Islam video, the administration raised even more eyebrows Thursday when Vice President Biden said he didn’t know about the U.S. mission’s request for more security. Biden’s statement directly contradicts sworn testimony from State Department officials given just the day before.

 The following is a detailed timeline of events leading to the Sept. 11 attack and what the Obama administration has said since then.

• April 5, 2011: Special envoy Christopher Stevens arrives in the rebel stronghold of Benghazi to forge ties with the forces battling Moammar Gadhafi. President Obama appoints him as ambassador to Libya on May 22, 2012.
 
• February: The U.S. embassy requests — and is granted — a four-month extension, until August, of a Tripoli-based “site security team” composed of 16 special forces soldiers who provide security, medical and communications support to the embassy.
 
• March: State Department Regional Security Officer Eric Nordstrom sends a cable to Washington asking for additional diplomatic security agents for Benghazi, later says he received no response. He does so again in July, with the same result.
 
• April 6: Two fired Libyan security guards throw an IED over the consulate fence.





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• May 22: An Islamist attack on the Red Cross office in Benghazi is followed by a Facebook post that warns “now we are preparing a message for the Americans.” Another Facebook posting a month later highlights Stevens’ daily runs in Tripoli in an apparent threat.

• June 6: Unknown assailants blow a hole in the consulate’s north gate described by a witness as “big enough for 40 men to go through.” Four days later, the British ambassador’s car is ambushed by militants with a rocket-propelled grenade.

• July: Anti-Islam video “Innocence of Muslims” posted on You Tube.

• Aug. 14: SST team leaves Libya. Team leader Lt. Col. Andy Wood has testified that Stevens wanted them to stay on.

• In the weeks before Sept. 11, Libyan security guards are reportedly warned by family members of an impending attack. On Sept. 8, the Libyan militia tasked with protecting the consulate warns U.S. diplomats that the security situation is “frightening.”

• Sept. 10: Al Qaeda leader Ayman al Zawahiri calls on Libyans to avenge the death of his Libyan deputy, Abu Yahya al Libi, killed in a June drone strike in Pakistan.

• Sept. 11: Protesters converge on the U.S. embassy in Cairo, scale its walls and replace the U.S. flag with the Islamist banner. The protests eventually spread to 20 countries around the world. That night, Republican candidate Mitt Romney criticizes an embassy statement denouncing the video before the events unfolding in Libya are known to the world. Late that night, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says in a statement that “some have sought to justify this vicious behavior as a response to inflammatory material posted on the Internet.”

• Sept. 12: Media outlets report that Stevens and three other Americans have been killed in an attack by well-armed militants. Obama denounces an “outrageous and shocking attack” without mentioning the video or terrorism. Reuters reports for the first time that some administration officials believe the assault “bears the hallmarks of an organized attack.”

• Sept. 13: White House spokesman Jay Carney says “the protests we’re seeing around the region are in reaction to this movie.”

• Sept. 14: Carney says the administration had “no actionable intelligence” about a pending attack.

• Sept. 16: Susan Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the UN, does the rounds on the Sunday talk shows and says the video is the “proximate cause” of the assault in Benghazi. “Our current best assessment, based on the information that we have at present, is that, in fact, what this began as, it was a spontaneous — not a premeditated — response to what had transpired in Cairo,” Rice tells ABC. That same day, interim Libyan president Mohamed Magarief insists on CBS that “it was planned, definitely.”

• Sept. 19: National Counterterrorism Center director Matthew Olsen testifies before the Senate Homeland Security Committee that the assault was a “terrorist attack” but goes on to call it an “opportunistic” attack in which armed militants took advantage of an ongoing protest.

• Sept. 20: CBS reports that witnesses in Benghazi say there was no protest prior to the armed assault against the consulate. Magarief tells NBC the same thing on Sept. 26. Also on Sept. 20, Obama at a town hall meeting says: “What we do know is that the natural protests that arose because of the outrage over the video were used as an excuse by extremists to see if they can also directly harm U.S. interests.” Carney declares it “self-evident that what happened in Benghazi was a terrorist attack.” Clinton, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and Deputy Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter brief members of Congress. Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) calls it “the most useless worthless briefing I have attended in a long time.”

