In the 9-11 assault on the US consulate in Benghazi, Libya, the United States lost four of our best and brightest, including the first American ambassador killed in the field since 1979, and two former SEALS.
We also lost a great deal of sensitive information that will compromise our ongoing operations in Libya.
The US administration is now facing a crisis in Libya. Sensitive documents have gone missing from the consulate in Benghazi and the supposedly secret location of the “safe house” in the city, where the staff had retreated, came under sustained mortar attack. Other such refuges across the country are no longer deemed “safe”.
Some of the missing papers from the consulate are said to list names of Libyans who are working with Americans, putting them potentially at risk from extremist groups, while some of the other documents are said to relate to oil contracts.
According to senior diplomatic sources, the US State Department had credible information 48 hours before mobs charged the consulate in Benghazi, and the embassy in Cairo, that American missions may be targeted, but no warnings were given for diplomats to go on high alert and “lockdown”, under which movement is severely restricted.
We had the warning regarding the Cairo attack here on the Tatler on Monday, as I’ve pointed out over and over again. That warning came from the Egyptian press, so it was in open source material easily accessible to our intelligence agencies. The US government should have picked it up, and may have for all we know, but President Obama had been skipping his daily intel briefings of late. He is, so his aides told us, so brilliant that he doesn’t need briefings.
Yet no warnings were issued to our diplomats in the field. Security was not enhanced. In Libya, the locally hired security forces reportedly chose Mohammad over the lives our ambassadorial staff and allowed the attack to happen.
Who couldn’t have seen that coming?
The Pentagon denies, but reports have been circulating that the Marines protecting the Cairo embassy were not even allowed to carry live ammunition.
On 9-11.
It would be nice if this Administration could rise to the level of “clusterfuck.”
Gotta walk before you can run. They’re still doing chicken diddle 101.
– sacrificed for Obama’s re-election.
Fox has a bit more on this.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/09/13/consulate-attack-planned-as-2-part-militant-assault-libyan-official-says/
Where was Hillary, still on her 9-planet tour?
President Obama had to at least had these basic warnings. That would lead one to conclude he was avoiding the critical intel meetings intentionally, knowing that he would then be expected to take precautionary action and spoil the planned 9/11 celebrations. Quite a revolutionary approach to leadership.
Didn’t you hear? Obama has a printed daily briefing delivered to the official residence.
He’s skipped his last 8 or so actual briefings, and has missed over half of them since taking office.
It’s an open question whether he actually READS the paper he has delivered each day. Administration insiders tried to spin this daily paper as proof he’s more involved than Bush was — but admitted Bush had daily BRIEFINGS where he actually communicated with people and could ask questions and stuff.
What a contrast in leadership. A man they condemn as an idiot receives his security briefers every morning. He actually has exchanges with those security personnel.
The other guy, “the smartest guy in the room”, doesn’t need the detail and doesn’t need it everyday. He can hold the sealed envelope to his forehead, ala Karnak the Magnificent, and spit out the answer before he knows the question. SOB is pretty good.
OffT Meanwhile all Americans are getting a pay cut as our government announced its printing money to help the economy. These people failed or skipped all their classes, didn’t they?
OnT But of course they all thought they were safe in Libya and Egypt. We’re all friends. What could go wrong? The security detail is mainly for show anyway.
Bryan, I have seen repeated assertions that sensitive information went missing and yet no sourcing for that info. I’m not surprised it wasn’t destroyed before leaving the premises, though I think that is procedure (unless you’ve rpgs raining down on you….).
Remember that they were first moved from the consulate to another building, then overwhelmed. If the papers were in the consulate, they may not have had time to destroy them. If the papers were on the ambassador, they may not have thought it necessary.
POTUS was too busy running for reelection to an office he’s not qualified to hold.
And buried under the news from the Middle East is helicopter Ben’s addition of nitromethane fuel-injectors to the FED’s printing presses. The plutocrats expressed their delight on Wall and Broad today.
http://evilbloggerlady.blogspot.com/2012/09/there-were-warnings-48-hours-before.html That this is not major news is a disgrace. And if it turns out that Ambassador Stevens was raped as has been reported, I do not see how Barack Obama blames Bush or Romney for that.
But then again, never underestimate their ability and willingness to lie.
It is absolutely breathtaking, but almost certainly true, that the Benghazi consulate retained documents with the names and details of sensitive contacts in Libya in clear text without any encryption.
These practices are callously reckless but to be expected from mollycoddled government employees who regard themselves as superior to mere mortals.
Security services and private companies have known for decates – at least since World War II – that sensitive information must ALWAYS be protected by several layers of security including pseudonyms, encryption, physical security, departmentalization etc.
decades
I can’t help wonder if this whole fiasco was part of a false-flag gone wrong. We know how desperate the white house occupant is to be re-electedand, it wouldn’d be the first time a ‘double game’ blows up at the wrong time.
Where’s Petraeus in all of this? We also know that MB has infiltrated the white house; an investigation needs to start yesterday.
Something stinks to high heavenand, nobody’s life deserves to be sacrificed for politcal games and desperation.
Hillary – Obama, the team that couldn’t shoot straight!
Our US Ambassador to Egypt is KIDNAPPED, missing for HOURS. RAPED. SUFFOCATED.
Our MARINES were not allowed to have BULLETS (the Barney Fife approach).
You tell me, what should the response be?
The Libyan ambassador was sodomized, killed and his dead body was dragged through the streets while Obama praised the brave men who “took his body to a hospital.”