The Incompetence, Reckless Disregard For National Security And Post-Terrorist-Attack Cover-Up By The Obama Administration Is Coming To Light.

We now know that the Obama administration knew within 24 hours that the attack on the US Consulate in Libya that resulted in an American ambassador and three other Americans was a terrorist attack.  But the administration chose to cover-up that knowledge by repeatedly pointing to a video and a “spontaneous uprising” in which people protesting the video brought heavy weapons, broke into three attack elements, coordinated their attacks with one another, and, oh, never bothered to actually even HAVE a demonstration before their “spontaneous demonstration” actually became a terrorist attack.

Fully FIVE DAYS AFTER the attack on the US Consulate and at least FOUR DAYS AFTER the administration KNEW it was in fact a terrorist attack, the Obama administration sent out US Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice to specifically LIE on all five major network Sunday morning political talk shows.  Again and again, on every single major network, the Obama appointee specifically and factually lied to the American people.

There is absolutely no question that the Obama administration lied and attempted a cover-up to avoid acknowledging a terrorist attack had occurred on American soil.  The only question is WHY did they lie and attempt such an idiotic cover-up?

The new developments that prove that the Obama administration was incompetent and reckless beyond belief may be a major part of this cover-up.  For instance (Note that Jake Tapper at ABC wrote a similar story):

Bombshell: US Security Teams Removed From Libya Prior to Attack, Over Stevens’ Objections
Guy Benson, Political Editor, Townhall.com
Oct 08, 2012 01:10 PM EST

In case this recent development wasn’t egregious enough, another shoe has dropped in the Benghazi scandal — adding more fuel to the speculative fire about why the administration seemed so motivated to coordinate a dishonest cover-up (read that link) after the fact.  CBS News takes the lead on this outrageous story:

[See video from CBS News embedded at sight here]

The former head of a Special Forces “Site Security Team” in Libya tells CBS News that in spite of multiple pleas from himself and other U.S. security officials on the ground for “more, not less” security personnel, the State Department removed as many as 34 people from the country in the six months before a terrorist attack in Benghazi that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three others. Lt. Col. Andy Wood will appear this week at a House Oversight Committee hearing that will examine security decisions leading up to the Sept. 11 terrorist attack on the U.S. compound in Benghazi. Speaking to CBS News correspondent Sharyl Attkisson, Wood said when he found out that his own 16-member team and a six-member State Department elite force were being pulled from Tripoli in August – about a month before the assault in Benghazi – he felt, “like we were being asked to play the piano with two fingers. There was concern amongst the entire embassy staff.”

“They asked if we were safe,” he told Attkisson. “They asked… what was going to happen, and I could only answer that what we were being told is that they’re working on it – they’ll get us more (security personnel), but I never saw that.” Wood insists that senior staff in Libya, including Ambassador Stevens, State Department Regional Security Officer Eric Nordstrom, and himself, all wanted and had requested enhanced security. “We felt we needed more, not less,” he tells Attkisson. Asked what response their repeated pleas got from the State Department in Washington, Wood says they were simply told “to do with less. For what reasons, I don’t know.”

ABC News has more:

U.S. Ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens wanted a Security Support Team, made up of 16 special operations soldiers, to stay with him in Libya after their deployment was scheduled to end in August, the commander of that security team told ABC News. The embassy staff’s “first choice was for us to stay,” Lt. Col. Andrew Wood, 55, told ABC News in an interview. “That would have been the choice of the embassy people in Tripoli.” But a senior State Department official told ABC News that the embassy’s Regional Security Officer never specifically requested that the SST’s tour be extended past August, and the official maintained there was no net loss of security personnel…

When confronted with this damning report, a State Department official blames the lack of security on insufficient paperwork (security preferences were never “specifically requested”) and suggests that Washington believed there would be no “net” security loss on the ground.  If you believe either of those excuses, re-watch the CBS News interview above — or read this story from ABC News, which obtained a memo showing State rejecting specific security requests in Libya.  Essentially, the administration told our diplomats to do more with less and trust Libyan forces to replace the elite American security personnel.  Reporting from Newsweek’s Eli Lake highlights the problems with this strategy, which Amb. Stevens recognized and addressed in a diplomatic cable sent the very day he was assassinated:

Just two days before the 9/11 anniversary attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, two leaders of the Libyan militias responsible for keeping order in the city threatened to withdraw their men.  The brinksmanship is detailed in a cable approved by Ambassador Chris Stevens and sent on the day he died in the attack, the worst assault on a U.S. diplomatic mission since the 1979 hostage crisis in Iran. The dispatch, which was marked “sensitive” but not “classified,” contained a number of other updates on the chaotic situation on the ground in post-Gaddafi Libya.  The cable, reviewed by The Daily Beast, recounts how the two militia leaders, Wissam bin Ahmed and Muhammad al-Gharabi, accused the United States of supporting Mahmoud Jibril, the head of the Libyan transitional government, to be the country’s first elected prime minister. Jibril’s centrist National Forces Alliance won the popular vote in Libyan elections in July, but he lost the prime minister vote in the country’s Parliament on Sept. 12 by 94 to 92. Had he won, bin Ahmed and al-Gharabi warned they “would not continue to guarantee security in Benghazi, a critical function they asserted they were currently providing,” the cable reads. The man who beat Jibril, Mustafa Abushagur, lost a vote of no-confidence Sunday, throwing Libyan politics back into further uncertainty. The threat from the militias underscores the dangers of relying on local Libyan forces for security in the run-up to the 9/11 military-style assault.

Americans must ask themselves how these appalling failures were allowed to occur, and who is responsible.  The administration peddled several false tales to the public for many days after the attack, even though intelligence reports indicate that they knew better from day one.  Why?  Not only were requests for reinforcements declined, existing defenses were scaled back, in spite of numerous threats and attacks leading up to the 9/11 massacre.  Why? I’ve pondered whether the White House wanted to maintain a “light footprint” perception in Libya at all costs, rooted in political considerations.  If so, those costs were quite high, indeed.  I’ll leave you with a devastating video of the cover-up timeline, produced by Heritage.  This is slowly growing into a national scandal, but here’s why it should already be A1, above the fold every day:

UPDATE – In his wide-ranging foreign policy address in Virginia late this morning, Mitt Romney criticized the Obama administration for their serial opacity and misdirection regarding the Benghazi raid:

Last month, our nation was attacked again.  A U.S. Ambassador and three of our fellow Americans are dead—murdered in Benghazi, Libya.  Among the dead were three veterans.  All of them were fine men, on a mission of peace and friendship to a nation that dearly longs for both.  President Obama has said that Ambassador Chris Stevens and his colleagues represented the best of America.  And he is right.  We all mourn their loss. The attacks against us in Libya were not an isolated incident.  They were accompanied by anti-American riots in nearly two dozen other countries, mostly in the Middle East, but also in Africa and Asia.  Our embassies have been attacked.  Our flag has been burned. Many of our citizens have been threatened and driven from their overseas homes by vicious mobs, shouting “Death to America.” These mobs hoisted the black banner of Islamic extremism over American embassies on the anniversary of the September 11th attacks.

As the dust settles, as the murdered are buried, Americans are asking how this happened, how the threats we face have grown so much worse, and what this calls on America to do.  These are the right questions.  And I have come here today to offer a larger perspective on these tragic recent events—and to share with you, and all Americans, my vision for a freer, more prosperous, and more peaceful world.  The attacks on America last month should not be seen as random acts.  They are expressions of a larger struggle that is playing out across the broader Middle East—a region that is now in the midst of the most profound upheaval in a century.  And the fault lines of this struggle can be seen clearly in Benghazi itself. The attack on our Consulate in Benghazi on September 11th, 2012 was likely the work of forces affiliated with those that attacked our homeland on September 11th, 2001. This latest assault cannot be blamed on a reprehensible video insulting Islam, despite the Administration’s attempts to convince us of that for so long.  No, as the Administration has finally conceded, these attacks were the deliberate work of terrorists who use violence to impose their dark ideology on others, especially women and girls; who are fighting to control much of the Middle East today; and who seek to wage perpetual war on the West.

This is some of Romney’s strongest rhetoric yet on this subject.  One wonders if he’ll challenge the president even more forcefully during the final foreign policy themed presidential debate.  More on Romney’s speech later.