• Sept. 21: Clinton says “what happened in Benghazi was a terrorist attack,” highest official until then to say so.

• Sept. 25: In his address to the U.N. General Assembly, Obama doesn’t mention terrorism but makes repeated references to the video. Asked about Clinton’s statement on ABC’s “The View” show, the president skirts the issue by saying: “We’re still doing an investigation,” blames “extremist militias.”
 
• Sept. 27: Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta says it’s “clear that there were terrorists who planned that attack.”
 
• Sept. 28: The Office of the Director of National Intelligence takes responsibility for linking the Benghazi attack to the video. In a statement, spokeswoman Shawn Turner says that initially “there was information that led us to assess that the attack began spontaneously following protests earlier that day at our embassy in Cairo. “We provided that initial assessment to executive branch officials and members of Congress, who used that information to discuss the attack publicly and provide updates as they became available. Throughout our investigation we continued to emphasize that information gathered was preliminary and evolving.”

• Oct. 1: State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland says Clinton stands by Rice after House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Pete King (R-N.Y.) calls for her resignation.
 
• Oct. 3: FBI investigators finally arrive at the crime scene in Benghazi, which has been unsecured for weeks.

• Oct. 6: In a letter to Senate Republicans demanding an explanation for the shifting rhetoric, Rice lays the blame on the intelligence community, says she “relied solely and squarely on the information the intelligence community provided to me and other senior U.S. officials.”

• Oct. 9: Senior State Department officials for the first time acknowledge that there was never any protest in Benghazi during a background call with reporters. They say linking the attack to the video was “not our conclusion,” suggesting they’re blaming intelligence officials.

• Oct. 10: Lt. Col. Andy Wood and Eric Nordstrom testify at a House oversight committee hearing on security lapses in Libya. They say their requests for more security were denied by their superiors in Washington, testimony confirmed by cables made public by chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.).

• Oct. 11: During the vice presidential debate, Biden says, “We weren’t told they wanted more security there.” He also denies responsibility for the administration’s shifting explanation: “The intelligence community told us that. As they learned more facts about exactly what happened, they changed their assessment.”
 
• Oct. 12: After Republicans pounce, the White House says Biden was speaking for himself and the president because such decisions are made by the State Department.

[Soul Crusher]

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM ALLEGES POSSIBLE COVER-UP AFTER LIBYA ATTACK
 The Blaze ^ | 10/14/2012 | Eric ritz

Posted on Monday, October 15, 2012 5:47:33 PM by mgist

(TheBlaze/AP) — A senior Republican senator Sunday accused President Barack Obama’s aides of deliberately covering up the details of the Sept. 11 attack in Libya that killed a U.S. ambassador so voters wouldn’t question Obama’s handling of the war on terror.

Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a long-time point man for the GOP on national security issues, said he believes the administration knew within 24 hours of the assault that it was a coordinated militia attack and was not tied to other anti-U.S. protests across the Middle East. According to Graham– who is investigating the attack– the administration suggested otherwise so voters wouldn’t think Obama’s foreign policy in the Middle East has failed.

(AP File Photo) He explained:

“They’re trying to sell a narrative, quite frankly, that the Mid-East– the wars are receding and that al-Qaeda has been dismantled.  And to admit that our embassy was attacked by al-Qaida operatives, and [in] Libya leading from behind didn’t work, I think undercuts that narrative.  They never believed the media would investigate, Congress was out of session, and this caught up with them.  I think they’ve been misleading us, but it finally caught up with them.” After Bob Schieffer said it was a “very serious charge” for the senator to level, Graham continued:

“Either they’re misleading the American people, or incredibly incompetent.  There was no way with anybody looking at all that you could believe five days after the attack that it was based on a riot that never occurred… This is the same administration that leaks every detail of classified operations that are successful… When something goes bad, they deny, they deceive, and they delay.  And the truth is, we’re not safer.  Al-Qaeda is alive– Bin Laden may be dead–Al-Qaeda is alive, and they’re counter-attacking throughout the entire region.

