Clinton On (Mis)handling Benghazi Security [Update]

Posted by Oui | Oct 16, 2012 | 12 |

Update [2012-10-17 04:30am EST by Oui]

President Barack Obama took responsibility and control over the issue last night and slammed apprentice Willard Romney on using dead Americans for political gain. A game changer and thanking CNN moderator Candy Crowley.

Decisive Moment in Debate on Terror Act in Libya

HEMPSTEAD, New York (Buzzfeed)— Barack Obama turned his administration’s worst foreign policy disaster into a dramatic victory in Tuesday’s debate when Mitt Romney sought to stretch the criticism of the Obama Administration’s handling of the incident.

“The day after the attack, governor, I stood in the Rose Garden and I told the American people and the world that we are going to to find out exactly what happened. That this was an act of terror and I also said that we’re going to hunt down those who committed this crime. And then a few days later, I was there greeting the caskets coming into Andrews Air Force Base and grieving with their families. And the suggestion that anyone on my team would play politics or mislead when we’ve lost four of our own, governor, is offensive. That’s not what we do. That’s not what I do as president. That’s not what I do as commander-in-chief.” h/t Mac G

Tweets on Romney’s “Binders full of women”

I was a lone voice at the pond warning the Democrats to get on the same page on the Benghazi Ansar al-Sharia raid or risk an election liability. Romney jumped the gun and got beaten back by Washington and the pundits. This should have given the Obama administration enough time to get their facts right. None of this happened. Five days after the Benghazi raid U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice vented an opinion that was flatly erroneous. More troubling are the statements made by VP Joe Biden in the debate with Paul Ryan. Biden’s remarks have become a target for easy bashing by Romney, fellow Republicans and the pundits. This sad series of events has given Mitt Romney an opportunity to advance himself on issue of foreign policy. Issue has gotten so much bad publicity for the Obama campaign, Hillary Clinton came forth with a mea culpa …

Clinton: I’m responsible for diplomats’ security

LIMA, Peru (CNN) – Secretary of State Hillary Clinton tried to douse a political firestorm over the deadly assault on a U.S. diplomatic mission in Libya, saying she’s responsible for the security of American diplomatic outposts.

“I take responsibility,” Clinton said during a visit to Peru. “I’m in charge of the State Department’s 60,000-plus people all over the world, 275 posts. The president and the vice president wouldn’t be knowledgeable about specific decisions that are made by security professionals. They’re the ones who weigh all of the threats and the risks and the needs and make a considered decision.”

But she said an investigation now under way will ultimately determine what happened at the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, where Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans were killed on September 11. [Video]

“I take this very personally,” Clinton said. “So we’re going to get to the bottom of it, and then we’re going to do everything we can to work to prevent it from happening again, and then we’re going to work to bring whoever did this to us to justice.”

With criticism growing, Vice President Joe Biden said during last week’s vice presidential debate that the White House did not know of requests to enhance security at Benghazi, contradicting testimony by State Department employees that requests had been made and rejected.

Did Biden Hang the State Department Out to Dry at the Debate?

More below the fold …
The US consulate in Benghazi was indefensible for such a violent raid as it was a temporary location without a secure perimeter. The official US embassy in Tripoli had no such weakness and would have been a safe place for Ambassador Stevens. It was the local security analysis that allowed him to travel to Benghazi on the 10th of September and stay for a few nights. Benghazi has a number of militias who were involved in a security arrangement with the national administration of Libya. However, the unrest had been increasing for several months and as a result the insecurity for all foreigners traveling or staying in Benghazi, the heart of the uprising and opposition to Gadhafi. Perhaps Ambassador Stevens felt secure because he was seen as a hero of the uprising and his support for the Libyan people. For elemnts loyal to the global jihad of Al-Qaeda he had become a target and prize fora n assassination as a reprisal for the US raid in Abbottabad and the succesful assassination of its top leadership by drones in Pakistan and Yemen.

Paul Ryan and his budget cuts on State Department funds for our diplomats and embassies world-wide. Contrary to this article, I do believe pressure on budget was part of Lamb’s decision how to provide security for the Benghazi mission. Another problem was the reluctance of the Libyan government to approve more foreign security forces within their sovereign territory. However as we have seen in the uncovered documents of the US mission in Benghazi, Libya was unable to provide adequate security. The bad choice for an joint British-Libyan private security corporation was an indication there was political pressure from Libya.

Another great worry is the revelation by Republicans during the Congressional hearing of a CIA footing within the Benghazi mission.

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Oui

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12 Comments

ask on October 16, 2012 at 2:44 pm

It seems that the jury is still out on this issue.

