Did John Brennan's actions play a role in Benghazi attacks?

When coupled with the shocking claim by John Guandolo, that Barack Obama's chief counterterrorism adviser John Brennan, converted to Islam while a station chief in Saudi Arabia in the 1990's, some of the details released from a new book written by a retired Green Beret and a Navy SEAL may take on added significance. Among other things in the book, Brennan's orders while operating from the White House are identified as the motivation for the 9/11 attacks in Benghazi.

Brennan is Obama's nominee to replace David Petraeus as CIA Director.

But first, take a look at some other relevant information taken from the book, starting with power players at the CIA who wanted Petraeus gone as CIA Director.

Via The Daily Mail:

Media reports indicate that the FBI began investigating Petraeus' affair with Broadwell after Tampa socialite Jill Kelley, a friend of Petraeus and his wife Holly, reported that she had received threatening emails from the mistress warning her to stay away from Petraeus.

The authors say that Kelley's report may have started in the FBI investigation - but CIA officers pressured the Justice Department to keep the inquiry open.

Webb said his sources in the FBI told him federal agents wanted to close down their investigation when they learned that nothing illegal had happened, but they were told to keep digging. The FBI investigators, Webb says, never wanted to out Petraeus' affair.

The FBI reports to the Department of Justice, which is headed by Attorney General Eric Holder. Surely, something as big as investigating the CIA Director had to be something Holder was aware of. Based on the fact that the subject of the investigation was someone like Petraeus, Holder almost necessarily had to have approved pushing it forward, but to what end?

Was it - at least in part - to open the door for Brennan to head the CIA? Early indications are that authors Brandon Webb and Jack Murphy don't appear to go that far but they certainly piece together the groundwork for such a scenario.

Again, via the Daily Mail:

Murphy and co-author Brandon Webb also revealed that the September 11 Benghazi terrorist attack that killed four Americans, including Ambassador Chris Stevens, was retaliation by Islamist militants who had been targeted by covert U.S. military operations.

The book claims that neither Stevens nor even Petraeus knew about the raids by American special operations troops, which had 'kicked a hornet's nest' among the heavily-armed fighters after the overthrow of Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi.

John Brennan, President Barack Obama's Deputy National Security Adviser, had been authorizing 'unilateral operations in North Africa outside of the traditional command structure,' according to the e-book. Brennan is Obama's pick to replace Petraeus as head of the CIA.

If this is true, it would mean that Obama himself could be directly accountable for the attacks in Benghazi because Brennan was ordering these raids from the White House. As such, he was a direct arm of the Obama administration. These raids weren't just carried out on orders of the administration. They apparently weren't made known to the people who would ultimately face what could be identified as their consequences.

Petraeus was furious, they say, because he was kept in the dark about the raids being conducted without his knowledge by the Pentagon's Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) across Libya and North Africa.

Webb and Murphy claim that the September 11, 2012, attack on the U.S. consulate and a CIA outpost in Benghazi proved to Petraeus that he was an outsider in the Obama administration and that he would remain marginalized as long as he was at the CIA.

The central premise of 'Benghazi: The Definitive Report' is that the attacks were precipitated by secret raids JSOC had performed in Libya. An attack on the Islamist group Ansar al-Sharia days before September 11 may have been the final straw.

According to what Webb and Murphy are saying here, Petraeus was forced out and Brennan's orders to raid Islamist strongholds led to the Benghazi attacks on an unsuspecting consulate and CIA Annex. At least calling that last part into partial question is the fact that U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and Sean Smith both seemed more than just a little concerned about coming under attack. Stevens sent cables to the State Department requesting more security and Smith made reference to losing his life while gaming from the consulate / Special Missions Compound (SMC) on the day of the attacks. That said, it's still possible that a growing threat was felt but not fully understood.

Check out this particularly explosive excerpt from the book. It seems to add credence to the concerns of Senator Rand Paul, raised during his questioning of Hillary Clinton last month:

John Brennan also ran a highly compartmentalized program out of the White House in regard to weapons transfers, and Stevens would not have been trusted with that type of information. Stevens likely helped consolidate as many weapons as possible after the war to safeguard them, at which point Brennan exported them overseas to start another conflict.

Ostensibly, that "exported them overseas" part is a reference to weapons sent from Libya (the annex?) to the Syrian rebels (via Turkey?).