[Soul Crusher]

Two employees at the General Services Administration have stonewalled Breitbart News, and another has mysteriously "disappeared" as the investigation into the State Department "no bullets" contract with Blue Mountain Group, the British firm that provided security at the American mission in Benghazi heats up.
 
The stonewalling continued at the State Department, which failed to respond to followup questions from Breitbart News arising from our report that it had used the General Services Administration as a front to hide the identity and nationality of Blue Mountain Group. Despite repeated emails from Breitbart News throughout the day Thursday, the State Department had not responded to our inquiries by the time of publication.
 
Late Wednesday, GSA spokesperson Mafara Hobson refused to answer specific questions from Breitbart News on the growing scandal, referring all inquiries to the State Department before going silent:
 

Mafara Hobson: Michael, while GSA manages the Federal Procurement Data System website, this is a State Department contract. Please contact the State Department for information about this contract.
 
Leahy: Ms. Hobson:
 
But why is a GSA address and phone number listed in the vendor contact of the contract between the State Department and a "Miscellaneous Foreign Awardee," later revealed to be the British firm Blue Mountain Group?
 
Please answer that question.
 
Mafara Hobson: Check with the State Department.
 
Leahy: Ms. Hobson,
 
But GSA should be able to explain why a GSA address and phone number is listed in the vendor contact of the contract between the State Department and a "Miscellaneous Foreign Awardee," later revealed to be the British firm Blue Mountain Group.
 
You're a spokesperson for GSA. Why can you not explain that?
 
Ms. Hobson has not responded to our last question.
 
On Thursday, Breitbart News reached GSA employee Pat Brooks, whose office phone number is listed as the "vendor contact" phone number in the State Department contract with the "Miscellaneous Foreign Awardee" we now know is Blue Mountain Group.
 
Ms. Brooks refused to comment at the time but promised to call back before the end of the day in a conference call with a Public Affairs spokesperson for the GSA.
 
When the Breitbart News phone didn't ring, we knew it was Ms. Brooks.
 
Breitbart News also attempted Thursday to reach GSA employee Cory Smith, who is listed as the press contact for the Regulatory Secretariat of the GSA at its web site. The physical address listed as the "vendor contact" in the State Department contract with the "Miscellaneous Foreign Awardee" we now know is Blue Mountain Group is 1275 First St. NE, Washington, D.C. That address, however, is not one that belongs to Blue Mountain Group. Instead, it is the address for the offices of the Regulatory Secretariat of the GSA.
 
Cory Smith, however, seems to have disappeared from all official records at the GSA. Phone calls to the number listed at the GSA website as belonging to Cory Smith went to a disconnected line. And emails sent to Cory Smith's GSA email address bounced back.
 
Earlier this year, the GSA was involved in a series of embarrassing scandals that involved irresponsible spending of taxpayer dollars.


http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Peace/2012/09/20/State-Dept-Stonewalls-Investigation-into-Use-of-GSA-as-Front-for-British-Firm-Given-Benghazi-Security-Contract

[Soul Crusher]

Clinton: I'm responsible for diplomats' security
 

From Elise Labott, CNN
 
updated 9:14 PM EDT, Mon October 15, 2012
 






Clinton: 'I take responsibility' for Benghazi security failure
 

 
Lima, Peru (CNN) -- Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Monday tried to douse a political firestorm around the deadly assault on a U.S. diplomatic mission in Libya, saying she is responsible for the security of American diplomatic outposts.
 
"I take responsibility" for the protection of U.S. diplomats, Clinton said during a visit to Peru. But she said an investigation now under way will ultimately determine what happened in the attack that left four Americans dead.
 
The attack on the night of September 11 killed Chris Stevens, the U.S. ambassador to Libya, and three other Americans at the American consulate in Benghazi.
 
The Obama administration has been heavily criticized after Vice President Joe Biden said during last week's vice presidential debate that the White House did not know of requests to enhance security at Benghazi, contradicting testimony by State Department employees that requests had been made and rejected. After the debate, the White House said the vice president did not know of the requests because they were handled, as is the practice, by the State Department.
 
