Bengazi!!!

[Cats Cats Cats]

Yes, it was.

With Hussein gone, it means they are no longer attacking Iran.  Much better for us now....it's always good to have an unfettered/unrestrained Iran!

A unified Iraq and Iran will work out great for us.

[guido911]

Here is a story covering the Diane Sawyer interview with Hillary. I know it does not place Hillary in the best of lights, so I apologize in advance to RM about it.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/wp/2014/06/10/abc-newss-diane-sawyer-destroys-hillary-rodham-clinton-on-benghazi/

[Gaspar]

We finally got one!
http://m.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/us-captured-benghazi-suspect-in-secret-raid/2014/06/17/7ef8746e-f5cf-11e3-a3a5-42be35962a52_story.html?hpid=z1

I wonder if the location of this suspect was part of some trade?  Hmmm?

[heironymouspasparagus]

We finally got one!
http://m.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/us-captured-benghazi-suspect-in-secret-raid/2014/06/17/7ef8746e-f5cf-11e3-a3a5-42be35962a52_story.html?hpid=z1

I wonder if the location of this suspect was part of some trade?  Hmmm?

We traded Bergdahl back....

[heironymouspasparagus]

A unified Iraq and Iran will work out great for us.

Probably about as good as our whole meddling in the area has been working for so many years....and western Europe for all those centuries before that!!

[Gaspar]

Interesting.  So initially I thought from the reports that they nabbed someone new, but apparently this is the same guy that CNN tracked down and interviewed a year ago about the attacks.  He was seen in the videos of the attacks. We've known who and were he was for over a year. 

Damon interviewed Khattala one year ago, and said he did not act like a man being wanted for a terrorist attack, and was even willing to talk to U.S. investigators. When CNN host John Berman asked what "explained the gap" between her ability to find him and the government's year-long search, Damon cited "a number of factors."

"After the attack on the U.S. consulate and then the CIA shutting down its annex after the attack, the U.S. did not have the reach into Libya and Benghazi it needed perhaps to pick him up," Damon said. "Also playing into all of this is the sensitive nature of Libyan politics. Picking him up is going to inflame the situation here. But again, this was not a man who was in hiding. I was the first television correspondent to speak to him but he had spoken to one or two other print outlets beforehand. He did not feel the need to secure himself other than with this small unit of Libyan forces that were part of one of Islamist militias there." http://www.mediaite.com/tv/cnn-reporter-who-found-benghazi-suspect-last-year-not-a-man-who-was-in-hiding/

Here's the comments from John King in July of 2013:
"It is interesting," says King. "The FBI has put some photos up on its website of people of interest, but they haven't arrested anybody. And I'll tell you this: We've been working on a project here at CNN for a special due out later ... And Arwa Damon, our great correspondent, went back to Benghazi. She sat down with one of the people the FBI says is a lead suspect for 2 hours. He says he's never been contacted by the Libyan government, never been contacted by the FBI, so that is why you have this exasperation among some leading Republicans in the Congress."


This makes it blatantly apparent that there was NO investigation taking place after the 9/11 Benghazi attack.  None!

[Gaspar]

And the plot thickens. . .

Apparently this guy was also interviewed by the NYT in October of 2012, and he echoed the then still popular Susan Rice/Obama internet video line.

Mr. Abu Khattala, 41, wearing a red fez and sandals, added his own spin. Contradicting the accounts of many witnesses and the most recent account of the Obama administration, he contended that the attack had grown out of a peaceful protest against a video made in the United States that mocked the Prophet Muhammad and Islam. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/19/world/africa/suspect-in-benghazi-attack-scoffs-at-us.html?pagewanted=all&_r=1&

Ahmm! Mr. President, we have found your man.

[guido911]

[RecycleMichael]

I thought it was odd that one of you guys obsessed with Bengazi didn't post this story. Then I read it and realized it made you all wrong. So I posted it for you. You are welcome.

http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/usworld/no-stand-down-given-order-in-benghazi-officers-testimony-indicates/article_639f1d82-6715-5415-8bdf-6798fc78b3bb.html

No 'stand-down' given order in Benghazi, officers' testimony indicates
 

The testimony of nine military officers undermines contentions by Republican lawmakers that a "stand-down order" held back military assets that could have saved the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans killed at a diplomatic outpost and CIA annex in Benghazi, Libya.

The "stand-down" theory centers on a Special Operations team of four — a detachment leader, a medic, a communications expert and a weapons operator with his foot in a cast — who were stopped from flying from Tripoli to Benghazi after the attacks of Sept. 11-12, 2012, had ended. Instead, they were instructed to help protect and care for those being evacuated from Benghazi and from the U.S. Embassy in Tripoli.

The senior military officer who issued the instruction to "remain in place" and the detachment leader who received it said it was the right decision and has been widely mischaracterized. The order was to remain in Tripoli and protect some three dozen embassy personnel rather than fly to Benghazi some 600 miles away after all Americans there would have been evacuated.

