Belated
The evidence is now clear. The administration had no warning of the attack on the Benghazi consulate apart from more than a dozen previous attacks. The AP reports:
WASHINGTON (AP) — Despite two explosions and dozens of other security threats, U.S. officials in Washington turned down repeated pleas from American diplomats in Libya to increase security at the U.S. consulate in Benghazi where the U.S. ambassador was killed, leaders of a House committee asserted Tuesday …
Issa, R-Calif. and Chaffetz, R-Utah said the Sept. 11 attack in Benghazi that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans was the latest in a long line of attacks on Western diplomats and officials in Libya in the months before Sept. 11.
The letter listed 13 incidents, but Chaffetz said in an interview there were more than 50. Two of them involved explosive devices: a June 6 blast that blew a hole in the security perimeter. The explosion was described to the committee as “big enough for forty men to go through”; and an April 6 incident where two Libyans who were fired by a security contactor threw a small explosive device over the consulate fence.
Con Coughlin of the Daily Telegraph wonders why the administration failed to notice. Coughlin says the administration was warned; that the British themselves knew of the danger and must have shared it with the US. So how could they not have known?
But with the US presidential contest entering its critical final phase, the Obama administration deftly avoided getting into any controversy over the murder of Mr Stevens and three other members of the consulate staff by leading everyone to believe the murders were not part of an al-Qaeda plot, but the result of an outbreak of violence caused by a blaphemous film clip. This was certainly the line advanced by Dr Susan Rice, the American Ambassador to the United Nations, and a close confidante of Mr Obama. …
But the real smoking gun is whether the Obama administration was warned in advance that al-Qaeda was planning an attack. A number of Israeli newspapers have suggested that Washington was warned as early as September 4 – a week earlier – that the environment in Benghazi was becoming increasingly hostile and anti-American, while in London the Foreign Office took the decision to withdraw all its consular staff from Benghazi two months before the murders. This decision was based on an intelligence assessment made by MI6 that al-Qaeda was openly operating in the area following a failed assassination attempt on Sir Dominic Asquith, Britain’s ambassador to Libya, in June.
It is well known that British intelligence works closely with its counterpart in America, and if MI6 knew al-Qaeda was operating in the Benghazi region, then it is highly likely that the CIA did too.
The White House knew the consulate was under seige 90 minutes after it started. The WSJ says the administration then made the decision to ask the Libyans for help.
The hour is 5 p.m., Sept. 11, Washington time, and the scene is an Oval Office meeting among President Obama, the secretary of defense, the national security adviser and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi has been under assault for roughly 90 minutes. Some 30 U.S. citizens are at mortal risk. The whereabouts of Ambassador Stevens are unknown.
What is uppermost on the minds of the president and his advisers? The safety of Americans, no doubt. So what are they prepared to do about it? Here is The Wall Street Journal’s account of the meeting:
“There was no serious consideration at that hour of intervention with military force, officials said. Doing so without Libya’s permission could represent a violation of sovereignty and inflame the situation, they said. Instead, the State Department reached out to the Libyan government to get reinforcements to the scene.
In the aftermath of the Benghazi attack the administration’s attitude appears to have turned 180 degrees. Today the Washington Post reports that all official Americans have been withdrawn from Benghazi. The US position has gone from “leave security to the Libyans” to “let’s get out of here” in less than three weeks.
The Obama administration has withdrawn all official government personnel from Benghazi, the Libyan city where the country’s revolution was born and where the U.S. ambassador was killed last month, U.S. officials and local residents said Monday….
“Everybody who was in Benghazi and posted there has been withdrawn,” State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said. She said she knew of no other U.S. government employees in the city to help investigate the attack or perform other work …
The FBI has been unable to set up operations in Benghazi as part of the investigation into the deaths of Stevens, information manager Sean Smith and government contractors Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods. The absence complicates efforts to gather evidence and interview witnesses.
