Hillary's Train Wreck Press Conference: The Gender Card, The Spin, The Lies & The Many Unanswered Questions (Update 6)

In response to the brewing scandal regarding her use of a private e-mail account to conduct all of her business while serving as Secretary of State from 2009 to 2013, Hillary Clinton held a carefully stage-managed 'press conference' for twenty minutes at the United Nations today.



As I wrote in a post below, Hillary faces five potential land mines over her use of private e-mail while Secretary of State. To sum up:

1. The optics: The only rational reason for her to use a private e-mail address set up on a private server soley under her control was to skirt oversight. It was Nixonian.

2. Legal: Her sole use of a private account likely violated government record - keeping regulations.

3. Legal: If she discussed classified material over her private e-mails, then she will have violated several very strict criminal laws governing the handling such material.

4. National Security: Her private security measures were inadequate. We don't yet know the potential damage to our national security.

5. Legal: Has Hillary turned over all responsive e-mails to lawful requests for discovery?

With those areas in mind, here was Hillary spinning at the press conference:

1. Hillary throws the "gender equality" card right at the start. What does that have to do with her private e-mail account? Could she be any less subtle? SEXISM . . . all these questions are nothing but SEXISM!!! And if you didn't get the hint, at another point in the presser, a Turkish reporter -- and we all know that Muslims are so concerned with women's rights that the question could not have been a plant -- kindly asked whether such a fuss would be made over these e-mails if Hillary "were a man?" Hillary, staying above the fray, said she'd leave that for "others" to decide.

2. The reason she used only a private e-mail account was solely for convienience. She did not want to have to carry around two devices, one for work, one for private use.

3. Her use of the private e-mail account accorded with all government regulations.

4. The vast majority of her work e-mails went to other government employees at their government addresses, and thus should be captured for archiving.

5. She claims to have provided all of her e-mails to the State Dept. that "could possibly be work related." And, in her own personal desire to insure transparency, she wants the State Dept. to release all of the e-mails she has provided them.

6. In reviewing her e-mails, Hillary decided to scrub the system of all of her personal e-mails. Everyone understands that was all about privacy, right?

7. Sixty thousand e-mails were sent and received over her private account. After a "thorough" investigation, she decided that half of them were personal and deleted them from her server. The official e-mails she provided to the State Dept. in hard copy, not on electronic media.

8. The server contains communications from she and her husband. It is her private property and she will not allow it to be inspected by a third party.

9. There were no "security breeches."

10. According to Hillary, it is up to the individual federal employee to determine for themselves what is to work related and thus required to be archived.

11. She claims she did not discuss any classified information or send classified material on her private e-mail account.

12. She ended the press conference as soon as someone asked about the diplomat who was fired during her tenure in part for using a private e-mail account to conduct State Dept. business. She directed the reporter to go review the record, then left the podium.

Analysis:

1. The optics: Hillary did herself no favors by claiming that the private e-mail account was strictly about convienience, that she did not want to have to use more than one device. She certainly has not had that problem since leaving the State Department. According to Legal Insurrection, Hillary appeared at Watermark Silicon Valley Conference for Women less than two weeks ago and ostentatiously made note that she "had both an iPhone and . . . a Blackberry." In addition, there's this from Hot Air regarding her time at the State Department: "Judicial Watch claims that not only did she operate multiple devices, she insisted on using Apple products even though State’s IT people told her that their enhanced security is designed for Blackberry only."

Moreover, the reason she gives for refusing to allow a neutral third party to inspect her server is even more obviously a lie (thanks, Bill). Hillary says that she won't allow such an inspection because the server contains private communications between her and her wayward husband, former President Bill Clinton. But according to Bill's spokesperson, Bill has sent all of two e-mails in his entire life, both when he was President.

The optics here cannot possibly help Hillary. When even the MSNBC anchors are gobsmacked at Hillary's decisions, no amount of hitting America over the head with the gender card is going to make this go away.

2. Government Record-keeping Regulations: According to Hillary, she has complied with all applicable regulations. This one is still murky, and I am not expert on these regulations. According to John Hinderaker at Powerline, she violated the spirit of State Department policy that allows for occasional use of private e-mail in exigent circumstances, but otherwise require the use of offical e-mail. Meh. She probably won't take a hit for this.

Update: According to the Washington Examiner:

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, like all departing federal employees, was required to fill out and sign a separation statement affirming that she had turned over all classified and other government documents, including all emails dealing with official business.

Fox News Megyn Kelly reported Wednesday evening on the requirement and that a spokesman for Clinton had not responded to a request for comment, including an explanation of when the former chief U.S. diplomat signed the mandatory separation agreement or, if she didn't, why didn't she. . . .