There are now so many examples of Obama completely screwing up prior to the murder of an American ambassador on US soil that it just makes you want to barf.

But aside from his criminal incompetence, there is yet another reason why Obama chose to cover-up this terrible terrorist attack:

Revolt of the Spooks
Intelligence officials angered by Obama administration cover up of intelligence on Iranian, al Qaeda surge in Egypt and Libya
BY: Bill Gertz
October 5, 2012 5:00 am

Weeks before the presidential election, President Barack Obama’s administration faces mounting opposition from within the ranks of U.S. intelligence agencies over what careerofficers say is a “cover up” of intelligence information about terrorism in North Africa.

Intelligence held back from senior officials and the public includes numerous classified reports revealing clear Iranian support for jihadists throughout the tumultuous North Africa and Middle East region, as well as notably widespread al Qaeda penetration into Egypt and Libya in the months before the deadly Sept. 11 terrorist attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi.

“The Iranian strategy is two-fold: upping the ante for the Obama administration’s economic sanctions against Iran and perceived cyber operations against Iran’s nuclear weapons program by conducting terror attacks on soft U.S. targets and cyber attacks against U.S. financial interests,” said one official, speaking confidentially.

The Iranian effort also seeks to take the international community’s spotlight off Iran’s support for its Syrian ally.

Two House Republicans, Reps. Darrell Issa (R., Calif.) and Jason Chaffetz (R., Utah), stated in a letter sent this week to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that officials “with direct knowledge of events in Libya” revealed that the Benghazi attack was part of a string of terror attacks and not a spontaneous uprising against an anti-Muslim video produced in the U.S. The lawmakers have scheduled congressional hearings for Oct. 10.

Susan Phalen, spokeswoman for the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Chairman Rep. Mike Rogers (R., Mich.), said the panel is “reviewing all relevant intelligence and the actions of the [intelligence community], as would be expected of the oversight committee.”

But she noted: “At this point in time it does not appear that there was an intelligence failure.”

Intelligence officials pointed to the statement issued Sept. 28 by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) that raised additional concern about the administration’s apparent mishandling of intelligence. The ODNI statement said that “in the immediate aftermath, there was information that led us to assess that the attack began spontaneously following protests earlier that day at our embassy in Cairo.”

Officials say the ODNI’s false information was either knowingly disseminated or was directed to be put out by senior policy officials for political reasons, since the statement was contradicted by numerous intelligence reports at the time of the attack indicating it was al Qaeda-related terrorism.

Among the obvious signs of terrorism was the arms used by the attackers, who were equipped with rocket-propelled grenades and assault rifles.

A U.S. intelligence official who disputes the idea of an Obama administration coverup said: “Intelligence professionals follow the information wherever it leads.”

“When there isn’t definitive information, it makes sense to be cautious,” the official said. “There has never been a dogmatic approach to analyzing what happened in Benghazi. Staying open to alternative explanations—and continually refining assessments as new and credible information surfaces—is part of the intelligence business.”

Officials with access to intelligence reports, based on both technical spying and human agents, said specific reporting revealed an alarming surge in clandestine al Qaeda activity months before the attack in Benghazi.

Yet the Obama administration sought to keep the information from becoming public to avoid exposing what the officials say is a Middle East policy failure by Obama.

Officials said that the administration appeared to engage in a disinformation campaign aimed at distancing the president personally during the peak of the presidential election campaign from the disaster in Benghazi, where numerous warning of an attack were ignored, resulting in the deaths of U.S. Ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens and three other officials.

The first part of the apparent campaign, officials said, was the false information provided to U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice, who appeared on Sunday television shows after the attack to say the event was a “spontaneous” response to an anti-Muslim video trailer posted online.

Officials said Rice was given the false information to use in media appearances in order to promote the excuse that the obscure video was the cause of the attack, and not the Islamic concept of jihad.

Rice’s claims provoked concern inside the U.S. intelligence community that intelligence about what was going on in Libya and the region was being suppressed, and led to a series of news disclosures about what would later be confirmed as an al Qaeda attack using the group Ansar al Sharia.

After Rice’s incorrect statements, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney repeated the false assessment of the Benghazi attack.

