Yahoo.com : US Ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens killed in consulate attack in Benghazi

[visionary]

Annoying as hell when representatives surround some good questions with political bull****.

[thebluefood]

Here's the Post's recap of today's hearing.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/state-dept-downgraded-security-in-libya-before-deadly-attack-ex-officer-claims/2012/10/10/d7195faa-12e6-11e2-a16b-2c110031514a_story.html?hpid=z1

The State Department acknowledged Wednesday that it rejected appeals for more security at its diplomatic posts in Libya in the months before a fatal terrorist attack in Benghazi as Republicans suggested that lapses contributed to the deaths of the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans.

Republicans also tried to use a congressional hearing to blow holes in the Obama administration’s public explanations for what happened in Benghazi on Sept. 11, accusing the White House of playing down the possibility that the attack was a successful al-Qaeda assault.

[zoony]

This keeps getting worse for the Obama Administration. As usual, everyone involved plays the duck and run game rather than meeting it head on. Pensions are at stake.

[Spaceman Spiff]

Politicians lying and covering things up? No way! Who ever would have thought.

[visionary]

Here's the Post's recap of today's hearing.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/state-dept-downgraded-security-in-libya-before-deadly-attack-ex-officer-claims/2012/10/10/d7195faa-12e6-11e2-a16b-2c110031514a_story.html?hpid=z1

I still can't get over how stupid the statement Rice made was.

Kennedy said that he would have made the same statement based on the intelligence.

Either he is full of ****, or whoever was giving them that intelligence is an incompetant buffoon.

Even assuming he's right, It makes me wonder if Rice or Kennedy for that matter have a mind of their own or just say whatever they're told to regardless of how ridiculous or nonsensical it is.

[thebluefood]

A few things I took away from the article:

-Congressmen are petty. Not that I didn't already know that, but it was confirmed by the rhetoric seen from both Democrats and Republicans

-The right-wing pundits were right. The movie was nothing more than a convenient excuse.

-Obviously, the State Department knew there was trouble in River City and didn't do anything to keep our soldiers, as well as one of our most vital ambassadors, safe. I want to know exactly how much President Obama knew. It looks like Clinton is going to talk on Friday, so that should be interesting.

-Republicans will surely feel smug about this tomorrow, but this part stuck out to me.

Democrats on the committee defended the administration, saying Republicans had voted to cut some of the very funding for security that they suggest was lacking in Libya. The Democrats also accused the Republicans of running a secretive and overly partisan investigation leading up to the hearing.

Gonna have to check that out.

[twa]

While you are checking, check out what they are spending it on instead of basic security there.

[visionary]

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-libya-us-guards-20121011,0,7213632,full.story

Libya guards speak out on attack that killed U.S. ambassador

Face down on a roof inside the besieged American diplomatic compound, gunfire and flames crackling around them, the two young Libyan guards watched as several bearded men crept toward the ambassador's residence with semiautomatic weapons and grenades strapped to their chests.

"We are finished," one of the guards says he remembers thinking.

Both are veterans of the ragtag revolutionary forces that toppled Moammar Kadafi. Over the last year, while assigned by their militia to help protect the U.S. mission in Benghazi, the pair had been drilled by American security personnel in using their weapons, securing entrances, climbing walls and waging hand-to-hand combat.

They were the "quick reaction force" for a compound that was also protected by about five armed Americans and five Libyan civilians hired through a British firm and equipped only with electric batons and handcuffs.

But nothing, they say, had prepared them for this. They had practiced for an attack by 10 or 15 people; now there were scores of professional-looking militants who moved methodically and used well-practiced hand signals. To make matters worse on the night of Sept. 11, instead of four militiamen who were supposed to be on guard, there were only two inside the compound.

The militiamen say they initially fought back, but when one attacker lobbed a grenade into their bungalow near the compound's entrance, they fled to the roof without their radios and with only one magazine of ammunition between them. The American security officers were nowhere in sight.

As the raid continued — eventually killing Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and another American inside the facility, and two other Americans at a separate location hours later — the two Libyans say that they survived by lying on the roof silently for about an hour, too stunned, scared and overmatched to fight back.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/dana-milbank-letting-us-in-on-a-secret/2012/10/10/ba3136ca-132b-11e2-ba83-a7a396e6b2a7_story.html

Letting us in on a secret

When House Republicans called a hearing in the middle of their long recess, you knew it would be something big, and indeed it was: They accidentally blew the CIA’s cover.