Clinton said President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden are not involved in security decisions.
 
"I want to avoid some kind of political gotcha," she added, noting that it is close to the election.
 
Fact Check: Benghazi security
 
Clinton also sought to downplay the criticism that administration officials continued to say the attack was a spontaneous product of a protest over an anti-Muslim film, a theory that has since been discarded. In the wake of an attack, there is always confusion, Clinton said. But the information has since changed, she said.
 
Actress sues filmmaker
 
The secretary of state also described the desperate scene in the State Department during the hours of the attack on the night of the assault. It was an "intense, long ordeal" as staff tried to find out what had happened.
 
Clinton said her mission now is to make sure such an attack will never happen again, but also that diplomacy, even in dangerous areas like Benghazi, is not stopped.
 
"We can't not engage," she said. "We cannot retreat."

[Soul Crusher]

Sen Graham, Ayotte and McCain release statement regarding Sec Clinton's statement
 Facebook ^

Posted on Monday, October 15, 2012 10:33:27

just sent out this statement with Senator Kelly Ayotte and John McCain about the attack on our Consulate in Benghazi.

"We have just learned that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has claimed full responsibility for any failure to secure our people and our Consulate in Benghazi prior to the attack of September 11, 2012. This is a laudable gesture, especially when the White House is trying to avoid any responsibility whatsoever.

"However, we must remember that the events of September 11 were preceded by an escalating pattern of attacks this year in Benghazi, including a bomb that was thrown into our Consulate in April, another explosive device that was detonated outside of our Consulate in June, and an assassination attempt on the British Ambassador. If the President was truly not aware of this rising threat level in Benghazi, then we have lost confidence in his national security team, whose responsibility it is to keep the President informed. But if the President was aware of these earlier attacks in Benghazi prior to the events of September 11, 2012, then he bears full responsibility for any security failures that occurred. The security of Americans serving our nation everywhere in the world is ultimately the job of the Commander-in-Chief. The buck stops there.

"Furthermore, there is the separate issue of the insistence by members of the Administration, including the President himself, that the attack in Benghazi was the result of a spontaneous demonstration triggered by a hateful video, long after it had become clear that the real cause was a terrorist attack. The President also bears responsibility for this portrayal of the attack, and we continue to believe that the American people deserve to know why the Administration acted as it did."

[Soul Crusher]

Senator alleges cover-up by Obama aides on Libya (good article)
Philly.com ^ | 10/15012 | Ann Flahery

Posted on Monday, October 15, 2012 10:31:57 PM by mgist

Posted: Mon, Oct. 15, 2012, 3:01 AM Senator alleges cover-up by Obama aides on Libya

By Anne Flaherty Associated Press

CAROLYN KASTER / Associated Press President Obama sits with volunteers Alexa Kissinger (left) and Suzanne Stern at his campaign office in Williamsburg, Va. His senior campaign adviser, David Axelrod, disputed allegations that his administration had tried to mislead the public. Post a comment

PHILLY.COM's TOP FIVE PICKS Arlen Specter: warrior & lightning rod Sen. Specter's fighting spirit praised Straw-buyer bill gets new momentum Poll: N.J. favors minimum-wage hike Gala celebrates immigrant couples' staying power WASHINGTON - A senior Republican senator on Sunday accused President Obama's aides of deliberately covering up the details of the Sept. 11 attack in Libya that killed a U.S. ambassador so that voters wouldn't question Obama's handling of the war on terror. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.), a longtime point man for the GOP on national security issues, said he believes the administration knew within 24 hours of the assault that it was a coordinated militia attack and was not tied to other anti-U.S. protests across the Middle East. According to Graham, the administration suggested otherwise so voters wouldn't think al-Qaeda remained a threat.

"They're trying to sell a narrative, quite frankly, that [the] wars are receding and that al-Qaeda has been dismantled," said Graham, a member of the Senate Armed Service Committee's emerging threats and capabilities subcommittee, in an interview on CBS's Face the Nation. "And to admit that our embassy was attacked by al-Qaeda operatives ... I think undercuts that narrative."