If Petraeus and Stevens were kept in the dark relative to Brennan's raids and those raids served as the motivation for the attacks on the consulate and annex, that places blood directly on the hands of those behind Brennan's orders and secretiveness with respect to them. Under such a scenario, it would appear that Brennan is less qualified to be CIA Director than Petraeus was after the affair became public.

Also, if the claims of Webb and Murphy are true, Obama must certainly know that truth. If so, why would he be nominating Brennan to replace Petraeus unless he was fully behind what Brennan was allegedly doing?

That leads us directly to a covert, pro-Muslim Brotherhood strategy coming directly from the Obama White House, which brings us back to the claim made by Guandolo, that Brennan secretly converted to Islam while in Saudi Arabia and that he was turned by the Muslim Brotherhood specifically.

People might point to Brennan's orders to raid Islamist locations in Libya as evidence that he did NOT convert to Islam because his new religion would forbid him from attacking his own. In reality, the concept of Muruna, espoused by none other than the Brotherhood's most senior spiritual adviser - Yusuf al-Qaradawi - sanctions the killing of Muslims if doing so furthers the cause of Islam.

Again, just operating under the premise that Guandolo has already put forth...

If Brennan's objective was to raid Islamist strongholds for the purpose of confiscating weapons that could then be sent to the Syrian rebels in the latter's fight to overthrow Bashar al-Assad, such a thing would be perceived by the Brotherhood as a greater good.

The bottom line, however, is this: If Brennan was the guy behind operations that both left the consulate and the Annex unprepared to defend against attacks caused by White House policy AND if Brennan was the guy behind secretly ordering weapons be sent to Syrian rebels, all of that is made much worse by Obama's decision to nominate him for CIA Director in the first place.

That would tie Obama directly to gun-running from Libya to Syria and THAT would make Fast and Furious look like child's play by comparison.

The cherry on top would be this administration's attempt at gun control in the U.S. while arming al-Qaeda.

Darrell Issa and Jason Chaffetz send another letter to Hillary

On the heels of a classified cable provided to Catherine Herridge of Fox News that shows Christopher Stevens issued a cry for help to Hillary Clinton's office on August 16th that was ultimately ignored, Foreign Policy has come into possession of two damning letters for the State Department, obtained from the consulate. House Oversight Committee chairman Darrell Issa and Rep. Jason Chaffetz have taken notice and are demanding answers from Clinton.

Via FP:

One letter, written on Sept. 11 and addressed to Mohamed Obeidi, the head of the Libyan Ministry of Foreign Affairs' office in Benghazi, reads:

"Finally, early this morning at 0643, September 11, 2012, one of our diligent guards made a troubling report. Near our main gate, a member of the police force was seen in the upper level of a building across from our compound. It is reported that this person was photographing the inside of the U.S. special mission and furthermore that this person was part of the police unit sent to protect the mission. The police car stationed where this event occurred was number 322."

The account accords with a message written by Smith, the IT officer who was killed in the assault, on a gaming forum on Sept. 11. "Assuming we don't die tonight. We saw one of our ‘police' that guard the compound taking pictures," he wrote hours before the assault.

A potential bold red flag is raised about Obeidi a little later in the article:

Obeidi, the Libyan official named on one of the printouts, said he had not received any such letter, adding, "I did not even know that the U.S. ambassador was visiting Benghazi." However, a spokesman for the Benghazi police confirmed that the ministry had notified the police of the ambassador's visit. "We did not receive that letter from the U.S. consulate. We received a letter from Ministry of Foreign Affairs Benghazi asking for additional security measures around consulate during visit of the ambassador. And the police provided all extra security which was asked for," the spokesman said.

So Obeidi is essentially pleading total ignorance when it comes to being aware that Stevens was even in  Benghazi while a spokesman for the police says his office was made aware. Perhaps the claim that Obeidi never saw one of the documents that mentioned him by name could be believed (because they were found in the consulate) but his not knowing that Stevens was in Benghazi strains credulity. Even if he is to be believed about that, he should have known, which still points to the likely infiltration of security forces.

Here is an excerpt from the letter to Clinton from Issa and Chaffetz:

These documents paint a disturbing picture indicating that elements of the Libyan government might have been complicit in the September 11, 2012, attack on the compound and the murder of four Americans. It also reiterates the fact that the U.S. government may have had evidence indicating that the attack was not a spontaneous event but rather a preplanned terrorist attack that included prior surveillance of the compound as a target.