Kelly also reported that State Department regulations in place when Clinton resigned as secretary required all departing employees to return all official documents, including emails, to ensure that the department would be able to respond to Freedom of Information Act and congressional requests, as well as subpoenas in litigation.

Failure to do so carries with it both fines and possible jail time.

Clinton, in December, 2014, turned over a portion of her e-mails to the State Dept. It would seem this bears watching also.

[Update: Powerline discusses the requirements for determining what is and is not a public record, noting that Hillary is giving a patently false impression of how such determination is to be made at law, and notes that she may well be guilty of a felony.]

Update: Hillary makes the point that, since most of her e-mails were to and from people within the State Dept., they would have been caught in the official e-mail tranche and archived. Stephen Hayes appeared on Fox today to point out that at least two of Hillary's top aides, her advisor Huma Abadein and her Chief of Staff Cheryl Mills, had private e-mail accounts. So to them at least, and probably many others, there is a real question whether those e-mails have ever been archived and whether any of them appear in the Clinton hard copy document release.

3. Discussing Classified Material: Knowing the low standard for classifying information as well as the rules for handling classified information, to believe that Hillary, as Secretary of State, didn't discuss classified information in over 30,000 e-mails over four years is simply impossible. [Update: And today, the NYT runs a story largely agreeing with that assessment.] [Update: Andrew McCarthy has much more to say on this at NRO.] Moreover, there is this from Powerline:

Hillary’s private email account came to light when a hacker called Guccifer broke into the email account of Democratic political operative Sid Blumenthal, and found a trove of emails between Blumenthal and Hillary. The emails related in part to Benghazi; you can read a couple of them here. Blumenthal passed along detailed information he had gotten from confidential sources about the terrorist attack. These emails obviously relate to Hillary’s duties as Secretary of State, not funerals or family vacations, . . .

All we have is Hillary's word that she didn't discuss classified materials over non-official channels, and what little information we have suggests otherwise. This isn't just a landmine for her, it's a nuclear landmine. No, Obama will no more see her prosecuted than he'll see Al Sharpton prosecuted for perrenial tax fraud. But the above alone should be more than enough to justify a judge to order sequestration and forensic examination of the private server. And if it appears she has committed criminal acts, even she won't be able to brazen her way out of that one between now and the 2016 election. It will be her "I didn't have sex with that woman" moment.

4. National Security: Hillary's blanket claim that there were no "security breaches" is as paper thin as her justifications for using the private e-mail and, now, for keeping from inspection. Professionals who have examined the security of Hillary private e-mail account have said that the question is not whether the account was hacked, but to what degree. We won't know the extent of any security breaches until we have had a forensic examination of her server.

5. Hillary's Compliance With Lawful Requests For Information: I am sure that we will soon see numerous instances where lawful and legally binding requests were made for discovery, whether under FOIA or other subpoena, and which requests would have covered her e-mails. And we'll see that Hillary did not comply with those requests. We already know that the documents referenced in paragraph 3 above, the trough of Hillary e-mails she sent to Sid Blumenthal and that were made public by Guccifer, were not among those "55,000" pages of documents she provided to the State Dept. and, a subset of which was provided to the House Select Committee on Benghazi. Moreover, Trey Gowdy, the chairman, is already on record stating that there are numerous gaps -- month or more gaps -- on the e-mails Hillary has provided to his committee.

Summary:

There is no question that Hillary used a private e-mail account on a server she personally controlled in order to skate lawful oversight. There are very serious questions regarding whether she violated laws governing the handling of classified material, whether she has endangered national security, and whether she has complied with lawful requests for information. What information we have available, beyond her bald and, indeed, laughable denials, suggests she has violated our laws, that she has put our nation at risk, and that she is refusing to honor lawful requests for full and complete information. There is more than sufficient information here to justify a judge sequestering her server and ordering a forensic examination.

Hillary, for her part, will try to brazen this out. She has already begun by providing "55,000" pages of hard copy, but no digital media record of her e-mails, thus slowing down analysis of what she has provided to a complete crawl. She has already announced that she will fight any attempt to examine her server -- quite literally the only thing that might give us answers to the many questions. And even then, it may well be that the thing was accidentally degaussed by a giant magnet some foolish people were marching through the Clinton home recently. And, of course, you know that this will all be played as a war on women and a vast right wing conspiracy. The more things change, . . .

Updates:

AP's Brutal Fact Check

Additional questions raised by Hillary's presser

Politico Headline For Hillary Presser: "Go To Hell"

Ace On Hillary's Lies

Mark Steyn on the Audacity of Hill

Victor Davis Hanson: Shameless

And via Powerline:

Will Hillary Try To Make Trey Gowdy The Next Ken Starr?

And a massive rollup of Hillary e-mail article here.