The purpose of Wednesday’s hearing of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee was to examine security lapses that led to the killing in Benghazi last month of the U.S. ambassador to Libya and three others. But in doing so, the lawmakers reminded us why “congressional intelligence” is an oxymoron.

Through their outbursts, cryptic language and boneheaded questioning of State Department officials, the committee members left little doubt that one of the two compounds at which the Americans were killed, described by the administration as a “consulate” and a nearby “annex,” was a CIA base. They did this, helpfully, in a televised public hearing.

Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) was the first to unmask the spooks. “Point of order! Point of order!” he called out as a State Department security official, seated in front of an aerial photo of the U.S. facilities in Benghazi, described the chaotic night of the attack. “We’re getting into classified issues that deal with sources and methods that would be totally inappropriate in an open forum such as this.”

I think I heard this claim about it maybe being a CIA base a few days ago or earlier.

Actually it might have been weeks ago.

[DjTj]

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-libya-us-guards-20121011,0,7213632,full.story

That makes it sound like a huge attack - not just a few terrorists but an entire trained militia.

That is also consistent with Nordstrom's statement, cited in the Washington Post article.

But in his written statement, he acknowledged that the “ferocity and intensity of the attack was nothing that we had seen in Libya, or that I had seen in my time in the Diplomatic Security Service. Having an extra foot of wall, or an extra-half dozen guards or agents would not have enabled us to respond to that kind of assault.”

This was a carefully planned military assault. Somehow, the phrase "terrorist attack" doesn't seem to really capture the scale of it.

[Thiebear]

Yemen Embassy official killed 1 month later?

Any Chance we can get back to firing Hillary like I asked on Day 3 I think it was about the lack of security and the non-chalant manner in which we seem to be protecting the people that have volunteered enough already just by being there for us?

How many have to die before we fix a problem we know exists as the people over there couldn't care less who denied what memorandum in February.

It's now October 11th and we are not doing well.

just incase anyone is confused as to why i asked immediately and again:

http://www.state.gov/secretary/115194.htm

The Secretary of State, appointed by the President with the advice and consent of the Senate, is the President’s chief foreign affairs adviser. The Secretary carries out the President’s foreign policies through the State Department and the Foreign Service of the United States.

Created in 1789 by the Congress as the successor to the Department of Foreign Affairs, the Department of State is the senior executive Department of the U.S. Government. The Secretary of State’s duties relating to foreign affairs have not changed significantly since then, but they have become far more complex as international commitments multiplied. These duties -- the activities and responsibilities of the State Department -- include the following:

Advises the President on the appointment of U.S. ambassadors, ministers, consuls, and other diplomatic representatives;

Advises the President regarding the acceptance, recall, and dismissal of the representatives of foreign governments;

Personally participates in or directs U.S. representatives to international conferences, organizations, and agencies;

Negotiates, interprets, and terminates treaties and agreements;

Ensures the protection of the U.S. Government to American citizens, property, and interests in foreign countries;

Supervises the administration of U.S. immigration laws abroad;

Provides information to American citizens regarding the political, economic, social, cultural, and humanitarian conditions in foreign countries;

Informs the Congress and American citizens on the conduct of U.S. foreign relations;

Promotes beneficial economic intercourse between the United States and other countries;

Administers the Department of State;

Supervises the Foreign Service of the United States.

1. Basic building security not even up to par with a normal building let alone a basic buildout of an Embassy.

2. Security personnel denied several times leading up to a massacre

3. Cover-up by the Secretary of State during the review ... (This topic knew day 1 on Page1 in this topic by all.)

3a. The Ambassador was taken and horribly treated in life and death before given back.

3b. CNN found evidence 3 days later (Still great security at the Embassy) and had to break the story everyone knew...

4. Another Embassy official in Yemen killed one month to the day of the last killing.

Someone has to pay for the Gross mismanagement of this and She is charged with the duties...

[visionary]

http://www.bnowire.com/inbox/?id=1172

Retired U.S. Ambassador Laurence Pope appointed Chargé d’ Affairs to Libya

STATEMENT BY VICTORIA NULAND, SPOKESPERSON

U.S. Chargé d’ Affairs to Libya

Laurence Pope has arrived in Tripoli as U.S. Chargé d’ Affairs to Libya. Mr. Pope’s selection as Chargé d’ Affairs emphasizes the commitment of the United States to the relationship between our two countries and to the people of Libya as they move forward in their transition to a democratic government. We will continue to assist as Libya builds democratic institutions and broad respect for the rule of law - the goals that Ambassador Stevens worked hard to achieve.

