Barack Obama claimed that he referred to the Libya attack as an “act of terror” in a short speech he gave at the Rose Garden just before he flew off to do a fundraiser in Las Vegas. It’s bullcrap, of course (and if memory serves, George W. Bush did NOT run off to do a fundraiser the day after the previous 9/11 attack), and as I document here, Obama HIMSELF – not to mention his entire administration – proves that he did NOT call the Libya attack a terrorist attack.
But just for the sake of argument, let’s say Obama DID call the worst terrorist attack on American soil since that last devastating 9/11 attack that the more recent one was timed to mock “an act of terror.” You know, just before jetting off to do a fundraiser. Let’s say that Obama DID call it an act of terror. Then the jackass-in-chief instructed his Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice to go to all five major network political programs and repeatedly say the exact opposite. And then Obama sent out his press secretary Jay Carney to say the exact opposite. And then he sent out Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to say the exact opposite. And then two weeks later after being asked on both The View and on Univision whether it was a terrorist attack Obama refused to answer the question that Obama now says he’d actually already answered and instead said, “We’re still investigating.” As bizarre and as dishonest as that is, let’s say that Obama actually DID call the attack on sovereign US territory in Libya an “act of terror.”
How in the hell would that excuse him for his abject failure of leadership that resulted in the murder of the first United States ambassador since Jimmy Carter was screwing up the universe way back in 1979? And just why the hell is it that two of the last three Democrat presidents have killed US ambassadors versus ZERO of the last three Republican presidents, anyway???
We now know for a fact that not only did murdered US Ambassador Chris Stevens ask for more security – only to have the inadequate security that he had CUT by Obama – but we now that in fact Ambassador Stevens was begging for more security at least forty days before his murder. And in fact for SEVEN MONTHS prior to this attack security professionals were telling Obama there was a very big problem in Benghazi:
Documents show Stevens worried about Libya security threats, Al Qaeda before consulate attack
By James Rosen
Published October 19, 2012
FoxNews.comAcross 166 pages of internal State Department documents — released Friday by a pair of Republican congressmen pressing the Obama administration for more answers on the Benghazi terrorist attack — slain U.S. Ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens and the security officers assigned to protect him repeatedly sounded alarms to their superiors in Washington about the intensifying lawlessness and violence in Eastern Libya, where Stevens ultimately died.
On Sept. 11 — the day Stevens and three other Americans were killed — the ambassador signed a three-page cable, labeled “sensitive,” in which he noted “growing problems with security” in Benghazi and “growing frustration” on the part of local residents with Libyan police and security forces. These forces the ambassador characterized as “too weak to keep the country secure.”
In the document, Stevens also cited a meeting he had held two days earlier with local militia commanders. These men boasted to Stevens of exercising “control” over the Libyan Armed Forces, and threatened that if the U.S.-backed candidate for prime minister were to prevail in Libya’s internal political jockeying, “they would not continue to guarantee security in Benghazi.”
Roughly a month earlier, Stevens had signed a two-page cable, also labeled “sensitive,” that he entitled “The Guns of August: Security in Eastern Libya.” Writing on Aug. 8, the ambassador noted that in just a few months’ time, “Benghazi has moved from trepidation to euphoria and back as a series of violent incidents has dominated the political landscape.” He added, “The individual incidents have been organized,” a function of “the security vacuum that a diverse group of independent actors are exploiting for their own purposes.”
“Islamist extremists are able to attack the Red Cross with relative impunity,” Stevens cabled. “What we have seen are not random crimes of opportunity, but rather targeted and discriminate attacks.” His final comment on the two-page document was: “Attackers are unlikely to be deterred until authorities are at least as capable.”
By Sept. 4, Stevens’ aides were reporting back to Washington on the “strong Revolutionary and Islamist sentiment” in the city.
Scarcely more than two months had passed since Stevens had notified the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Justice and other agencies about a “recent increase in violent incidents,” including “attacks against western interests.” “Until the GOL (Government of Libya) is able to effectively deal with these key issues,” Stevens wrote on June 25, “the violence is likely to continue and worsen.”
After the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi had been damaged by an improvised explosive device, earlier that month, Stevens had reported to his superiors that an Islamist group had claimed credit for the attack, and in so doing, had “described the attack as targeting the Christians supervising the management of the consulate.”