And here is the cover of the next issue of Time:

Love the horns.

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Sixty Minutes On Behghazi

Sixty Minutes has done an expose on Benghazi - interviewing one of the participants on the ground that night. It might lead one to think that there might be something more to the Benghazi "scandal" than simple partisanship:



There are three legs to the Benghazi scandal - the Sixty Minutes episode dwells on the first and only alludes to the other two. Just as a reminder, those three legs are:

1) The refusal over months to provide increased security in the face of an open and obvious threat, was criminally reckless. There is some evidence that this was part of a deliberate policy to go forward with a light footprint in Libya for political reasons - though the author of that policy has never been identified. Moreover, this failure to provide adequate security shows an administration that completely misunderstands the threat we face from radical Wahhabi Islamists, and indeed, whitewashes Wahabbi Islam to the point of portraying it as benign.

2) The Obama administration refused to send any military assets to rescue our people once the attack started. Our people were left to die - my suspicion, because of domestic political considerations. No assets were scrambled, irrespective of whether they would have been there in time.

3) The complete whitewash and cover-up in the wake of Benghazi. One element of this was Obama and Clinton blaming the attack on a rogue movie review. A second element was an "official investigation" that did not include any interviews of high ranking State Dept. officials, including Clinton herself. The third element is that no one has been held accountable for any of this. Even the four mid-level staffers at the State Dept. who were identified anonymously as the people who had made the security decisions that led to the Benghazi slaughter still have their jobs at the State Dept.

Bastards.

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The President Shouts "Squirrel"; NYT Hails Modern Day Kellogg Briand Pact (Updated)

Between the IRS, Benghazi, AP & Fox scandals, it is safe to surmise that the Obama administration felt that it had lost control of the media cycle. So it is no surprise that team Obama would make a highly touted, short notice speech on _____________ (insert non-scandal related topic here). In this case, they opted to make the topic "counterterrorism." The underlying theme was "LOOK, A SQUIRREL." You can read the speech here.

There was virtually nothing new in this speech beyond the gloss. Obama used a lot of words to cover ground he has covered before - for example, close Guantanamo, how to authorize drone strikes, treating counterterrorism as a legal matter rather than one of war, change the AUMF, and foreign aid for unfriendly governments.

The most troubling part of the speech was when Obama restated his intent to unilaterally end the "War on Terror." We may of course end our side of it, but somehow I doubt that al Qaeda or Iran will respond in kind. Obama asked for Congress to withdraw the Authorization For Use of Military Force (AUMF) passed after 9-11, both on grounds that it was no longer necessary and because, he intimated, future governments could not be trusted with such an open ended authorization.

What Obama succeeded in doing in his speech was to highlight just how utterly naive and dangerous his foreign policy truly is. Obama ignored Iran and the nuclear threat it poses. He ignored all of the dangers of nuclear proliferation in the Middle East. He almost wholly ignored the role of al Qaeda in Syria and how the Syrian civil war is destabilizing the entire Middle East. He almost wholly ignored the extensive gains by al Qaeda across North Africa - including in Libya and Benghazi, as well as ignoring the attack on our diplomats in Benghazi but for an embrace of the Accountability Review Board recommendations.

After jaw droppingly asserting that we now face only the same dangers as we faced pre 9-11, Obama explained the threat as: ,

Most, though not all, of the terrorism we faced is fueled by a common ideology -- a belief by some extremists that Islam is in conflict with the United States and the West, and that violence against Western targets, including civilians, is justified in pursuit of a larger cause. Of course, this ideology is based on a lie, for the United States is not at war with Islam. And this ideology is rejected by the vast majority of Muslims, who are the most frequent victims of terrorist attacks.

If you were to drill down to the single greatest problem with Obama's foreign policy, it is shown in the above paragraph. The terrorism we face is not "fueled by a common ideology," it is fueled by a common strand of a religion - Wahhabi Salafi Islam. It is not "rejected" by the "vast majority of Muslims," it is the mainstream of teaching coming out of Saudi Arabia and Saudi influenced mosques and madrassas around the world. Indeed, it is an interpretation of Islam that is spreading around the world, overtaking all other forms of Islam. Bottom line, so long as Obama and the left around the world try to whitewash Islam - and in particular, Wahhabism - and shield it from sunlight and responsibility, we will hemorrhage blood and gold dealing with the threat.

One other issue of note was Obama's attempt to deflect blame on the AP and Fox investigation scandals by calling for a media shield law to protect journalists. In other words, 'stop me before I do it again.