And the medic is credited with saving the life of an evacuee from the attacks.

Transcripts of hours of closed-door interviews with the military leaders by the House Armed Services and Oversight and Government Reform committees were made public for the first time on Wednesday. The Associated Press had reviewed the material ahead of its release.

Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., chairman of the Oversight panel, has suggested Hillary Rodham Clinton gave the order, though as secretary of state at the time, she was not in the military chain of command. Despite lingering public confusion over many events that night, the testimony shows military leaders largely in agreement over how they responded to the attacks.


The initial Sept. 11 assault on the diplomatic post, which killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and another American, prompted immediate action both in Benghazi and in Tripoli. Though not under any known further threat, the U.S. Embassy in Tripoli, the Libyan capital, was evacuated early in the morning of Sept. 12, its sensitive information and computer hard drives destroyed. Diplomats and military officials left in armored vehicles for a classified U.S. site several miles away. Upon arrival there, the head of a small detachment entrusted with training Libyan special forces told his higher-ups he wanted to take his four-member team to Benghazi.


Military officials differ on when that telephone conversation took place, but they agree that no help could have arrived in Benghazi in time. They put the call somewhere between 5:05 a.m. and 6:30 a.m. local time. It would take about 90 minutes to fly from Tripoli to Benghazi. The next U.S.-chartered plane to make the trip left at 6:49 a.m., meaning it could have arrived shortly before 9 a.m., nearly four hours after the second, 11-minute battle at the CIA facility ended at about 5:25 a.m.
Republicans investigating Benghazi have clashed over whether military superiors, in effect, ordered the team to stand down. Rep. Howard "Buck" McKeon, R-Calif., the Armed Services Committee chairman, has cited previous testimony from military officers that ordering the foursome to stay in Tripoli and protect embassy personnel there didn't amount to "standing down."


Others, such as Issa and Rep. Jason Chaffetz of Utah, have said a stand down order was given.


"We had proximity, we had capability, we had four individuals in Libya armed, ready to go, dressed, about to get into the car to go to the airport to go help their fellow countrymen who were dying and being killed and under attack in Benghazi, and they were told to stand down," Chaffetz said more than a year ago. "That's as sickening and depressing and disgusting as anything I have seen. That is not the American way."

Beyond questions of timing, the testimony of Rear Adm. Brian Losey, who was then Special Operations commander for Africa, also challenged the idea the team had the capacity to bolster security in Benghazi. Losey said there was "never an order to stand down." His instruction to the team "was to remain in place and continue to provide security in Tripoli because of the uncertain environment."

[rebound]

Saw that article.  Didn't bother to post, because it's not going change minds.  For those that can only scream "Benghazi!", facts (and some acceptance of the fog of war) make no difference.

[Hoss]

I'm sure after they get wind of the final results of the report, it will be crickets in here....nothing to see, move along...

[heironymouspasparagus]

Tulsa World seems to be unavailable....

[Ed W]

The Select Committee on Intelligence released this yesterday:

http://intelligence.house.gov/sites/intelligence.house.gov/files/documents/Benghazi%20Report.pdf

NBC wrote:

"The Republican-led House Select Committee on Intelligence on Friday released its report on the deadly 2012 attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, and it found that the military and the Central Intelligence Agency responded appropriately during the attacks.
The investigation, which took nearly two years and thousands of hours of work, found the CIA had "ensured sufficient security" and "bravely assisted" on the night of attacks that killed four Americans, including U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens. The panel also found no intelligence failure prior to the attacks.
The committee said it found no evidence that the military was ordered to "stand down" during the attacks in Benghazi, as some had claimed, and that "appropriate U.S. personnel made reasonable tactical decisions that night." It also found no evidence of similar claims that the CIA was involved in arms shipments or other unauthorized activities."

Note that it says this originated in the House, arguably the less sane chamber of our Federal government.

[guido911]

The Select Committee on Intelligence released this yesterday:

http://intelligence.house.gov/sites/intelligence.house.gov/files/documents/Benghazi%20Report.pdf

NBC wrote:

"The Republican-led House Select Committee on Intelligence on Friday released its report on the deadly 2012 attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, and it found that the military and the Central Intelligence Agency responded appropriately during the attacks.
The investigation, which took nearly two years and thousands of hours of work, found the CIA had "ensured sufficient security" and "bravely assisted" on the night of attacks that killed four Americans, including U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens. The panel also found no intelligence failure prior to the attacks.
The committee said it found no evidence that the military was ordered to "stand down" during the attacks in Benghazi, as some had claimed, and that "appropriate U.S. personnel made reasonable tactical decisions that night." It also found no evidence of similar claims that the CIA was involved in arms shipments or other unauthorized activities."

Note that it says this originated in the House, arguably the less sane chamber of our Federal government.

This is the House intelligence committee. Not Trey Gowdy's "select committee".

[Ed W]

The title page says "House Select Committee on Intelligence," Guido. Is that different?