Given the location where they were found, these documents appear to be genuine and support a growing body of evidence indicating that the Obama Administration has tried to withhold pertinent facts about the 9/11 anniversary attack from Congress and the American people.

Issa and Chaffetz conclude the letter with a demand for answers about why the State Department said there were no indications that anything was wrong at the consulate at all on 9/11/12. Pointing to an October 9, 2012 State Department briefing in which it was alleged that "Everything was calm at 8:30 p.m." the Oversight Committee members rightfully raise concerns that the documents recovered at the scene by FP belie that claim.

They want answers by November 8th.

To view the two documents recovered by FP, click here and scroll to page 4.

Smoking RPG: Emails fire hole in Obama administration's Benghazi story

Three separate emails sent from someone at the State Department to multiple recipients at State, Department of National Intelligence (DNI), and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) have been released by CBS' Sharyl Attkisson and others. What these e-mails unequivocally show is that very  specific details of the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi were known in real time.

The attack began at approximately 3:40pm EST / 9:40pm EET (Libya Time). The first of the three emails that were released is time stamped 4:05pm EST, which was during the actual attack.

Here is what the first email said:

(SBU) The Regional Security Officer reports the diplomatic mission is under attack. Embassy Tripoli reports approximately 20 armed people fired shots; explosions have been heard as well. Ambassador Stevens, who is currently in Benghazi, and four COM personnel are in the compound save haven. The 17th of February militia is providing security support.

The Operations Center will provide updates as available.

The second email, at 4:54pm EST / 10:54pm EET reads:

(SBU) Embassy Tripoli reports the firing at the U.S. Diplomatic Mission in Benghazi has stopped and the compound has been cleared. A response team is on site attempting to locate COM personnel.

The third email blows a hole through the Obama administration narrative that it pushed for at least two weeks after the attack. That narrative was that an anti-Muhammad video - Innocence of Muslims - was responsible. This email, sent slightly more than two hours after the first one above (6:07pm EST / 12:07am EET), contains a smoking RPG in the subject line:

Update 2: Ansar al-Sharia Claims Responsibility for Benghazi Attack (SBU)

The body of the email contains one sentence, which reads:

(SBU) Embassy Tripoli reports the group claimed responsibility on Facebook and Twitter and has called for an attack on Embassy Tripoli.

Yet, despite these real time emails, President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton were featured in a PSA intended for air in Pakistan that was based on the lie that the video was the cause of the attack. That PSA was produced one week after the attack at the expense of $70,000. If we want to talk about disgusting, reprehensible, and despicable videos, perhaps we should start with this one:



During an interview with Sarah Palin on 10/23, as news of these emails was breaking, Greta continued to come back to one question:

Why was the Obama administration so intent on blaming the video?

Pay attention to what Greta says, beginning at the 5:40 mark (via Sarahnet):



It's not only long past time to find out why the administration blamed the video. It's also long past time to find out who / what was really behind its production.

Where is Eiad?

Is John McCain throwing stones from a glass house when he criticizes Obama over Benghazi comments?

One of the loudest voices in Congress to go after Barack Obama for saying, "if four Americans get killed, it's not optimal" has been Senator John McCain. While McCain is right in this instance, his positions up to this point leave him very little high ground from which to speak.

Via POLITICO:

“Even from someone like the president, who has never known what these kinds of tragedies are about and the service and sacrifice that people make, it’s still just — I can’t even get angry,” Sen. John McCain, the ranking member on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said Thursday night on Fox News’s “On the Record with Greta Van Susteren.”

“It’s just so inappropriate,” McCain continued. “And I’m sure that the families of those brave Americans are not amused.”

A problem for McCain is that he supported Obama's policy in Libya, the same policy that has allowed al-Qaeda to flourish in places like Benghazi.

Remember when McCain referred to the Libyan rebels as "my heroes" during his visit to Benghazi in April of 2011, when many of us knew better then (pay attention at the 1:05 mark)?



Also during that visit, McCain walked right by a Benghazi courthouse that only weeks earlier had been the site of a black man being beheaded by rebels. Here is video of McCain walking past the scene of that atrocity. None other than Christopher Stevens can be seen walking behind him.