Several Libyans who provided security for the U.S. post said they have not been questioned by U.S. or Libyan authorities about the Sept. 11 assault. Others said that some witnesses had been flown to Tripoli, the capital, where U.S. officials say the FBI team is conducting its investigation.
“I don’t know why the Americans don’t come here,” said Wissam Bin Hamid, commander of the Libyan Shield Brigade, a militia that came under sustained attack while helping defend the second compound on Sept. 11. “Maybe they are afraid.”
The Hill says that the FBI may not going to risk going into Benghazi unless they are accompanied by Marines.
Pentagon and State Department officials are considering using the Marine Corps counterterrorism units currently in Libya to provide security for the FBI team investigating the U.S. Consulate attack there.
The notion of the Marines units, which are part of the Fleet Anti-Terrorism Security Teams (FAST), running security for FBI investigators “is being discussed” within both departments, DOD spokesman Maj. Robert Firman said Monday.
What did they realize and when did they just realize it?
Belmont Commenters
How to Publish on Amazon’s Kindle for $2.99
The Three Conjectures at Amazon Kindle for $1.99
Storming the Castle at Amazon Kindle for $3.99
No Way In at Amazon Kindle $8.95, print $9.99
And then there’s the “cover” provided by an idiotic movie trailer for a movie concocted by a lifetime fraudster, who has now disappeared into some kind of federal memory hole. This guy had more pseudonyms and fake identities than Michael Westin, famous burned spy of USA Network.
Gee, who could have predicted an attack on US interests on 9/11 anniversary? Good thing we had a scapegoat all set to go.
It is a rousing distraction from QEternity and a dismal economy, at cost of only one ambassador and a few expendable mercenary types. Good thing first debate is limited to “domestic issues”.
Ignorance. It’s not only invincible, now it is policy.
““There was no serious consideration at that hour of intervention with military force, officials said. Doing so without Libya’s permission could represent a violation of sovereignty and inflame the situation, they said. Instead, the State Department reached out to the Libyan government to get reinforcements to the scene.”
Good frakking lord.
Abdicating your responsibility as Commander-in-Chief because you don’t want to hurt someone’s feelings? Dear Liar already violated Libya’s sovereignty by intervening to overthrow Gaddafi. Malevolent incompetence.
These Obama appointees are like children playing against men. Not just incompetent, but naively unaware of the reality of adult life.
The joke of it is that Obama’s chief foreign policy concern in the Middle East seems to have been preventing Israel from attacking Iran to eliminate the Iranian nuclear threat. The real worry should be which American city will be eviscerated first, and will it happen before the election or immediately afterwards? Antrax anyone?
Then, consider again poor Israel, depending on Obama’s great foreign policy insight to deal with the Iranian threat in their behalf. Hell, if this little demonstration of Obama Administration incompetence doesn’t convince Netanyahu to unilaterally defend Israel, then Netanyahu is a fraud as well.
All assertions, insinuations, implications and assumptions contained within the above-piece are racist. “Nuff said.
There was no serious consideration at that hour of intervention with military force, officials said. Doing so without Libya’s permission could represent a violation of sovereignty and inflame the situation, they said. Instead, the State Department reached out to the Libyan government to get reinforcements to the scene.
In a real country that would have been SOP, but this is Libya, with Benghazi on the coast. Still, it was already too late.
Months too late.
And maybe neither Stevens nor his team should have been there, especially given past history and, you know, the month and day, not to mention the kerfuffle in Egypt at the same time. You don’t watch your own six, who will.
How can we make sure that our diplomats and policy makers actually do know what they are doing?
We can be certain that the Muslim influence in the 0bama Whitehouse and the Muslim Brotherhood seductress in Hildabeast State Department had a lot to do with the false sense of security there, Egypt and other ME hotspots.
Libyan security upgrade denied, Ambassador Stevens died, the Obama Administration lies… Any questions?