It was an exceptionally pointed allegation on what has become a major campaign issue. The attack on a U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, which killed four Americans including Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens, has raised questions about whether the State Department denied its embassy staff adequate security to save money and why the White House was slow to label the assault a terrorist attack.

Democrats shrugged off the allegations. "This conspiracy stuff is kind of ridiculous to be honest with you, and I've been kind of surprised that they've gone to these lengths. But you know that's what they do," said Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, the top Democrat on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, which is investigating the incident.

The White House declined to comment on Graham's allegations. It has said previously that the investigation continues and that officials have relied on information about the attack as it became available.

Five days after the attack, Susan Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, described the violence as spontaneous and said the administration believed extremists had "hijacked" an anti-U.S. protest over an American-made video ridiculing Islam. Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton also had given credence to the notion that the attack was related to protests.

A CIA memo obtained by the Associated Press cited initial intelligence that supported the assertion. But during last week's congressional hearing on the matter, the State Department said it had never concluded that the consulate attack stemmed from protests, prompting lawmakers to question why the administration used the explanation for more than a week.

Graham said Sunday that he had been told by intelligence officials in Libya that "within 24 hours they communicated up to Washington that this was a terrorist attack." Graham did not specify whether that message was relayed to the White House or the State Department, or if that information was kept within the intelligence community.

"Either they're misleading the American people or incredibly incompetent," Graham said of the Obama administration. "There was no way with anybody looking at all that you could believe five days after the attack it was based on a riot that never occurred."

Obama's senior campaign adviser, David Axelrod, on Sunday rebutted allegations that Rice or any other administration deliberately tried to mislead the American public.

"Anyone would have said what she said, because that's the intelligence we were receiving," Axelrod said.

The Benghazi attack also has raised questions about whether the State Department had provided adequate security to embassy staff. Democrats blame Republicans for cutting more than $300 million in diplomatic security funds worldwide. Republicans say the State Department could have relied on other discretionary spending accounts to cover costs.

Lawmakers on both sides said Sunday that a supplemental spending measure is being considered. Rep. Darrell Issa (R., Calif.), chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said he is planning to lead a congressional delegation to various hotspots around the world to ask U.S. diplomatic staff what security concerns they have.

Bloomberg News reported Sunday that Stevens' father said that he believes his son's death is being investigated adequately and that it would be "abhorrent to make this into a campaign issue."

Graham, Cummings and Issa spoke on CBS's Face the Nation. Axelrod spoke on Fox News Sunday.

[Soul Crusher]

State Dep’t suspected in April that Libyan guards at Benghazi consulate had tried to attack it
 Hotair ^

Posted on Tuesday, October 16, 2012 9:27:00 AM by chessplayer

Time for your daily reminder that State didn’t merely stick Chris Stevens with “average” security despite him living and working in one of the jihadi-est places on earth. The security they provided him was actively, inexplicably, inexcusably bad. And before you read any further, let me remind you that the ominous chat-room message posted by Sean Smith the day he died about a Libyan guard taking photos of the compound still hasn’t been addressed by anyone in the government that I’ve seen. Did Stevens’s security break down to the point that his killers actually had someone on the inside?

More red flags from Reuters:

State Department officials suspected that two Libyan guards hired by its own security contractor were behind an April incident in which a homemade bomb was hurled over the wall of the special mission in Benghazi, according to official emails obtained by Reuters…

The April attack illustrated concerns among some U.S. officials in Libya that hiring local residents for embassy guard duties could in itself raise security issues.

The emails identified one of the suspects in that incident as a former employee of Blue Mountain Group who had been fired four days earlier for vandalism, and said the other was still working for the company. Both were unarmed guards who performed routine security tasks, such as screening visitors.

Other firms in the security industry expressed surprise that Blue Mountain had won a large, high profile contract from the US government. One industry executive said the level of service Blue Mountain provided did not appear adequate to the risks presented by a lawless city.

“We have visited the consulate in Benghazi a number of times and have an excellent relationship with the Americans. Our assessment was the unarmed Libyan guards were extremely poor calibre,” said one security source. “The Libyan Ministry of Interior are generally not happy with Blue Mountain and had them on their close observation/target list.”