“Islamic extremism appears to be on the rise in eastern Libya,” the ambassador wrote, adding that “the Al-Qaeda flag has been spotted several times flying over government buildings and training facilities …”
The documents also contain evidence that the State Department’s denials of requests for enhanced security in Benghazi in the months leading up to the attack may have contributed to the ability of the attackers to plan their assault on the consulate and annex grounds without being detected.
“I’ve been placed in a very difficult spot,” said Eric A. Nordstrom, the regional security officer who testified before a House hearing last week, in a Feb. 12 email to a colleague, “when the ambassador (Gene Cretz, at that time) that I need to support Benghazi but can’t direct MSD (a mobile security detachment) there and been advised that DS (Diplomatic Security) isn’t going to provide more than 3 agents over the long term.”
“DS is hesitant to devout (sic) resources and as I indicated previously, this has severely hampered operations in Benghazi,” wrote Karen Keshap, a State Department manager, to main State in Washington the day before. “That often means that DS agents are there guarding a compound with 2 other DOS (Department of State) personnel present. That often also means that outreach and reporting is non-existent.”
Earlier that day, Feb. 11, a colleague of Keshap’s, Shawn P. Crowley, had apologized to her and other officials in an email for “being a broken record” on the subject of inadequate security in Benghazi. Crowley added: “(T)omorrow Benghazi will be down to two (DS) agents. … This will leave us unable to do any outreach to Libyan nationals … and we will be extremely limited in the ability to obtain any useful information for reporting.”
These exchanges followed a dire report to top DS officials a few days earlier from Nordstom. In a Feb. 1 memorandum, the officer warned that “Al-Qaida affiliated groups, including Al-Qaida In the Islamic Magreb (AQIM), and other violent extremist groups are likely to take advantage of the ongoing political turmoil in Libya. The U.S. Government remains concerned that such individuals and groups … may use Libya as a platform from which to conduct attacks in the region.”
By Feb. 20, Nordstrom was noting the easy access that neighborhood militias enjoyed to “military grade weapons, such as RPGs and vehicle mounted, crew-served machine guns or AA weapons (23mm),” as well as “AK-47s, heavy weapons, and vehicle mounted weapons.”
In the days leading up to Sept. 11, warnings came even from people outside the State Department. A Libyan women’s rights activist, Wafa Bugaighis, confided to the Americans in Benghazi in mid-August: “For the first time since the revolution, I am scared.”
The documents were released by two lawmakers who have been active in probing the Benghazi case, Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., the chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, and Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah. In a letter to President Obama, dated Oct. 19 and accompanied by the documents, the lawmakers faulted the administration both for providing inadequate security before Sept. 11, and for allegedly obfuscating the nature of the events on Sept. 11.
“Multiple warnings about security threats were contained in Ambassador Stevens’ own words in multiple cables sent to Washington, D.C., and were manifested by two prior bombings of the Benghazi compound and an assassination attempt on the British ambassador,” the congressmen wrote. “For this administration to assume that terrorists were not involved in the 9/11 anniversary attack would have required a willing suspension of disbelief.”
State Department spokesman Mark Toner said, in response to the latest documents: “An independent board is conducting a thorough review of the assault on our post in Benghazi. Once we have the board’s comprehensive account of what happened, findings and recommendations, we can fully address these matters.”
At the State Department briefing Friday, spokeswoman Victoria Nuland declined to comment on published reports alleging that an official working for the Central Intelligence Agency had informed the Obama administration on Sept. 12 that the Benghazi murders were an act of terrorism.
Oh, yeah, that statement from the CIA station chief in Libya WITHIN HOURS OF THE ATTACK ON THE CONSULATE that it was IN FACT A TERRORIST ATTACK. Keep in mind that Obama had instructed his administration to blame US intelligence for his administration’s lying to the American people for more than two weeks. Note that the VERY FIRST SENTENCE utterly refutes the White House lies that were told to the American people over and over and over again:
CIA Found Militant Links A Day After Libya Attack By Kimberly Dozier – Associated Press Friday, October 19, 2012
WASHINGTON — The CIA station chief in Libya reported to Washington within 24 hours of last month’s deadly attack on the U.S. Consulate that there was evidence it was carried out by militants, not a spontaneous mob upset about an American-made video ridiculing Islam’s Prophet Muhammad, U.S. officials have told The Associated Press.
It is unclear who, if anyone, saw the cable outside the CIA at that point and how high up in the agency the information went. The Obama administration maintained publicly for a week that the attack on the diplomatic mission in Benghazi that killed U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans was a result of the mobs that staged less-deadly protests across the Muslim world around the 11th anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks on the U.S.