Here is a photo of McCain with Stevens taken during their walk past the Benghazi courthouse, captured in the video above:

Here is a photo of McCain with Stevens in Tripoli:

McCain is taking the right position when it comes to arguing that the Benghazi consulate should have been more secure. Unfortunately, the position he took in 2011 was absolutely the wrong position. As bad as Gadhafi was, al-Qaeda was kept at bay and if he had remained in power, it's a safe bet that Stevens would still be alive. McCain advocated for the rebels and took a position then that put Americans in greater danger.

The Senator from Arizona also sits on some powerful Senate Committees. He is the ranking member on the Senate Armed Services Committee and serves on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. McCain was wrong about Libya then and he's wrong about Syria now; he continues to be among the loudest voices in support of rebels there as well.

It's important to note as well, that McCain has been one of Huma Abedin's most powerful and vocal supporters. Abedin, Deputy Chief of Staff to Hillary Clinton (someone else who has tough questions to answer over the Benghazi attack), has familial ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, which overtly supported the Libyan rebels.

McCain is on the wrong side of practically every debate over the Middle East and although he's right about calling Obama out on the lack of security in Libya, he doesn't have much of a leg to stand on when it comes to backing policies that got us here.

Until McCain has a mea culpa about his position on Libya in 2011, the Arab Spring generally, and individuals like Huma Abedin in particular, he'll be throwing stones from a glass house.

Issa points finger directly at Obama in letter over Benghazi-gate

There was quite an interesting mass e-mail waiting for me this morning from Darrell Issa's press secretary. In a letter sent to Barack Obama by Oversight Committee chairman Issa and Committee member, Jason Chaffetz, the two Republicans are asking some very hard questions and demanding answers about Benghazi-gate. The implied charge is made fairly early on in the letter that the poor security which existed in Libya was the result of a policy of "normalization" in that country. If true, that would make the deaths of the U.S. Ambassador to Libya along with three other Americans, the likely result of political decisions.

From the very first paragraph of the letter, via Oversight:

Information supplied to the committee by senior officials demonstrates that not only did the administration repeatedly reject requests for increased security despite escalating violence, but it also systematically decreased existing security to dangerous and ineffective levels. We have been told repeatedly that the administration did this to effectuate a policy of "normalization" in Libya after the conclusion of its civil war. These actions not only resulted in extreme vulnerability, but also undermined Ambassador Stevens and the diplomatic mission.

Issa also called Obama on the fact that several members of his administration - to include Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Vice President Joe Biden, U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice, and White House press secretary Jay Carney - repeatedly blamed the attack on Innocence of Muslims, an anti-Muhammad video. After factoring in the matter of the video, one can easily connect the dots of plausibility:

...if administration officials indeed reviewed security reports on a daily basis, they would have seen the overwhelming evidence prior to the 9/11 attack that terrorists were actively targeting westerners in Benghazi.

This introduces three variables into the investigation.

1. Normalization: The administration wanted to 'normalize' Libya after Gadhafi was overthrown, a noble goal to be sure but not one that should be wished into existence for political reasons, especially if an opposite reality is the one that exists. 'Normalization' may just be the key to unlocking much of what happened.
2. Implausible Deniability: Between the number of catalogued security incidents and the repeated requests for beefed up security, there were far too many red flags for decision-makers in the administration to be able to claim plausible deniability if something happened. Something did happen; four Americans were murdered (not reading reports and memos was an excuse given by Eric Holder in the Fast and Furious investigation).
3. The Video: If normalization was the goal and denial of security was the means, we're talking major scandal in the wake of four dead Americans. It would point to a political agenda trumping human life (Fast and Furious was about furthering the gun control agenda by putting guns into the hands of Mexican drug cartels that resulted in ending many human lives). That's before we get to any sort of cover-up. A consequence (unintended or otherwise) of blaming the video, was that Obama administration actually aligned itself with the Islamists, who pointed to the video as a reason to criminalize any speech critical of Islam. In blaming the video, the Obama administration was facilitating attacks on the first amendment.

Back to the letter...

According to Assistant Regional Security Officer David Oliveira - who was stationed in Benghazi from June 2, 2012, to July 5, 2012 - "they (local guard force) felt that the U.S. was a target and they felt that they didn't want to work overnight... A Facebook posting also called for the assassination of Ambassador Stevens and provided details of his jogging route in Tripoli along with his picture.