The New York Times last week reported that major security firms with a track record of guarding US premises elsewhere had made approaches to undertake work in Libya but were rebuffed.

“We went in to make a pitch, and nothing happened,” a security firm official told the newspaper.

[Soul Crusher]

Hillary Throws Obama Under The Bus
 Ace of Spades ^ | 10/16 | Ace of Spades

Posted on Tuesday, October 16, 2012 10:40:41 AM by RummyChick

Last night from the relative safety of Lima, Peru Hillary Clinton announced that when it comes to the Benghazi disaster the buck stops with her (sort of).

Many have taken this as a sign Hilary is taking the fall for Obama and letting him off the hook. I have a a different theory....David Axlerod tried to throw her under the bus and she tossed it right back on him and Obama.

What Hillary has done is basically say, "the damn phone is ringing and President Creased Trousers isn't answering it so give it to me. She comes off as the grown up who said, look I'm in charge here and for good or ill that makes me responsible".

People tend to admire others who stand up and take the hits. Hillary looks like A-the loyal soldier and B-the only one who is going to stand up and say, "something awful happened on my watch and I'm going to look in the mirror to see who is in charge and not like some other people I could name, look around for scapegoats".

Hillary isn't taking the blame, she's taking the credit.

Now a lot of this is hypocritical because Hillary already tried casting the blame elsewhere but when all else fails, it's sometimes better to own it in the end.

How does this hurt Obama? Well tonight he will be standing next to Mitt Romney. Romney you might recall has made a rather big stink about Obama's failure to lead and his own stellar leadership record.

Here's how he might play this when Benghazi comes up (or he brings it up himself)..."It's all well and good that Secretary Clinton is taking responsibility but my leadership experience has taught me that only the person at the top of the organization is truly responsible. President Obama is at the top of the Executive Branch and he's ducking responsibility. I'd like to know if the President agrees with the Secretary and if he does, why hasn't he asked for her resignation? If he doesn't agree, why doesn't he say who is responsible? Most importantly, why hasn't he taken responsibility from Day 1. Harry Truman didn't say the buck stopped at the Department of State, it stopped at his desk in the Oval Office."

And then it will get ugly for Obama when Romney ads, "And who does the President blame for the failure of his policies to get this economy going? The Secretary of the Treasury? Maybe he blames you the voters for not paying enough in taxes. This country needs a President who accepts the responsibility that comes with the job and doesn't blame his subordinates."

Obama will have no answer to any of that. He also can't fire Hillary because that would cause problems with Team PUMA and his administration would be in disarray 3 weeks before the election

He can't suddenly say, "Oh no, it's me not Hillary who is responsible" because A-he doesn't believe that and B-It's too late. She beat him to the punch, he'll look like he's scrambling to catch up (which he would be).

Mitt's been running a campaign based on his leadership and Obama's unwillingness and inability to lead. The second most popular (maybe the most popular) Democrat in the country, who happens to be Obama's own Secretary of State, just co-signed that charge by stepping into the vacuum Obama's cowardice created.

What Hillary has done is hand Mitt a baseball bat, turned him in the direction of the giant Obama pinata on stage tonight and said, "Have at buddy. Maybe I'll see you in four years".

And what's the downside to Hillary? None. No one is really going to hold her responsible. The DMM (Democratic Machine Media) won't. The GOP certainly won't (update: as predicted) and Obama can't. She'll be hailed as "presidential", "the one official willing to stand up and take responsibility" and ironically enough, a "good soldier".

Don't forget, Hillary has seen a variation on this play work before. Remember Janet Reno taking the blame for Waco? Clinton looked weak and Reno owned him for the rest of his presidency.

Sure it's kabuki theater and there are still plenty of outstanding questions (who said "hey, let's blame a protest about some tape" among them) but the story will be the debate and if Romney can use it to put Obama back on his heels. By the time Hillary gets back in the country the story and the campaign will have moved on and the damage to Obama will be done.

Maybe Hillary didn't do all of this on purpose (but why wait until now to do this?) but intentionally or not, she's teed this up for Mitt. Will he hit it?