Those statements have become highly charged political fodder as the presidential election approaches. A Republican-led House committee questioned State Department officials for hours about what GOP lawmakers said was lax security at the consulate, given the growth of extremist Islamic militants in North Africa.
And in their debate on Tuesday, President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney argued over when Obama first said it was a terror attack. In his Rose Garden address the morning after the killings, Obama said, “No acts of terror will ever shake the resolve of this great nation, alter that character or eclipse the light of the values that we stand for.”
But Republicans say he was speaking generally and didn’t specifically call the Benghazi attack a terror attack until weeks later, with the president and other key members of his administration referring at first to the anti-Muslim movie circulating on the Internet as a precipitating event.
Now congressional intelligence committees are demanding documents to show what the spy agencies knew and when, before, during and after the attacks.
The White House now says the attack probably was carried out by an al Qaida-linked group, with no public demonstration beforehand. Secretary of State Hillary RodhamClinton blamed the “fog of war” for the early conflicting accounts.
The officials who told the AP about the CIA cable spoke anonymously because they were not authorized to release such information publicly.
Congressional aides say they expect to get the documents by the end of this week to build a timeline of what the intelligence community knew and compare that to what the White House was telling the public about the attack. That could give Romney ammunition to use in his foreign policy debate with Obama on Monday night.
The two U.S. officials said the CIA station chief in Libya compiled intelligence reports from eyewitnesses within 24 hours of the assault on the consulate that indicated militants launched the violence, using the pretext of demonstrations against U.S. facilities in Egypt against the film to cover their intent. The report from the station chief was written late Wednesday, Sept. 12, and reached intelligence agencies in Washington the next day, intelligence officials said.
Yet, on Saturday of that week, briefing points sent by the CIA to Congress said “demonstrations in Benghazi were spontaneously inspired by the protests at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo and evolved into a direct assault.”
The briefing points, obtained by the AP, added: “There are indications that extremists participated in the violent demonstrations” but did not mention eyewitness accounts that blamed militants alone.
Such raw intelligence reports by the CIA on the ground would normally be sent first to analysts at the headquarters in Langley, Va., for vetting and comparing against other intelligence derived from eavesdropping drones and satellite images. Only then would such intelligence generally be shared with the White House and later, Congress, a process that can take hours, or days if the intelligence is coming from only one or two sources who may or may not be trusted.
U.S. intelligence officials say in this case the delay was due in part to the time it took to analyze various conflicting accounts. One official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to discuss the incident publicly, explained that “it was clear a group of people gathered that evening” in Benghazi, but that the early question was “whether extremists took over a crowd or they were the crowd,” and it took until the following week to figure that out.
But that explanation has been met with concern in Congress, from both political parties.
“I think what happened was the director of intelligence, who is a very good individual, put out some speaking points on the initial intelligence assessment,” said Senate intelligence committee chair Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., in an interview with local news channel CBS 5 in California this week. “I think that was possibly a mistake.”
“The early sense from the intelligence community differs from what we are hearing now,” Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., said. “It ended up being pretty far afield, so we want to figure out why … though we don’t want to deter the intelligence community from sharing their best first impressions” after such events in the future.
“The intelligence briefings we got a week to 10 days after were consistent with what the administration was saying,” said Rep. William Thornberry, R-Texas, a member of the House Intelligence and Armed Services committees. Thornberry would not confirm the existence of the early CIA report but voiced skepticism over how sure intelligence officials, including CIA Director David Petraeus, seemed of their original account when they briefed lawmakers on Capitol Hill.
“How could they be so certain immediately after such events, I just don’t know,” he said. “That raises suspicions that there was political motivation.”
National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor declined comment. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence did not respond to requests for comment.
Two officials who witnessed Petraeus‘ closed-door testimony to lawmakers in the week after the attack said that during questioning he acknowledged that there were some intelligence analysts who disagreed with the conclusion that a mob angry over the video had initiated the violence. But those officials said Petraeus did not mention the CIA’s early eyewitness reports. He did warn legislators that the account could change as more intelligence was uncovered, they said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the hearing was closed.
Beyond the question of what was known immediately after the attack, it’s also proving difficult to pinpoint those who set the fire that apparently killed Stevens and his communications aide or launched the mortars that killed two ex-Navy SEALs who were working as contract security guards at a fallback location. That delay is prompting lawmakers to question whether the intelligence community has the resources it needs to investigate this attack in particular or to wage the larger fight against al-Qaida in Libya or across Africa.