Obama ain’t no Teddy Roosevelt, that’s for sure. Palin’s suggestion that he “grow a big stick” was useless due to the fact that Obama is a Eurosexual weenie of the first rank. And this is the outcome of a “war” (excuse — kinetic military action) that was done without authorization by Congress because one of the crazed harridans that this limp noodle surrounds himself with wanted to “P2P” to assuage the world’s “guilt” for Rwanda.
We are the plaything of morons.
9. EBL
BIN LADEN IS DEAD BUT AL QAEDA’s ALIVE AND GM’s GOING BANKRUPT AGAIN
I’m fairly certain this was posted here before, but if you haven’t seen it you must watch it. It’s a clip from Bret Baier’s program on Fox News that gives a straight-up, factual accounting of the timeline of this Charlie Foxtrot. When put in the proper order and context, it’s devastating (to anyone who doesn’t have his nose already up Buraq’s ass).
http://www.therightscoop.com/special-report-details-an-up-to-date-extensive-time-line-of-events-from-the-benghazi-attack-to-now/
It’s a bit surreal to live through one Presidential term that had more scandals capable of taking down an administration than all others in modern history combined. Yet it all keeps sliding right off Buraq, thanks to the enemedia who are in full-on palace guard mode. And they called Reagan the “Teflon President”???
If Obama were the Saudi’s very own Manchurian Candidate he might have three foreign policy objectives:
1. Diminish the influence of Israel and make it more vulnerable to Muslim aggression. Say by dissing Israeli leaders and replacing pro-Western Mubarack/Military with the Muslim Brotherhood, and then sending them gobs of money so they can get firmly established atop Egyptian rivals? Rinse and repeat with other pro-Western leaders.
2. Diminish the influence of Shiite Iran by imposing economic sanctions and by doing nothing that would stop the Iranian bomb. What you say? How does the Iranian bomb fit into this?
What could possibly please the Saudis more than for Israel and Iran to square off with nukes? It would be a twofer – the best possible situation. Surely the Saudis are well familiar with how quickly the Muslim hordes were able to burst out of the peninsula with little opposition from war-weary Persia and Byzantium. If Mohammed followed that strategy then they should too.
3. Further objective 1 and 2 by enabling Sunni jihadis wherever possible. Does not the murder of a US Ambassador enhance the stature of AQ and the Salafists? Maybe Stephens was left unprotected and killed because the Administration wanted it to happen.
If you were writing a novel would this not be a believable plot? It makes more sense than any explanation coming out of DC.
So they’re “considering” using Marines actually in Libya to protect the FBI? It’s “being discussed”, even? By next week, they might have worked their way up to “weighing the option”. And by the end of October, they might be all the way up to “mulling”.
“…that the environment in Benghazi was becoming increasingly hostile and anti-American,…”
Well, crap! Why did they not send Valerie Plame’s diplomat husband to verify the accuracy of the British Intelligence report, which The Dems and Hollywood have assured us was an utterly infalible method?
Better, yet, why did they not send both Valerie and her hubby, wearing Obama T shirts and handing out Obama 2012 bumper stickers?
Hey! It’s not too late to correct this. Get those two on a plane to Libya right now!
I can’t tell if Obama’s request for Libyan help is idiotic or genius. How can a sane person believe that one group of Muslims is going to stop another group of Muslims from killing infidels? They’d more likely *help* with the killing. For an Islamophile like Obama, that could be a feature not a bug. If they do nothing, are ineffective, or worse help their coreligionists, he can always deny responsibility for the disaster (“I asked for help”) while further entrenching the Brotherhood.
So let’s get this straight.
Stevens illegally enters Libya on a freighter stuffed with spooks and guns at a time then the US is bombing and murdering Libyans for months while Hillary Clinton applauds and cackles, and it’s news that some Libyans may wish him ill?
This administration comprises only three types of people: incompetents, delusionals, and traitors.
People who self-identify as Democrats need to open their eyes. The administration has utterly perverted everything the Democrat Party USED to support.