The final element of the campaign involved comments by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who was the first to give a partial explanation of the intelligence when she said al Qaeda terrorists operating from Mali were possible culprits in the Benghazi attack.

“What she failed to mention was the cooperation of Iran and Egypt in supporting jihadists in Libya,” the official said, who added the events would be investigated in an apparent effort to stave off internal critics in government.

That has led to delays in getting FBI and other U.S. investigators into Benghazi, raising concerns that some in the White House wanted to delay the FBI’s efforts to uncover evidence about the attack.

The FBI did not reach Benghazi until Thursday, ostensibly over concerns about the lack of security to protect them.

“The Obama Administration is afraid to admit al Qaeda is running rampant throughout the region because it would expose the truth instead of what President Obama so pompously spouted during the Democratic Convention” said the official.

The president said during his nomination acceptance speech that “al Qaeda is on the path to defeat,” an assertion contradicted by the group’s rise in the region.

The administration, in particular, wants to keep hidden solid intelligence showing that the terrorist group behind the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that killed nearly 3,000 Americans is now flourishing under the Muslim Brotherhood regime of Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi.

Egypt was among the locations of Obama’s 2009 so-called “apology” tour, when the president criticized past U.S. policies based on what he said was “fear and anger” that prompted actions “contrary to our ideals.” He also promised “a new beginning” for the U.S. and the world’s Muslims and a radical shift in U.S. policy.

The rise of Islamists in the region instead has produced a surge in anti-American protests and riots, culminating in the terrorist attack on the Benghazi consulate.

Recent intelligence reports show that Egypt’s Al-Azhar University in Cairo is emerging as a covert base for al Qaeda organizational and training activities for a jihadi network consisting of many nationalities.

The Morsi government has turned a blind eye to both the increased jihadist activity and Iran’s support for it in the region, particularly in Libya and Syria.

However, the administration is keeping the intelligence under wraps to avoid highlighting Obama’s culpability for the democratic aspirations of the Arab Spring being hijacked by Islamists sympathetic to al Qaeda’s terrorist ideology.

Intelligence officials said in Egypt—currently ruled by the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood—one of the key al Qaeda organizers has been identified as Muhammad al-Zawahiri, brother of al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri. Muhammad al-Zawahiri was released by Morsi in Marchafter having been sentenced to death for terrorist acts in Egypt.

In recent months Egypt-based al Qaeda terrorists were dispatched to Libya and Syria, where they have been covertly infiltrating Libyan militia groups and Syrian opposition forces opposing the Bashar al Assad regime.

In addition to Egyptian government backing, intelligence from the region has revealed that operatives from Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security, the main spy service, and from Iran’s Quds Force paramilitary group and the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps are also facilitating al Qaeda terrorists based in Egypt that are preparing to conduct operations to increase instability throughout the region.

The intelligence revealing that al Qaeda is growing in Egypt is said by officials to be one of the reasons behind Obama’s decision to cancel a meeting in New York with Morsi during the U.N. General Assembly meeting last month.

Other news outlets in recent days have revealed new internal U.S. government information that contrasts sharply or contradicts official Obama administration statements that appear designed to minimize the rise of Egyptian-origin terrorism.

The Daily Beast reported Sept. 28 that intercepted communications revealed terrorists belonging to the group Ansar al Sharia were in contact with the group Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb regarding the attack that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and others.

Communications intercepts revealed that the terrorists in Benghazi bragged about the attack, the news outlet reported.

A group called Ansar al Sharia in Egypt was formed in April 2011 and advocates violent jihad and support for al Qaeda.

The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday that terrorists linked to a former Guantanamo prison inmate, Muhammad Jamal Abu Ahmad, was one of the individuals who attacked diplomatic facilities in Libya on Sept. 11, and that intelligence reports showed some of the terrorists in the attack may have been trained in Libyan desert camps.

So we know that Obama lied and attempted a cover-up, and we pretty much know WHY Obama lied and attempted a cover-up.  The reason was basically to try to hide Obama’s incredible incompetence and the failure of his entire Middle East policy in general.

The thing we DON’T know yet is whether the American people, along with the Democrat Party, are so despicable that they frankly don’t care about the lies and frankly the treason that we have seen accompanying the incredible incompetence that resulted in the death of America’s top official in Libya and the abject humiliation of the United States as a result of the attacks against America from Muslim countries across the world.