Issa points to an unfathomable event in Benghazi that was met with an unfathomable non-response from Washington, smack dab in the middle of that June 2 - July 5 window:

...al Qaeda organized a rally in Benghazi. On or about June 10, 2012, fighters from Libya, Egypt, Tunisia, and Mali paraded through the streets with weapons and black flags... These events were the subject of an early July country team meeting where Ambassador Stevens and others expressed their concerns about these develeopments and the need for increased security. According to one participant, this "fell like a dead fish on the table" because everyone, including Ambassador Stevens, knew that the Embassy lacked support from Washington, D.C., and could do little about it.

Also within that time frame - on June 6th, in the middle of the night - a white truck approached the compound, an Islamist got out of the truck, and placed a bomb along the consulate's perimeter wall. Check out the first 17 of these 45 photos provided by sent as attachments to the letter. The first three show the white truck approaching the front gate. Photos 4-17 show the hole that was blown through the perimeter wall.

With that as a backdrop, check out this excerpt from Issa's October 19th letter (page 6):

In August 2012, Ambassador Stevens continued to warn Main State of a "security vacuum" being exploited by independent actors. He further noted that "Islamist extremists are active." His warnings culminated with two cables in September 2012 in which he notified the State Department that Benghazi had entered a state of "maximum alert" and that Islamist influence was expanding in Derna. His last notification came on September 11, 2012, the day he was assassinated.

Ranking member of the Oversight Committee, while accusing Issa of playing election year politics with the Benghazi attack, apparently decided to engage in some politicizing of his own. Before I get into the "normalization" aspect of Issa's letter, take a look at what Cummings said at the October 10th hearing. Also take note of the, 'never let a crisis go to waste' dynamic at work here. Cummings alleges that Republicans in the House cut funding for security. Cummings likely saw a two-birds-with-one-stone opportunity.

By pointing to Republicans, he attempted to shift blame for Stevens' murder away from the administration and toward Issa's Party. He was also shamelessly attempting to lay the ground work for increased funding as a direct result of this attack.



There are a few problems for Cummings at this point. First, according to Issa's letter (page 8), the cost of the Security Support Team (SST) in question was absorbed by the Defense Department, not the State Department. Second, the State Department actually increased "danger pay" for its employees in Libya while removing security. Third, Charlene Lamb, the woman who withheld security from Benghazi, testified at the October 10th hearing that lack of funding had nothing to do with the withdrawal of security:



Also on page 8 of Issa's letter, he writes the following:

According to witnesses and documents received by the Committee, the administration made a policy decision to place Libya into a "normalized" country status as quickly as possible. The normalization process... appeared to have been aimed at conveying the impression that the situation in Libya was getting better, not worse.

Before concluding the letter, Issa points a finger directly at the White House National Security Council (NSC), which is chaired by the President of the United States. In essence, Issa is pointing the finger of culpability directly at Obama himself:

These critical foreign policy decisions are not made by low or mid-level career officials - they are typically made through a structured and well-reasoned process that includes the National Security Council at the White House. The ultimate responsibility rests with you as the President of the United States.

To underscore this point, check out this excerpt from Whitehouse.gov about who makes up the NSC and who attends the meetings:

The NSC is chaired by the President. Its regular attendees (both statutory and non-statutory) are the Vice President, the Secretary of State, the Secretary of the Treasury, the Secretary of Defense, and the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is the statutory military advisor to the Council, and the Director of National Intelligence is the intelligence advisor. The Chief of Staff to the President, Counsel to the President, and the Assistant to the President for Economic Policy are invited to attend any NSC meeting. The Attorney General and the Director of the Office of Management and Budget are invited to attend meetings pertaining to their responsibilities. The heads of other executive departments and agencies, as well as other senior officials, are invited to attend meetings of the NSC when appropriate.

I've posted this exchange between Lamb and Rep. Sandy Adams (R-FL) from the October 10th hearing before but it's provides a look into how the Oversight Committee might best proceed in the context of determining the level of culpability the NSC might have had in the deaths. The relevant portion comes in the first minute. Note how Adams asks Lamb if the latter had sole discretion to deny security to the consulate. After being told "no", Lamb is asked to provide names of those who did. She coughs up two names at the 1:00 mark.



If the NSC is responsible, those two men didn't have sole discretion either. Both should be placed under oath and be made to tell the committee if they acted on their own or were instructed to refuse security requests.