From NYT yesterday: Election-Year Stakes Overshadow Nuances of Libya Investigation

CAIRO — After a month of conflicting statements and partisan criticism, the circumstances surrounding the attack that killed Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens in Benghazi, Libya, on Sept. 11, 2012, have become clouded in ambiguities and questions: Did the attack grow out of anger against an American-made video mocking the Prophet Muhammad, or was it waged by an affiliate of Al Qaeda out to mark the 11th anniversary of its attack on United States soil?
To Libyans who witnessed the assault and know the attackers, there is little doubt what occurred: a well-known group of local Islamist militants struck without any warning or protest, and they did it in retaliation for the video. That is what the fighters said at the time, speaking emotionally of their anger at the video without mentioning Al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden or the terrorist strikes of 11 years earlier. And it is an explanation that tracks with their history as a local militant group determined to protect Libya from Western influence.
- Oui on October 16, 2012 at 4:04 pm
  
  From the very first hours I have watched a number of global sat TV reports and heard witnesses during the attack. I have not changed my story and am just amazed how corrupt the media is with false reporting. David D. Kirkpatrick reporting from Cairo!
  
  New York Times drags out the video meme again
  
  (Washington Post) – The New York Times runs a curious piece today, attempting to reconstruct the long-since-discarded meme that the anti-Muslim video was the source of the attack.
  
  Jihadists have been using Western media to whip up anti-U.S. fervor for some time now. That they told others that this was all the doing of the West’s hateful anti-Muslim video is pretty much par for the course in these episodes.
  
  The report notes that “the streets outside the mission were quiet in the moments before the attack had begun, without any prior protests.” So where did the spontaneous-demonstration story come from?
  
  The article raises a series of interesting questions …
  - ask on October 16, 2012 at 4:34 pm
    
    Sorry Oui. If we are talking about credibility, then Jennifer Rubin has none – whatsoever!
    
    We will probably never know the full facts, but anything Rubin “reports” (in an op-ed) should be discounted.
    - Oui on October 16, 2012 at 7:08 pm
      
      You are right about Jennifer Rubin. My bad.
      Here is a link to the 2006 attack on the Italian mission in Benghazi because of Danish cartoons and a Italian minister wearing a t-shirt with cartoon.
      - ask on October 16, 2012 at 7:12 pm
        
        Hey, are you up this late to watch the debate?
      - Oui on October 16, 2012 at 9:39 pm
        
        Just to read the comments on BooMan’s thread. Watching it I’ll get too nervous.
      - ask on October 16, 2012 at 9:51 pm
        
        It is a thing of beauty!
Marie2 on October 16, 2012 at 4:41 pm

Might be time to go back and review how this story developed in real time.

Is it not curious that Mitt Romney jumped on this before reports from Benghazi were out? And that he’s continued to press this issue? Almost as if his team knew what would happen.

That whole “Desert Warriors” thing has never smelled right to me and I do think it played a role in what happened in Benghazi, but probably indirectly.
- Oui on October 20, 2012 at 2:23 pm
  .
  The careful wording in the preliminary CIA assessment was taken by Amb. Susan Rice to a higher level of certainty. The paragraphs in the article obfuscates the facts on the ground. The CIA memo mixes Benghazi with the demonstrations in Cairo which is at the least very awkward as the circumstances were completely different. A terribly poor job.
  
  Cairo
  Protesters scaled the wall of the heavily-fortified US embassy in Cairo Tuesday, angry over a film that Egyptian media reported was produced in the US and mocks the prophet Muhammad.
  
  Article Washington Post by David Ignatius
  
  “Talking points” prepared by the CIA on Sept. 15, the same day that Rice taped three television appearances, support her description of the Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. Consulate as a reaction to Arab anger about an anti-Muslim video prepared in the United States. According to the CIA account,
  
  “The currently available information suggests that the demonstrations in Benghazi were spontaneously inspired by the protests at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo and evolved into a direct assault against the U.S. Consulate and subsequently its annex. There are indications that extremists participated in the violent demonstrations.”
  
  « click for story
  
  Here’s how the senior official described the jumble of events in Benghazi that day: “The attackers were disorganized; some seemed more interested in looting. Some who claimed to have participated joined the attack as it began or after it was under way. There is no evidence of rehearsals, they never got into the safe room . . . never took any hostages, didn’t bring explosives to blow the safe room door, and didn’t use a car bomb to blow the gates.”
  
  The US consulate is a temporary location … a villa park! There were no security measures possible like fortifications and a secure perimeter to halt a violent attack. The Libyans from the Blue Mountain group were security guards with no weapons. There was no protest at the US consulate, in the evening under cover of darkness [21:30hr] the attack with machine guns, AK47s and RPG launchers came at once from three sides. For Christ’s sake, no explosives were needed to breach the consulate perimeter. See link below for photo’s and video.
  
  Benghazi Raid Debriefing
  
  VILLA SAFEHOUSE–A second attack shortly after 2 a.m. on Sept. 12, just as the group were assembling to be taken to the airport, gunfire erupted, followed by the thunderous blasts of falling mortar rounds. Two of the mission’s guards — Tyrone S. Woods and Glen A. Doherty, former members of the Navy SEALs — were killed just outside the villa’s front gate. A mortar round struck the roof of the building where the Americans had scrambled for cover.
  
  The second house was never intended to be a “safe house,” as initial accounts suggested. At no point were the Marines or other American military personnel involved, contrary to news reports early on. Libyan witnesses, including two guards at the building, say the area around the compound was quiet until the attackers arrived, firing their weapons and storming the compound from three sides, beginning at 9:30 p.m. on Sept. 11, 2012.
  