Intelligence officials say the leading suspected culprit is a local Benghazi militia, Ansar al-Shariah. The group denies responsibility for the attack but is known to have ties to a leading African terror group, al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb. Some of its leaders and fighters were spotted by Libyan locals at the consulate during the violence, and intelligence intercepts show the militants were in contact with AQIM militants before and after the attack, one U.S. intelligence official said.
But U.S. intelligence has not been able to match those reported sightings with the faces of attackers caught on security camera recordings during the attack, since many U.S. intelligence agents were pulled out of Benghazi in the aftermath of the violence, the two U.S. intelligence officials said.
Nor have they found proof to back up their suspicion that the attack was preplanned, as indicated by the military-style tactics the attackers used, setting up a perimeter of roadblocks around the consulate and the backup compounds, then attacking the main entrance to distract, while sending a larger force to assault the rear.
Clear-cut answers may prove elusive because such an attack is not hard to bring about relatively swiftly with little preplanning or coordination in a post-revolutionary country awash with weapons, where the government is so new it still relies on armed militants to keep the peace. Plus, the location of U.S. diplomat enclaves is an open secret for the locals.
You had to be a brain-dead dumbass (i.e., even DUMBER than a regular garden variety dumbass) not to immediately conclude that an murderous attack from three sides utilizing heavy weapons on the anniversary of 9/11 was NOT a planned terrorist attack. And there is absolutely zero question that the White House did not want to acknowledge the disaster that they had just presided over, which is why they lied their asses off and are STILL lying their asses off.
The Watergate cover-up led to President Nixon resigning from office. And this is so much worse than Watergate it isn’t even funny.
I am preserving here another report from ABC on the damning Stevens memos that indict and convict Barack Obama and his entire administration:
Oct 19, 2012 3:22pm
Documents Back Up Claims of Requests for Greater Security in Benghazi
By Jake TapperRepublicans on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform have released new documents backing up claims by security personnel previously station in Libya that there was a shortage of security personnel in Benghazi.
The documents contain previously unreleased cables from Ambassador Stevens and his staff reflecting concerns about safety in the country.
The U.S. State Department did not have an immediate comment.
One signed by Stevens and titled “LIBYA’S FRAGILE SECURITY DETERIORIATES AS TRIBAL RIVALRIES, POWER PLAYS AND EXTREMISM INTENSIFY,” dated June 25, 2012, assess the increase in violence. ”From April to June, Libya also witnesses an increase in attacks targeting international organizations and foreign interests,” Stevens wrote, describing attacks on a United Nations official in Benghazi, International Committee for the Red Cross buildings in Benghazi and Misrata, and IED at the mission in Benghazi, and RPG fired at the British Ambassador’s convoy, and an attack on the consulate of Tunisia.
A Libyan government national security official told Stevens “that the attacks were the work of extremists who are opposed to western influence in Libya. A number of local contacts agreed, noting that Islamic extremism appears to be on the rise in eastern Libya and that the Al-Qaeda flag has been spotted several times flying over government buildings and training facilities in Derna,” a village to the east in Benghazi. Other contacts disagreed with that assessment, however.
Another cable from Stevens, titled “The Guns of August; security in eastern Libya” and dated August 8, 2012, states “Since the eve of the (July) elections, Benghazi has moved from trepidation to euphoria and back as a series of violent incidents has dominated the political landscape during the Ramadan holiday.” Stevens describes the incidents as “organized, but this is not an organized campaign.” The Supreme Security Council, the interim security force, he says, “has not coalesced into a stabilizing force and provides little deterrence.”
Stevens wrote that the people of Benghazi want a security apparatus but “inherently fear abuse by the same authorities. This debate, playing out daily in Benghazi, has created the security vacuum that a diverse group of independent actors are exploiting for their own purposes.”
A cable signed by Stevens on the day of his murder, September 11, described a meeting with the Acting Principal Officer of the Supreme Security Council in Benghazi, commander Fawzi Younis, who “expressed growing frustration with police and security forces (who were too weak to keep the country secure)…”
The documents also included an “ACTION MEMO” for Under Secretary of State for Management Patrick Kennedy dated December 27, 2011, and written by US Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Jeffrey Feltman. With the subject line: “Future of Operations in Benghazi, Libya,” the memo states: “With the full complement of five Special Agents, our permanent presence would include eight U.S. direct hire employees.”