Elijah Cummings, member of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) caucus (code for Communists) will not be happy:

Cummings: Running interference for Obama is tough business

Hillary: takes 'responsibility' but doesn't resign (Eric Holder redux)

Four Americans - including the U.S. Ambassador to Libya - are dead. They are dead because of bad policies and bad decisions at the State Department. In the days after the attack on the Benghazi consulate, the Obama administration - to include U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice, White House press secretary Jay Carney, and Obama himself - pointed to a video as being the cause. That was proven to be false.

Cover-ups, lies, and dead Americans. Vice President Joe Biden blamed intelligence for any claims made that an anti-Muhammad video was responsible and said the administration didn't know that additional security was asked for.

The truth is that high-ranking officials at the State Department did know additional security was requested. That fact was learned at last week's House Oversight committee hearing.

Suddenly, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is now taking responsibility for what happened.

Via CNN:

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Monday 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."

Notice how after claiming to "take responsibility," Clinton refers to the number of employees at the State Department in the same breath, as if to imply that she couldn't possibly be personally responsible for that many people.

While that's true, it's not the point. The point is that the head of the State Department is solely responsible for the culture and policy. The policy that was in place at State led to State Department officials denying security assets to people who were in desperate need of them.

This is called taking responsibility without accountability.

Benghazi Security Officer: 'Taliban on the inside of the building'

After Oversight Committee member, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) asked Regional Security Officer in Benghazi, Eric Norsdtrom, if the latter ever thought he was going to have his requests met by the State Department, Nordstrom delivered a two minute answer that you've got to see. If you've ever had to deal with the bureaucratic machinations of any entity, you should be able to relate directly to the source of Nordstrom's frustration here.

If you can stand it, the first 4:45 of this clip is an exchange between Jordan and State Department bureaucrat, Patrick Kennedy, whose ramblings are reminiscent of an obfuscating pencil pusher with the protection of the bureaucracy he serves being the sole purpose of his existence. It's sad, really. At the 4:45 mark, Jordan obviously gets disgusted with Kennedy's response, and tees up a question for Nordstrom that involved a response that included a metaphor which likened the State Department to the Taliban.

Nordstrom: "For me, the Taliban is on the inside of the building."

Via Oversight Committee:

Videos: Highlights from today's Oversight Committee hearing on Benghazi attacks

The Oversight Committee on Government Reform, chaired by Rep. Darrell Issa convened a hearing today on the 9/11/12 attacks on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi Libya. There were two primary issues addressed relative to the attacks. One dealt with the huge lapse in security that led to the deaths of U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans. The other was the Obama administration's insistence for days afterward that the attack was "spontaneous" and the result of the Innocence of Muslims video.

Four people testified today - two good guys and two questionable characters. First the good guys.

Lt. Col. Andrew Wood, Utah National Guard who headed a security team in Benghazi. You can read his testimony here. As I wrote previously, he is a whistleblower who decided it was better to come forward than to sit back, regardless of consequences.

Eric Nordstrom, Regional Security Officer (RSO), U.S. State Department. He asserts that he asked State main to provide additional security but was denied. His testimony can be found here.

Now on to the bureaucrats...

Ms. Charlene R. Lamb, Deputy Assistant Secretary for International Programs, Bureau of Diplomatic Security, U.S. State Department. She was one of Nordstrom's points of contact when the RSO contacted the State Department for more security in Libya. She was on the hot seat much of the day, and rightfully so. Here is her written testimony.

Ambassador Patrick Kennedy, Under Secretary for Management U.S. Department of State. Like Lamb, Kennedy took some tough questions. Here is his testimony.

As for the clips, many of the same congressmen you saw go after the Justice Department witnesses in Fast and Furious picked up right where they left off.

Here is Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC). Remember, he is a freshman. If only establishment guys were this tough:



Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT), who recently returned from a trip to Libya:



Here is Rep. Raul Labrador (R-ID) grilling Ambassador Kennedy for defending U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice's assertions on September 16th that the attacks were due to the video. Notice how Kennedy equivocates about whether the attack was known to have been pre-meditated or the result of the video. Labrador then goes to Lt. Col. Wood, who says it was "instantly recognizable as a terrorist attack". This exchange highlights perfectly the contrast between bureaucrats and people who use reason:



Here is Chairman Issa, ripping the two bureaucrats - Kennedy and Lamb. Note Kennedy's argument at the beginning of this exchange. When Issa asks him about multiple unclassified documents, Kennedy actually argues that while the individual documents may be unclassified, they should be considered classified when viewed in their totality. Fortunately, Issa calls him on it and is clearly agitated at the nonsense:



More video exchanges from today's hearing at Oversight YouTube channel.