[visionary]

http://www.politico.com/blogs/on-congress/2012/10/cummings-rips-issa-over-libya-probe-138175.html

Cummings rips Issa over Libya probe

The firestorm over this week's House hearing on the Benghazi attacks stretched into a second day, with a top Democrat ripping House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa for staging an “absurd spectacle.”

In a letter to Issa Thursday, Maryland Rep. Elijah Cummings criticized the California Republican’s handling of the probe into the September attacks that killed Christopher Stevens, the U.S. ambassador to Libya, and three diplomatic aides.

Specifically, Cummings complained that no classified briefing was held for lawmakers on the Oversight panel – giving them no guidance as to what information was classified and what was not. He also repeated an accusation that Issa withheld key documents from Democrats on the panel before Wednesday’s hearing – which Cummings called “premature, counter-productive and potentially damaging.”

“I have grave concerns about the way [Wednesday’s] hearing devolved into a disorganized, partisan, and absurd spectacle when it should have been a serious and responsible investigation of the attack in Benghazi that killed Ambassador Stevens and three other Americans,” Cummings wrote to Issa.

[visionary]

http://www.politico.com/blogs/burns-haberman/2012/10/romney-hits-obama-administration-on-libya-response-138206.html

Romney hits Obama administration on Libya response

Mitt Romney had some harsh words for President Barack Obama's response to the terrorist attacks in Benghazi Thursday night in Asheville, N.C.

Speaking before more than 7,000 people, Romney attacked the Obama administration's reaction as another example of how he "fail to grasp the seriousness of the challenges that we face here in America."

"They said this, and I quote, 'The entire reason this has become the political topic it is is because of Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan,'" Romney recounted, to which the crowd booed. "No, President Obama, it's an issue because this is the first time in 33 years that a United States ambassador has been assassinated. Mr. President, this is an issue because we were attacked successfully by terrorists on the anniversary of 9-11. President Obama, this is an issue because Americans wonder why it was it took so long for you and your administration to admit this was a terrorist attack."

He followed up by telling the crowd that "this is a very serious issue. These are very serious questions the American people deserve serious answers and I hope they come soon."

http://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2012/10/krauthammer-nobody-died-in-watergate-138203.html

Krauthammer: 'Nobody died in Watergate'

Fox News contributor Charles Krauthammer on Thursday said that much like the Watergate scandal, the Benghazi attack fallout is going to be “about who knew up high and when,” adding, “I’ll remind you that nobody died in Watergate.”

The conservative columnist said that the “ultimate question” about the violence in Libya is who told U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice to say the deadly attack on the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi came after a protest related to an anti-Islam film trailer. Krauthammer then likened the situation to the Watergate scandal.

And this isn’t the first time the violence in Libya has been compared to the infamous scandal that brought down Nixon.

“Richard Nixon was forced out of office because he lied and because he covered some stuff up,” former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee said on Sept. 28 on Fox News. “ I’m going to be blunt and tell you this — nobody died in Watergate. We have some people who are dead because of this. There are some questions to be answered and Americans ought to demand to get answers and it doesn’t matter what the politics are.”

I don't think the administration did anything illegal here....

[visionary]

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/13/world/africa/cables-show-requests-to-state-dept-for-security-in-libya-were-focused-on-tripoli.html?smid=tw-nytimesworld&seid=auto&_r=1&

Cables Show Requests to State Dept. for Security in Libya Were Focused on Tripoli

In the weeks leading up to the attack last month on the American diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, that killed Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans, diplomats on the ground sounded increasingly urgent alarms. In a stream of diplomatic cables, embassy security officers warned their superiors at the State Department of a worsening threat from Islamic extremists, and requested that the teams of military personnel and State Department security guards who were already on duty be kept in service.

The requests were denied, but they were largely focused on extending the tours of security guards at the American Embassy in Tripoli — not at the diplomatic compound in Benghazi, 400 miles away. And State Department officials testified this week during a hearing by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform that extending the tour of additional guards — a 16-member military security team — through mid-September would not have changed the bloody outcome because it was based in Tripoli, not Benghazi.

The handling of these requests has now been caught up in a sharply partisan debate over whether the Obama administration underestimated the terrorist threat in Libya. In a debate with Representative Paul D. Ryan on Thursday night, Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. said White House officials were not told about requests for any additional security. “We weren’t told they wanted more security again,” Mr. Biden said.

[twa]

Where was Stevens 'based' ???

What about his security team that traveled with him that was withdrawn?

What kind of fool believes a single US security person supervising some locals = adequate security in direct opposition to the commanders and Ambassador's opinions?

I have no problem at all believing Joe and Obama were not informed.

[visionary]

http://www.cnn.com/2012/10/15/us/clinton-benghazi/index.html?hpt=hp_t1

Clinton: 'I take responsibility' for security ahead of Benghazi attack

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the buck stops with her when it comes to who is to blame for security ahead of a deadly assault on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya.

"I take responsibility" for what happened on September 11, Clinton said in an interview with CNN's Elise Labott soon after arriving in Lima, Peru, for a visit. The interview, one of a series given to U.S. television networks Monday night, was the first she has given about the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi.

Clinton insisted 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.

[twa]

don't think this has been posted

http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2012/10/198791.htm#.UHoBdHRSV_h.twitter

background briefing on the event

[mikered30]

Hillary took one for the team.

[visionary]

http://www.politico.com/politico44/2012/10/debate-questioner-obama-gave-me-private-libya-answer-138795.html

Debate questioner: Obama gave me private Libya answer

“After the debate, the president came over to me and spent about two minutes with me privately,” says the 61-year-old Ladka, who works at Global Telecom Supply in Mineola, N.Y. According to Ladka, Obama gave him ”more information about why he delayed calling the attack a ter[r]orist attack.” ...The rationale for the delay, Obama explained to Ladka, was to make sure that the “intelligence he was acting on was real intelligence and not disinformation,” recalls Ladka.

As to Ladka’s question about who turned down the Benghazi security requests and why, Obama reportedly told him that “releasing the individual names of anyone in the State Department would really put them at risk,” Ladka says.

[twa]

Real intelligence vs disinformation

the video didn't clue him in?...it is not like he is expected to name the attackers or anything

[visionary]

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/18/world/africa/us-singles-out-libyan-islamist-as-a-commander-in-consulate-attack-libyans-say.html

Libya Singles Out Islamist as a Commander in Consulate Attack, Libyans Say

Libyan authorities have singled out Ahmed Abu Khattala, a leader of the Benghazi-based Islamist group Ansar al-Sharia, as a commander in the attack that killed the American ambassador to Libya, J. Christopher Stevens, last month, Libyans involved in the investigation said on Wednesday.

The identity and motivation of the assailants has become an intense flash point in the American presidential campaign. Republicans have sought to tie the attack to Al Qaeda to counter President Obama’s claim that by killing Osama bin Laden and other leaders his administration had crippled the group; Mr. Abu Khattala and Ansar al-Sharia share Al Qaeda’s puritanism and militancy, but operate independently and focus only on Libya rather than on a global jihad against the West.

But Mr. Abu Khattala’s exact role, or how much of the leadership he shared with others, is not yet clear. His leadership would not rule out participation or encouragement by militants connected to Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, an Algerian Islamic insurgency that adopted the name of Bin Laden’s group a few years ago to bolster its image, but has so far avoided attacks on Western interests.

Like the other leaders of the brigade or fighters seen in the attack, Mr. Abu Khattala remains at large and has not yet been questioned. The authorities in Tripoli do not yet command an effective army or police force, and members of the recently elected Parliament have acknowledged with frustration that their government’s limited power has shackled their ability to pursue the attackers. The government typically relies on self-formed local militias to act as law enforcement, and the Benghazi area militias appear reluctant to enter a potentially bloody fight against another local group, like Ansar al-Sharia, to track down Mr. Abu Khattala.

[TheGoodBits]

Wonder if a mini-October surprise for Obama would be killing the leader that orchestrated the attack...

[visionary]

Wonder if a mini-October surprise for Obama would be killing the leader that orchestrated the attack...

That could be a surprise in more ways than one, depending on how it's handled....

[visionary]

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-libya-attack-20121020,0,95514.story

No evidence found of Al Qaeda role in Libya attack

The assault on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi last month appears to have been an opportunistic attack rather than a long-planned operation, and intelligence agencies have found no evidence that it was ordered by Al Qaeda, according to U.S. officials and witnesses interviewed in Libya.

The circumstances of the Sept. 11 attack have become a matter of heated political debate, with President Obama and Republican nominee Mitt Romney clashing in their debate Tuesday about when Obama termed the assault an act of terrorism. But the emerging picture painted by intelligence officials and witnesses differs from the assertions of both sides.

Republicans have zeroed in on possible Al Qaeda ties to the Sept. 11 attack that killed Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans, and have criticized the Obama administration for not saying early on that it was an act of terrorism. But after five weeks of investigation, U.S. intelligence agencies say they have found no evidence of Al Qaeda participation.

Rice has been widely criticized for comments she made on a round of talk show appearances Sept. 16, when she said the attack appeared to have stemmed from a protest over the video, similar to the violent demonstration at the embassy in Cairo. Rice was echoing a set of CIA talking points that have since been made public.

American officials now say there was no protest in Benghazi, only the attack, which began at 9:40 p.m. and continued at a second facility into the next morning.

On Sept. 28, a spokesman for the director of national intelligence issued a statement calling what happened "a deliberate and organized terrorist attack carried out by extremists," some with Al Qaeda links or sympathies. The spokesman, Shawn Turner, said the intelligence community first believed the attack "began spontaneously following protests earlier that day at our embassy in Cairo" but that it had revised that initial assessment.

Republicans began portraying the attack as the work of Al Qaeda, and they accused the administration of deliberately seeking to downplay that possibility.

Now, however, said another official with access to the intelligence, "it may turn out that the initial assessment was not that far off."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/benghazi-attack-becomes-political-ammunition/2012/10/19/e1ad82ae-1a2d-11e2-bd10-5ff056538b7c_story.html

CIA documents supported Susan Rice’s description of Benghazi attacks

The Romney campaign may have misfired with its suggestion that statements by President Obama and U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice about the Benghazi attack last month weren’t supported by intelligence, according to documents provided by a senior U.S. intelligence official.

“Talking points” prepared by the CIA on Sept. 15, the same day that Rice taped three television appearances, support her description of the Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. Consulate as a reaction to Arab anger about an anti-Muslim video prepared in the United States. According to the CIA account, “The currently available information suggests that the demonstrations in Benghazi were spontaneously inspired by the protests at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo and evolved into a direct assault against the U.S. Consulate and subsequently its annex. There are indications that extremists participated in the violent demonstrations.”

This isn't completely true though.

1. There weren't demonstrations in Benghazi about the film outside the consulate other than the attack.

2. All the info coming out after the attack made it pretty clear that there was some planning involved in the attack on the safehouse afterwards, if not on the consulate.

http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2012/10/19/issa_s_benghazi_document_dump_exposes_several_libyans_working_with_the_us

Issa’s Benghazi document dump exposes several Libyans working with the U.S.

House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA) compromised the identities of several Libyans working with the U.S. government and placed their lives in danger when he released reams of State Department communications Friday, according to Obama administration officials.

Issa posted 166 pages of sensitive but unclassified State Department communications related to Libya on the committee's website afternoon as part of his effort to investigate security failures and expose contradictions in the administration's statements regarding the Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi that resulted in the death of Amb. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans.

"The American people deserve nothing less than a full explanation from this administration about these events, including why the repeated warnings about a worsening security situation appear to have been ignored by this administration. Americans also deserve a complete explanation about your administration's decision to accelerate a normalized presence in Libya at what now appears to be at the cost of endangering American lives," Issa and Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) wrote today in a letter to President Barack Obama.

But Issa didn't bother to retract the names of Libyan civilians and local leaders mentioned in the cables, and just as with the WikiLeaks dump of State Department cables last year, the administration says that Issa has done damage to U.S. efforts to work with those Libyans and exposed them to physical danger from the very groups that had an interest in attacking the U.S. consulate.

[Gibbsisgod2006]

So it looks like two hours after the attack in Benghahzi the White House was aware that the Libyan attacks were results of Islamic extremist according to news outlet

"Officials at the White House and State Department were advised two hours after attackers assaulted the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, on September 11 that an Islamic militant group had claimed credit for the attack, official emails show."

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/10/24/us-usa-benghazi-emails-idUSBRE89N02C20121024