This would seem to suggest that Undersecretary Kennedy had approved a plan for five permanent security agents in Benghazi, but that never happened. It should be noted that there were ultimately a total of five Diplomatic Security Agents in Benghazi that night since there were two stationed at the Benghazi compound, and three escorted Ambassador Chris Stevens to the compound.
In a letter to President Obama, House Oversight Committee chairman Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., and Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, chair of the Subcommittee on National Security, Homeland Defense, and Foreign Operations, note the Obama administration response that “two extra DS agents would have made no difference. This misses the point. These agents would have provided the added cover to fully evacuate all personnel from the compound – not just those who survived.”
One of the key conversations in the documents begins on February 11, at 5:29 pm, when Shawn Crowley, a foreign service officer at the U.S. Mission in Benghazi, writes: “Apologies for being a broken record, but beginning tomorrow Benghazi will be down to two agents…We have no drivers and new local guard contract employees have no experience driving armored vehicles…”
On February 11, 1:13 pm, Regional Security Officer of the Libyan Embassy Eric Nordstrom emails State Department officials, cc-ing then-Ambassador Gene Cretz, saying he’ll try to send personnel from the Security Support Team to Benghazi. “I’ll speak with our SST personnel to se if they can free up 1 or 2 bodies for Benghazi….While the status of Benghazi remains undefined, DS” – Diplomatic Security – “is hesitant to devout (sic) resources and as I indicated previously, this has severely hampered operations in Benghazi. That often means that DS agents are there guarding a compound with 2 other DOS personnel present. That often means that outreach and reporting is non-existent.”
Norstrom notes that the British have “a 5 person team assigned to just their head of mission, so they have made a commitment to maintain a larger presence in Benghazi than the USG,” the U.S. government.
At 8:53 pm. James Bacigalupo, the Regional Director Near East Asia Bureau of Diplomatic Security DSS for the State Department, emails Nordstrom, “Call me, I am surprised at your statement that ‘DS is hesitant to devote resources as I (you) have indicated previously that has severely limited operations in Benghazi.’”
Norstrom responds on Sunday, February 12: 8:58 pm “we have had multiple times previously had no movements in Benghazi because we had only 2 DS agents on the ground. Havingno movements for upwards for 10 days severely limits operations in Benghazi. I’ve been placed in a very difficult spot when the Ambassador tells me that I need to support Benghazi but can’t direct MSD” – Mobile Security Detachment – ” there and been advised that DS isn’t going to provide more than 3 DS agents over the long term.”
Get more pure politics at ABCNews.com/Politics and a lighter take on the news at OTUSNews.com
Nordstrom adds at 9:00 pm: “the last time we had only 2 agents at post, suspending outside movements for approximately 10 days.”
Meanwhile, security on the ground became increasingly precarious.
A March 2012 memo (mistakenly cited as 2011) from the Research & Information Support Center titled “Progress Elusive in Libya,” based on open-source reporting, states that in late December 2011 “reports indicated that al-Qa’ida leadership in Pakistan had sent ‘experienced jihadists to Libya to build a new base of operations in the country. Between May and December 2011, one of these jihadists had recruited 200 fighters in the eastern part of the country. Documents seized in Iraq indicate that many foreign fighters who participated in the Iraqi insurgency hailed from eastern Libya. This small batch of fighters would have been dealt with quickly by a central authority, were it in place. Until a stronger national army or guard force is developed, rural Libya will remain fertile territory for terrorist groups such as al-Qai’da in the Islamic Maghreb.”
The committee also released some photographs of the Benghazi compound, before and after the attack.
Issa and Chaffetz say they’ve “been told repeatedly” that the Obama administration not only “repeatedly reject(ed) requests for increased security despite escalating violence, but it also systematically decreased existing security to dangerous and ineffective levels,” and did so “to effectuate a policy of ‘normalization’ in Libya after the conclusion of its civil war.”
This “normalization,” the GOP congressman write, “appeared to have been aimed at conveying the impression that the situation in Libya was getting better, not worse. The administration’s decision to normalize was the basis for systematically withdrawing security personnel and equipment – including a much-needed DC-3 aircraft – without taking into account the reality on the ground. In an interview with Mr. Nordstrom, he maintained that the State Department routinely made decisions about security in early 2012 without first consulting him.” The congressmen submit ten questions for the president to answer.
-Jake Tapper
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Start Thinking Right 