Update, October 9, 2012: Let me add a P.S. here.

Remember Lara Logan, the CBS journalist who was raped and beaten in Egypt?  Well, they define neo-conservatives as those who have been “mugged by reality.”  Lara was raped by the reality that Muslim fundamentalists are godawful evil people.  Yeah, she just came out and said that absolutely EVERY SINGLE THING Obama is saying about foreign policy is a complete lie:

CBS’ Lara Logan Slams US Government And Says The Taliban Is As Strong As EverTiffany Gabbay, The Blaze

Blaze readers are likely familiar with CBS correspondent, Lara Logan, the wartime journalist who endured a horrific ordeal in Egypt last  summer when she was beaten and sexually assaulted by a mob of angry  Egyptian men during their Arab Spring “celebrations.” Now, Logan has a  message for the public: “they” (the Taliban and other Islamic  operatives) are as strong as ever.

During a recent keynote address at the Better Government Association annual luncheon last Tuesday, Logan delivered what the Chicago Sun Times called “a provocative speech” to some 1,100 movers in government, politics,  media, and the legal and corporate arenas. She explained that the  Taliban, al Qaeda and its proxies haven’t gone away and are in fact  re-energized and coming back in force. Logan also informed the crowd  that a “lie” is being propagated by the American government.

“I chose this subject because, one, I can’t stand, that there is a  major lie being propagated…” Logan announced. The lie is that the U.S.  military has tamed the Taliban.

“There is this narrative coming out of Washington for the last two  years,” Logan began. It is driven in part by “Taliban apologists,“ who  claim ”they are just the poor moderate, gentler, kinder Taliban.”

“It’s such nonsense!”

The Sun Times continues:

Logan stepped way out of the “objective,” journalistic role. The  audience was riveted as she told of plowing through reams of documents,  and interviewing John Allen, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan;  Afghan President Hamid Karzai, and a Taliban commander trained by  al-Qaida. The Taliban and al-Qaida are teaming up and recruiting new  terrorists to do us deadly harm, she reports. […] She made a  passionate case that our government is downplaying the strength of our  enemies in Afghanistan and Pakistan, as a rationale of getting us out of the longest war.

Logan went on to say that people have been duped into believing that  the threat of radical Islam is merely a thing of the past, saying:

“You’re not listening to what the people who are fighting you say  about this fight. In your arrogance, you think you write the script.”

The CBS foreign correspondent, who broke with her traditional  journalist’s role and actually shared her personal opinion with the  group, also called for retribution for the slaying of U.S. Ambassador  Christopher Stevens, two Navy SEALs and one additional U.S. civil  servant in Libya.

According to the Sun Times, Logan hopes America will “exact revenge  and let the world know that the United States will not be attacked on  its own soil. That its ambassadors will not be murdered, and that the  United States will not stand by and do nothing about it.”

While the Sun Times article appeared to question Logan for delving  into opinion and “being” the story rather than “reporting” the story, it is difficult to imagine that someone who experienced atrocities in the  Middle East first hand and was in fact physically assaulted could  refrain from speaking from personal experience. After all, who better  than one who lived it is qualified to judge?

We’re now learning that Obama betrayed the Americans in Libya who were screaming for more security and begging for fortifications to protect their buildings.  And instead Obama gave them LESS security.  And why?  Because Obama wanted to create the false impression that he was normalizing relations with Libya so he could claim credit for it politically.  He’s done the same thing in Afghanistan with the Taliban, deliberately creating the false dichotomy between good Taliban and bad Taliban so he could negotiate with the good Taliban and then cut and run from Afghanistan.  And decent Americans and particularly Americans who have suffered the results of Obama’s stupidity won’t have any of it.

If Obama had represented himself honestly and told the truth, he NEVER would have been elected in 2008.  And in the same manner, the only way he stands to be reelected now is to lie and lie outrageously to the American people.

Tags: 16-member team, ambassador, Attkisson, cover up, Lara Logan, lied, like we were being asked to play the piano with two fingers, security, Site Security Team, Susan Rice, Taliban, terrorist attack, to do with less, US Consulate, US Security teams removed from LIbya