Video: CNN Reporter's absurd interpretation of events in Benghazi

Though this is a rather lengthy CNN video report from correspondent Arwa Damon in Benghazi, the portion relevant to this post comes very early on. Pay attention beginning at the :20 mark. Note how Damon is interviewing a man who recorded the attack on his cell phone. Yes, it's legitimate to ask why he wasn't doing something a bit more productive but that's not the most bizarre portion of her report.

At the :40, Damon narrates over the video, reporting that the body of Ambassador Stevens is found and that he's alive, as you see men pulling him out of the consulate. Damon then actually said the crowd cheered (because Stevens was alive) and shouted 'God is great'.

The CNN reporter would have you believe that the attackers were all gone and that this was a mob of pro-American rescuers who were thrilled to find the U.S. Ambassador still alive.

No, really.

Via CNN:



**UPDATE** It appears I was a bit premature on this one. I have it on good authority that it is actually quite possible that the crowd was actually cheering because they thought Stevens was alive.

The Benghazi Stonewall at State Department: Senators want Ambassador's Cables

Three days after the Benghazi attacks in which Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans were killed, the State Department attempted to hide behind the, 'we are not going to' talk about the ongoing investigation line. Since then, so much has been learned despite the attempts to stonewall that a couple of Senators on the Foreign Relations Committee are demanding access to Stevens' cables.

Via Foreign Policy:

"While we appreciate the sensitivities associated with this ongoing investigation, we must insist on more timely information regarding the attacks and the events leading up to the attacks," wrote Sens. Bob Corker (R-TN) and Johnny Isaakson (R-GA) in a letter to Clinton Tuesday.

They acknowledged that Clinton is in the process of setting up an Accountability Review Board, although its chairman former Deputy Secretary of State Thomas Pickering said Monday that the panel hasn't started it work yet. But the senators don't want to wait for the board to finish its report, which might not be transmitted to Congress until next spring.

"To that end, we request that you transmit to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee all communications between the U.S. Mission to Libya and the State Department relevant to the security situation in Benghazi in the period leading up to the attacks, including, but not limited to, cables sent from Ambassador Stevens," they wrote.

CNN may have played a significant role in all of this last week, when it reported that it had acquired Stevens' personal diary from the consulate. In it, Stevens wrote that he was concerned about being on an al-Qaeda hit list and a lack of security, which we now know was due to the State Department requesting and receiving a Security Waiver for the consulate.

Here is a short video report from Anderson Cooper talking about the diary last week:



In the days after the diary raised legitimate questions, Buzzfeed reported on a profanity-laden exchange via email from one of Clinton's closest aides - Philippe Reines - to a Buzzfeed reporter who had asked some of those legitimate questions. Some may find such an exchange reminiscent of what CBS reporter Sharyl Attkisson encountered last year, when digging for answers in Operation Fast and Furious. As we now know, both the Department of Justice and the White House had something to hide there too. Barack Obama asserted Executive Privilege in refusing to release Congressionally subpoenaed documents, as his Attorney General was being held in contempt for not doing it.

It would seem that based on the contents of Stevens' diary, the State Department's stonewalling, a Clinton aide's profane emails, and now the demands of two Senators that State turn over cables, we may be approaching a situation not all that dissimilar from how the administration handled Fast and Furious - by attempting to cover it up.

We'll know we're there when Obama asserts Executive Privilege over those cables.

CNN: Benghazi Consulate was given 'Security Waiver'

We now know that U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens was concerned about al-Qaeda, Islamic extremism and security at his consulate in Benghazi, all because of a diary he kept, that wound up in the hands of CNN. Now, CNN is reporting that the Consulate was issued a 'Security Waiver' because it was a temporary, newly established facility the State Department deemed necessary as stability in the country after Gadhafi's fall was too important.

By leaving the Consulate open for business with a waiver, it essentially meant that no barriers were required, no safe room was needed, and multiple layers of security weren't necessary.

As you'll see in the video report below, it takes a significant amount of time to get a consulate up to snuff when it comes to security requirements. It would seem that while it might take quite a while to construct barriers and safe rooms, having multiple layers of security in the form of armed guards could have been done relatively quickly and might have compensated for the absence of other security measures.

That didn't happen and it's looking increasingly like Stevens was sent into a hornets nest without being protected.

Via Right Newz: