Sept 2012: U.S. Ambassador in Libya and two others killed in attack of consulate

[Rifleman62]

I laughed out loud tonight when ABC's Dianne Sawyer, gravely and breathlessly announce the three week old news. I guess the US Obama media party can't hide the obvious anymore.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

Too true ... about this and anything else in Washington, from either side of the aisle.

I'm not a great believer in the trustworthiness of mainstream media but the Financial Times is better, more thoughtful, less biased, than most of its mainstream or blogosphere counterparts and I often nod my head in agreement. I did again on reading this editorial which is reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from the Financial Times:

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/d0e708de-0716-11e2-92ef-00144feabdc0.html#axzz27woSDLdI



America, official, institutional America, as represented by the politicians, media personalities, lobbyists, denizens of think tanks, academic and other hangers-on in DC, is corrupt. That applies to Democrats, Republicans (of both the RINO and Tea Party variety) and Independents alike.

I actually think taking MEK off the list is good, it's a swipe at Iran, gives them a chance to survive with a hostile Iraqi government and it's withering away on it's own. it might be useful to use some elements of it against Iran as a concerted effort to help the minorities in Iran will force the Persians to look inward.

 

[Edward Campbell]

I actually think taking MEK off the list is good, it's a swipe at Iran, gives them a chance to survive with a hostile Iraqi government and it's withering away on it's own. it might be useful to use some elements of it against Iran as a concerted effort to help the minorities in Iran will force the Persians to look inward.

But that's not why US legislators took MEK off the list ... they did it for money. Doing the right thing for the wrong reasons is often worse than just doing the wrong thing.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

I see an accusation of money changing hands but is there proof? I have no doubt they lobbied for the change and that's pretty much what you have to do to get anything onto the Congressional plate. Otherwise they would stay on it even after the last member dies.

 

[cupper]

Interesting side bar, if you want to keep secrets, DON'T TELL CONGRESS.

Letting us in on a secret

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/dana-milbank-letting-us-in-on-a-secret/2012/10/10/ba3136ca-132b-11e2-ba83-a7a396e6b2a7_story.html?hpid=z6

By Dana Milbank, Published: October 10

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.”

A State Department official assured him that the material was “entirely unclassified” and that the photo was from a commercial satellite. “I totally object to the use of that photo,” Chaffetz continued. He went on to say that “I was told specifically while I was in Libya I could not and should not ever talk about what you’re showing here today.”

Now that Chaffetz had alerted potential bad guys that something valuable was in the photo, the chairman, Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), attempted to lock the barn door through which the horse had just bolted. “I would direct that that chart be taken down,” he said, although it already had been on C-SPAN. “In this hearing room, we’re not going to point out details of what may still in fact be a facility of the United States government or more facilities.”

May still be a facility? The plot thickened — and Chaffetz gave more hints. “I believe that the markings on that map were terribly inappropriate,” he said, adding that “the activities there could cost lives.”

In their questioning and in the public testimony they invited, the lawmakers managed to disclose, without ever mentioning Langley directly, that there was a seven-member “rapid response force” in the compound the State Department was calling an annex. One of the State Department security officials was forced to acknowledge that “not necessarily all of the security people” at the Benghazi compounds “fell under my direct operational control.”

And whose control might they have fallen under? Well, presumably it’s the “other government agency” or “other government entity” the lawmakers and witnesses referred to; Issa informed the public that this agency was not the FBI.

“Other government agency,” or “OGA,” is a common euphemism in Washington for the CIA. This “other government agency,” the lawmakers’ questioning further revealed, was in possession of a video of the attack but wasn’t releasing it because it was undergoing “an investigative process.”

Or maybe they were referring to the Department of Agriculture.

That the Benghazi compound had included a large CIA presence had been reported but not confirmed. The New York Times, for example, had reported that among those evacuated were “about a dozen CIA operatives and contractors.” The paper, like The Washington Post, withheld locations and details of the facilities at the administration’s request.

But on Wednesday, the withholding was on hold.

The Republican lawmakers, in their outbursts, alternated between scolding the State Department officials for hiding behind classified material and blaming them for disclosing information that should have been classified. But the lawmakers created the situation by ordering a public hearing on a matter that belonged behind closed doors.

Republicans were aiming to embarrass the Obama administration over State Department security lapses. But they inadvertently caused a different picture to emerge than the one that has been publicly known: that the victims may have been let down not by the State Department but by the CIA. If the CIA was playing such a major role in these events, which was the unmistakable impression left by Wednesday’s hearing, having a televised probe of the matter was absurd.

The chairman, attempting to close his can of worms, finally suggested that “the entire committee have a classified briefing as to any and all other assets that were not drawn upon but could have been drawn upon” in Benghazi.

Good idea. Too bad he didn’t think of that before putting the CIA on C-SPAN.

danamilbank@washpost.com

 

[tomahawk6]

Lying to Congress is a crime. Lying to a judge is a crime. Lying to yourself ....

 

[Canadian.Trucker]

Lying to yourself ....

is a national past time?

 

[Jarnhamar]

I'm confused. Does all this mean there wasn't even a riot at the consulate over the release of that stupid movie?

Was the riot story just a cover up?  Or was there still a riot which masked the attack?

 

[Old Sweat]

According to what has been reported more recently based on information from the consulate, there was no demonstration. The consulate reported the streets were clear at about 2020, and all was quiet until armed men were observed entering the compound roughly an hour later.

 

[cupper]

An interview I heard on NPR last week discussed the situation, and one analyst discussed the possibility that the attack was planned in a quick reaction situation. Specifically, when news broke of the protests at the Embassy in Cairo, AQ organizers in Benghazi moved quickly to take advantage of any crowds protesting as cover for an attack. Since no protests were developing, the group decided to proceed anyway, with the hope that the start of the assault would be mistaken and they could gain some advantage.

The analyst did make the caveat that this was only speculation, but it fit with the profile of the current view of how AQ has now become a network of loosely affiliated groups whose individual causes may be unrelated, but share resources and intelligence to further their own agendas.

 

[Old Sweat]

It is possible, but given the intelligence that an attack was being planned along with the previous actvity, the theory has to be wildly speculative, if not developed by Parris Hilton. Still . . .

 

[cupper]

It's going to take months before an accurate picture comes out of what actually happened. And even then it may not be complete.

 

[Journeyman]

An interview I heard on NPR last week discussed the situation, and one analyst discussed the possibility .....

Any more detail on "the analyst"?  It's a pretty amorphous term.....much like some mainstream, hard-copy bloggers calling themselves "journalists."

"Analyst" presupposes analysis.....which requires information -- preferably factual (although not always available) -- upon which to base one's analysis.

 

[Rifleman62]

It is like "estimates" being considered facts in the media.

 

[Haletown]

Biden threw the Intel Community under the bus in the VP debate . . . and now the back begins.

""During the vice presidential debate, we were disappointed to see Vice President Biden blame the intelligence community for the inconsistent and shifting response of the Obama administration to the terrorist attacks in Benghazi. Given what has emerged publicly about the intelligence available before, during, and after the September 11 attack, it is clear that any failure was not on the part of the intelligence community, but on the part of White House decision-makers who should have listened to, and acted on, available intelligence. Blaming those who put their lives on the line is not the kind of leadership this country needs."


http://washingtonexaminer.com/ex-cia-chief-white-house-not-intel-community-to-blame-for-benghazi/article/2510568#.UHmN55G9KSM


So the White House now is saying it was the State Department that screwed the pooch . . .  that's Hillary's State Department, so more push back, but this time serious push back.  Willy isn't happy about anything rocking the Hillary 2016 Boat.

"With tensions between President Obama and the Clintons at a new high, former President Bill Clinton is moving fast to develop a contingency plan for how his wife, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, should react if Obama attempts to tie the Benghazi fiasco around her neck, according to author Ed Klein.

In an exclusive interview with The Daily Caller, Klein said sources close to the Clintons tell him that Bill Clinton has assembled an informal legal team to discuss how the Secretary of State should deal with the issue of being blamed for not preventing the Benghazi terrorist attack last month.

White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters during a press conference Friday that responsibility for the consulate in Libya fell on the State Department, not the White House."



Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2012/10/12/author-ed-klein-as-benghazi-blame-nears-hillary-clintons-grow-furious/#ixzz29CAXuqn4



Somone invented that cover up story . . .  the White House has blamed a video, the Intel Community and the State Departmnet/Hillary . . . . recall that Watergate was all about the cover up. 

The MSM is doing their very best to back page this story but it will not die.

Could it explode in Obama's face with three weeks left in the election and could it be the fuse that leads to voters to take off the rose coloured glasses on the last four years?

We will see.

 

[Retired AF Guy]

A minor comment. Shouldn't the title of this threat be, "U.S. Ambassador in Libya and two three others killed in attack of consulate" since four people were killed;  U.S. Ambassador Libya Christopher Stevens and State Department computer specialist Sean Smith died in the consulate from smoke inhalation. Two others, Glen Doherty and Tyrone Wood, both former Navy SEALs , were killed at the embassy annex, which was a few blocks away.

Another observation, I still haven't heard any explanation as to how the Ambassador (and Mr. Smith) ending up being separated from the rest of the consulate staff during the attack. It almost looks like they got abandoned during the attack.

 

[Old Sweat]

A minor comment. Shouldn't the title of this threat be, "U.S. Ambassador in Libya and two three others killed in attack of consulate" since four people were killed;  U.S. Ambassador Libya Christopher Stevens and State Department computer specialist Sean Smith died in the consulate from smoke inhalation. Two others, Glen Doherty and Tyrone Wood, both former Navy SEALs , were killed at the embassy annex, which was a few blocks away.

Another observation, I still haven't heard any explanation as to how the Ambassador (and Mr. Smith) ending up being separated from the rest of the consulate staff during the attack. It almost looks like they got abandoned during the attack.

A narrative I read had the Ambassador and Mr Smith hidden in a secure room that was designed to be impregnable and the rest of the party made a very visible attempt to escape. The plan failed.

 

[Old Sweat]

Rex Murphy's take on the situation from the National Post is reproduced under the Fair  Dealings provision of the Copyright Act.

Rex Murphy: Did Obama cover-up the Benghazi attack?
Rex Murphy | Oct 13, 2012 12:01 AM ET

Big Bird may flap his useless wings for another few days, and pundits may argue about who won Thursday’s vice-presidential debate. But in the world of U.S. politics, Benghazi is the story.

Or, at any rate, it should be.

It’s been a month since what were then described as “riots” in Benghazi escalated — so the story went — into a full-scale armed attack, and resulted in the murder of the American ambassador, Chris Stevens, and three others.

At the time, almost all the talk and outrage was about a wretched video, the odd and amateur Innocence of Muslims, made by some crackpot in California. For days, the air was thick with remorse and apology over the Islamophobic film. The death of an ambassador, the storming of the consulate, the actual attack itself, got drowned in the fever of denunciation about a 14-minute film.

Innocence of Muslims, in the view of everyone from Barack Obama, to Hillary Clinton, to Susan Rice, the US Ambassador to the UN, was one of the most contemptible and vile sets of moving images ever to convey images and sound.

And yet, here in the West, mocking the fervour of religious “believers” (Christians, especially) is almost an official sport in entertainment and artistic circles — from Saturday Night Live to shows that are actually funny. And so the outrage and unction of Hillary and Obama on this file simply didn’t ring true.

More telling than their zeal in denouncing Innocence of Muslims was their suggestion that it was this video, and the “spontaneous” protest the video generated — not anti-Americanism, nor some other hatred — that was the precipitating agent. They hung a huge tragic event on a slender thread.

But a month later, very few are talking about the video anymore. A series of revelations about such matters as inadequate security at the compound, denied requests for greater security and a much more detailed account of actual events that night, raise serious questions that the Obama administration has yet fully to acknowledge, let alone answer.

First and foremost, the world now knows that there was no riot and no protest in Benghazi. Everything was calm till the moment of a prepared, large-scale and brutal terrorist attack. Most likely, it was a revenge “hit” for the killing of an al-Qaeda commander, and was planned to send a message on the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.

So where did we get the narrative that this was an outgrowth of a protest over a video? And why did the Obama camp hang on so long to a wrong account of what actually happened? Why did they deliberately seek to inflate and exaggerate the importance of the video?

One reason is obvious. An administration bragging that bin Laden is dead, and that his surviving al-Qaeda lieutenants are quivering in fear, doesn’t want a successful attack on one of its diplomatic compounds to be attributed to the very terrorist group it claims to have tamed — not two months before an election, certainly.

The furious spin of the first few days, and in particular the absolutely empty claims put forward so vigorously, and without qualification, by Ambassador Rice, might constitute more than an error. They may prove to be deliberate efforts to smother what really happened in a cloud of misinformation.

There is an air of subterfuge on this story. And as is well known since the days of Richard Nixon: It’s not the crime — it’s the cover-up.

The most valued personal quality in a presidential candidate is the ability to inspire and hold trust on matters large and small. As the administration’s Benghazi storyline unravels, as parts of it prove to be demonstrably false, the Obama campaign may be set for a larger panic than that stirred by the President’s curiously apathetic performance in last week’s debate against Mitt Romney.

The incidents at Benghazi, and the stories told about them, have the potential to seriously turn this presidential contest.

 

[observor 69]

The New York Times

October 12, 2012


After Benghazi Attack, Private Security Hovers as an Issue

By JAMES RISEN


WASHINGTON — Lost amid the election-year wrangling over the militants’ attack on the United States Mission in Benghazi, Libya, is a complex back story involving growing regional resentment against heavily armed American private security contractors, increased demands on State Department resources and mounting frustration among diplomats over ever-tighter protections that they say make it more difficult to do their jobs.

The Benghazi attacks, in which the United States ambassador and three other Americans were killed, come at the end of a 10-year period in which the State Department — sending its employees into a lengthening list of war zones and volatile regions — has regularly ratcheted up security for its diplomats. The aggressive measures used by private contractors eventually led to shootings in Afghanistan and Iraq that provoked protests, including an episode involving guards from an American security company, Blackwater, that left at least 17 Iraqis dead in Baghdad’s Nisour Square.

The ghosts of that shooting clearly hung over Benghazi. Earlier this year, the new Libyan government had expressly barred Blackwater-style armed contractors from flooding into the country. “The Libyans were not keen to have boots on the ground,” one senior State Department official said.

That forced the State Department to rely largely on its own diplomatic security arm, which officials have said lacks the resources to provide adequate protection in war zones.

On Capitol Hill this week, Democrats and Republicans sparred at a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing over what happened in Benghazi, whether security at the mission was adequate, and what — if anything — could have been done to prevent the tragedy.

But amid calls for more protection for diplomats overseas, some current and former State Department officials cautioned about the risks of going too far. “The answer cannot be to operate from a bunker,” Eric A. Nordstrom, who until earlier this year served as the chief security officer at the United States Embassy in Tripoli, Libya, told the committee.

Barbara K. Bodine, who served as ambassador to Yemen when the destroyer Cole was bombed in 2000, said: “What we need is a policy of risk management, but what we have now is a policy of risk avoidance. Nobody wants to take responsibility in case something happens, so nobody is willing to have a debate over what is reasonable security and what is excessive.”

For the State Department, the security situation in Libya came down in part to the question of whether it was a war zone or just another African outpost.

Even though the country was still volatile in the wake of the bloody rebellion that ousted Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, the State Department did not include Libya on a list of dangerous postings that are high priority for extra security resources.

Only the American Embassies in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan are exempted from awarding security contracts to the lowest bidder. Dangerous posts are allowed to consider “best value” contracting instead, according to a State Department inspector general’s report in February. 

The large private security firms that have protected American diplomats in Iraq and Afghanistan sought State Department contracts in Libya, and at least one made a personal pitch to the ambassador, J. Christopher Stevens, who was killed in the militants’ attack in Benghazi on Sept. 11, according to a senior official at one firm.

But given the Libyan edict banning the contractors, the Obama administration was eager to reduce the American footprint there. After initially soliciting bids from major security companies for work in Libya, State Department officials never followed through.

“We went in to make a pitch, and nothing happened,” said the security firm official. He said the State Department could have found a way around the Libyans’ objections if it had wanted to.

Instead, the department relied on a small British company to provide several unarmed Libyan guards for security at the mission in Benghazi. For the personal protection of the diplomats, the department largely depended on its Diplomatic Security Service.

The wrangling over protection is part of a larger debate that has been under way for years within the State Department over how to balance security with the need of American diplomats to move freely.

Many diplomats rankle at the constraints imposed on them by security officials, who demand that they travel around foreign capitals in heavily armored convoys that local civilians find insulting and that make it nearly impossible for the envoys to meet discreetly with foreign officials. Many American diplomats have also grown deeply frustrated by the constraints imposed on them by working in the new, highly secure embassies that have been constructed around the world over the past decade.

After the 1998 bombings of two American embassies in East Africa by Al Qaeda, the State Department began a multibillion-dollar program to replace many embassies with hardened and highly secure facilities. American construction companies with experience in building prisons and military barracks won many of the contracts to build cookie-cutter buildings that look more like fortresses than diplomatic outposts. Between 2001 and 2010, 52 embassies were built, and many others are now under construction or being designed.

Often located in remote suburban areas far from crowded streets, the buildings are designed to withstand truck bombs, but they also require local security forces and heavily armed guards to resist the type of attack that the militants staged in Benghazi.

But many diplomats say the fortified embassies make it difficult for them to do their jobs, forcing them to find ways around them. Ronald E. Neumann, who served as the ambassador in Afghanistan from 2005 to 2007, and who worked in Baghdad before that, said that many foreign officials refuse to come into American Embassies because they are insulted by the intrusive security measures, and they do not want American officials coming to their homes with huge convoys.

“So you meet people in hotels,” said Mr. Neumann, now the president of the American Academy of Diplomacy in Washington. The security “has forced you to get more creative.”

That can mean taking more risks. “A lot of people are simply violating the security regulations to do their jobs,” said Anthony H. Cordesman, a national security analyst at the Center for International and Strategic Studies in Washington. “They have to find ways to get out, and sometimes they end-run the security officer, or sometimes the security officer will turn a blind eye.”

In fact, just as the Benghazi attack occurred, the State Department’s building department was beginning to address some of the frustrations by proposing more open and accessible designs for embassies. Under the new policy, embassies will still have to meet the same security standards, but the State Department will require that a higher priority be given to the visual appearance of buildings and will try to situate them in more central locations so that they are not so isolated. It is unclear whether the Benghazi crisis will force the State Department to abandon the new design policy.

“The problem is that embassies no longer function as public buildings,” said Jane Loefller, the author of “The Architecture of Diplomacy,” a history of the design and construction of American embassies. “They used to be public, but no longer.”

For the State Department, finding the right balance between security and diplomacy has become increasingly difficult in a political environment. Perhaps no one understands that as well as Patrick F. Kennedy.

Five years ago, Mr. Kennedy, then the under secretary of state for management in the Bush administration, was caught up in a high-profile Congressional investigation of the episode in Nisour Square. Democratic lawmakers on the House Oversight Committee criticized the department for lax management of overly aggressive security contractors.

This week, Mr. Kennedy, who has the same job in the Obama administration, faced Republicans on the same House committee, who criticized the State Department for lax management and failing to provide more aggressive security in Benghazi.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/13/world/africa/private-security-hovers-as-issue-after-embassy-attack-in-benghazi-libya.html?_r=1&hp

 

[Retired AF Guy]

A minor comment. Shouldn't the title of this threat be, "U.S. Ambassador in Libya and two three others killed in attack of consulate" since four people were killed;  U.S. Ambassador Libya Christopher Stevens and State Department computer specialist Sean Smith died in the consulate from smoke inhalation. Two others, Glen Doherty and Tyrone Wood, both former Navy SEALs , were killed at the embassy annex, which was a few blocks away.

Another observation, I still haven't heard any explanation as to how the Ambassador (and Mr. Smith) ending up being separated from the rest of the consulate staff during the attack. It almost looks like they got abandoned during the attack.

A narrative I read had the Ambassador and Mr Smith hidden in a secure room that was designed to be impregnable and the rest of the party made a very visible attempt to escape. The plan failed.

A panic room in other words. I guess the security people never envisioned that the bad guys might just burn the whole place down.

Having said that, as previous articles state, there's only so much you can do before your security measures become counter-productive.