  Timeline: Protests over anti-Islam video
  
  Daily Mail headline: Pentagon sending warships to Libya following death of ambassador killed in ‘co-ordinated al Qaeda
  revenge attack by terrorists who used Libyan Mohammed movie protest as cover’ (photo’s + video)
  
  US Unable to Secure Benghazi Consulate for FBI Investigation
Oui on October 18, 2012 at 6:58 am
Of course the Republicans are cherry-picking the unfolding events after the Benghazi raid. These comments by Susan Rice 5 days after the attack weren’t helpful, neither the contrary remarks by Libyan President Mohammed Magarief a day earler. Listening to her story, she didn’t have the facts and should not have been talking about what happened in Benghazi. All seems very amateurish and not well coordinated as I have written before. See my latest addition to the Benghazi security contract granted an obscure company in Wales, England called Blue Mountain.

There is no security in Libya, no national army and no border control. Libya is still in a revultionary state with multiple militias not under control of the central government. There were no “50 arrests” and remarks “we know who they are” are just part of the smoke and mirrors of politicians who live under fear of being assassinated. The fact that the US consulate mission could not be secured after the attack and confidential papers were spread around illustrates that.

Ambassador Rice: Benghazi attack began spontaneously – (Video)

(NBC News) Sept. 16, 2012 – “This is a response to a hateful and offensive video that was widely disseminated throughout the Arab and Muslim world,” Rice said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “Obviously our view is that there is absolutely no excuse for violence and what has happened is condemnable. But this is a spontaneous reaction to a video and it’s not dissimilar but perhaps on a slightly larger scale than what we have seen in the past with the [Salman Rushdie’s novel] ‘Satanic Verses’, with the [2006 Danish newspaper] cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad.”

Rice said the current assessment of what happened in Benghazi is that it was “initially a spontaneous reaction to…the demonstrations against our facility in Cairo, which were prompted of course by the video.”

“What we think then transpired in Benghazi is that opportunistic extremist elements came to the consulate as this was unfolding, they came with heavy weapons which unfortunately are readily available in post-revolutionary Libya, and it escalated into a much more violent episode. That’s our best judgement now.”

There was “no actionable intelligence” that the attack in Benghazi was imminent, Rice said. The attack overwhelmed security in place at the consulate. Rice’s comments came a day after Libyan President Mohammed Magarief told NBC News that “foreigners” were involved in the planning and execution of the attack.

Ann Curry Interviews Libyan President Mohammed Magarief About U.S. Consulate Attack (VIDEO)
- Feds Hired Unlisted British Security Firm for Benghazi Consulate
- Clinton Takes Responsibility for (Mis)handling Benghazi Security [Update]
Addendum: adding to the security turmoil in Libya, the prime-minister had to step down when he failed to get a new cabinet approved by parliament. Will the country itself fall apart?
Oui on October 20, 2012 at 6:09 pm
.
Ask, I may learn to like David Ignatius after all …

Obama Dodging Key Foreign Policy Questions

And though Obama was eloquent in his speech to the United Nations Tuesday in eulogizing Christopher Stevens, America’s brave ambassador to Libya, the administration has been reluctant to talk about resurgent al-Qaida operations in that country. One senses a desire to keep the lid on this explosive subject in the State Department’s effort to suppress CNN’s reporting of Stevens’ private diary, along with a commendable effort to protect the family’s privacy.

I’m told that the talk in the Libyan underground is about a “global intifada” like what the new al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri has been preaching for the last five years. But ask U.S. officials about that subject and you get a “no comment.”

To be blunt: The administration has a lot invested in the public impression that al-Qaida was vanquished when Osama bin Laden was killed on May 2, 2011. Obama would lose some of that luster if the public examined whether al-Qaida is adopting a new, Zawahiri-led strategy of interweaving its operations with the unrest sweeping the Arab world. But this discussion is needed, and a responsible president should lead it, even during a presidential campaign.

[David Ignatius is a regular contributor to THE HARTFORD COURANT]
- BooMan – Declare the War on Terror Over
Oui on October 21, 2012 at 6:05 am
.
Getting a scoop is a higher priority than getting the facts, a dangerous game in today’s politics on the Iranian nuclear issue. Press lies, so Mitt can continue to quote and lie. Obama has to be as convincing in the debate as he was on the Benghazi attack by Romney.

US says willing to meet with Iran on nukes but no talks set (Update-3)

(Reuters) – The White House quickly denied the report, which came two days before President Barack Obama is due to face Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney in a debate focused on foreign policy.

“It’s not true that the United States and Iran have agreed to one-on-one talks or any meeting after the American elections,” National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor said in a statement. “We continue to work with the P5+1 on a diplomatic solution and have said from the outset that we would be prepared to meet bilaterally.”
- Perhaps David Sanger got some signals mixed up – Closed – come back later Nov. 6+

Clinton On (Mis)handling Benghazi Security [Update]

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