Administration Clams Up About Benghazi Attack

Well, this is one way to avoid answering questions about whether security was adequate at the Benghazi consulate, what indications we had of an attack beforehand, and other uncomfortable questions that the Obama campaign — er, I mean the State Department — won’t be answering anytime soon.

Josh Rogin writing at The Cable:

“I’m going to frustrate all of you, infinitely, by telling you that now that we have an open FBI investigation on the death of these four Americans, we are not going to be in a position to talk at all about what the U.S. government may or may not be learning about how any of this this happened — not who they were, not how it happened, not what happened to Ambassador Stevens, not any of it — until the Justice Department is ready to talk about the investigation that’s its got,” State Department spokeswoman Victorian Nuland told reporters late Friday afternoon.

“So I’m going to send to the FBI for those kinds of questions and they’re probably not going to talk to you about it,” she said.

All aspects of the attack, including what led up to it, its causes, the identity of the perpetrators, and the circumstances surrounding the death of Amb. Chris Stevens and the other three Americans,are off limits for reporters.

The new policy leaves many questions about the Benghazi attack unanswered, potentially for a long time, such as the identity of the attackers, whether they were connected to protests earlier in the day in Cairo, what were the exact circumstances and cause of Stevens’s death, whether the administration had indications of the threat beforehand, and whether the consulate’s security was adequate or not.

Many of these questions are sure to be asked by lawmakers, beginning with the leaders of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, who called today for an investigation into the security procedures at the Benghazi consulate before and during the attack.

What do questions about adequate security or foreknowledge of the attack have to do with an FBI investigation into a criminal act? Those are political questions that the Obama campaign wants to stifle because they know the answers will reveal them to be incompetent boobs. One report has Hillary Clinton making the decision not to post Marines at the consulate. Shouldn’t we find out if our Secretary of State left our diplomats in a chaotic situation — a failed state where almost everyone has a gun — with inadequate protection? Shouldn’t we have the facts about what, if any information we had about potential attacks on our embassies and consulates prior to September 11?

I can understand not releasing details of some aspects of the attack, but these and other questions about what transpired prior to the assassination of our diplomats should be fair game and I hope Congress drags these people in front of a committee to tell us what they knew and when they knew it — and what they did about it.