So this was Obama's attempt to reset the media narrative. Its effect won't last, but that won't be because the far left in the media fail to talk up this ridiculous speech as something substantive rather than the bit of refried misdirection that it actually is. The NYT editorial board is a case in point. It claims to be in thrall with the Obama speech, and in particular, his decision to unilaterally end war:

President Obama’s speech on Thursday was the most important statement on counterterrorism policy since the 2001 attacks, a momentous turning point in post-9/11 America. For the first time, a president stated clearly and unequivocally that the state of perpetual warfare that began nearly 12 years ago is unsustainable for a democracy and must come to an end in the not-too-distant future.

If this were not so deadly serious, one would have to laugh at this bit of insanity. It is the NYT cheering a modern day Kellogg-Briand Pact, the 1928 declaration outlawing war and signed by, among others Germany, Italy, Japan and the Soviet Union.

Update: MSNBC joins the NYT in labeling Obama's speech as "historic." One wonders whether between the NYT and MSNBC there is an ounce of intellectual honesty.



Update: Andrew McCarthy at NRO makes precisely the same points I raised above about Obama's speech. Michael Ledeen at PJM is left bewildered that Obama could make a speech on counterterrorism and not mention the world's biggest source of terrorism, Iran.

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Kirsten Powers & The Left's War On Truth

For the past six years, the right has been railing against the mainstream media for wholly ignoring all stories that would be problematic for Obama and the left. The worm has finally turned with Benghazi, the IRS scandals (targeting conservative 501(c)4's and targeted auditing), and the DOJ's investigations into Fox News and the AP over national security leaks.

And yet, the efforts of the most vile on the left is not to seek the truth, but to try and spin this all either as mere Republican partisan spin, Republican hatred of Obama, or Republican overreaching - or indeed, in the innocuous case of wording difference in some of the Benghazi e-mails, as pure right wing fabrication. It is so far beyond the pale as to cross a real boundary line where any thought of fair and open debate with these people is simply no longer an option. That said, certainly not all on the left fit this mold - Kirsten Powers being perhaps the most shining example of an intellectually honest left of center reporter. And today, she took the Obama administration and her fellow journalists on the left to task for their scurrilous acts in an exceptional column:

It’s instructive to go back to the dawn of Hope and Change. It was 2009, and the new administration decided it was appropriate to use the prestige of the White House to viciously attack a news organization—Fox News—and the journalists who work there. Remember, President Obama had barely been in office and had enjoyed the most laudatory press of any new president in modern history. Yet even one outlet that allowed dissent or criticism of the president was one too many. This should have been a red flag to everyone, regardless of what they thought of Fox News. The math was simple: if the administration would abuse its power to try and intimidate one media outlet, what made anyone think they weren’t next?

These series of “warnings” to the Fourth Estate were what you might expect to hear from some third-rate dictator, not from the senior staff of Hope and Change, Inc.

"What I think is fair to say about Fox … is that it really is more a wing of the Republican Party," said Anita Dunn, White House communications director, on CNN. “[L]et's not pretend they're a news network the way CNN is." On ABC’s “This Week” White House senior adviser David Axelrod said Fox is "not really a news station." It wasn’t just that Fox News was “not a news organization,” White House chief of staff Rahm Emmanuel told CNN’s John King, but, “more [important], is [to] not have the CNNs and the others in the world basically be led in following Fox, as if what they’re trying to do is a legitimate news organization …”

These series of “warnings” to the Fourth Estate were what you might expect to hear from some third-rate dictator, not from the senior staff of Hope and Change, Inc.

Yet only one mainstream media reporter—Jake Tapper, then of ABC News—ever raised a serious objection to the White House’s egregious and chilling behavior. Tapper asked future MSNBC commentator and then White House press secretary Robert Gibbs: “[W]hy is [it] appropriate for the White House to say” that “thousands of individuals who work for a media organization, do not work for a ‘news organization’?” The spokesman for the president of the United States was unrepentant, saying: “That's our opinion.”

Trashing reporters comes easy in Obama-land. Behind the scenes, Obama-centric Democratic operatives brand any reporter who questions the administration as a closet conservative, because what other explanation could there be for a reporter critically reporting on the government?

Now, the Democratic advocacy group Media Matters—which is always mysteriously in sync with the administration despite ostensibly operating independently—has launched a smear campaign against ABC News reporter Jonathan Karl for his reporting on Benghazi. It’s the kind of character assassination that would make Joseph McCarthy blush. The main page of the Media Matters website has six stories attacking Karl for a single mistake in an otherwise correct report about the State Department's myriad changes to talking points they previously claimed to have barely touched. See, the problem isn’t the repeated obfuscating from the administration about the Benghazi attack; the problem is Jonathan Karl. Hence, the now-familiar campaign of de-legitimization. This gross media intimidation is courtesy of tax-deductable donations from the Democratic Party’s liberal donor base, which provides a whopping $20 million a year for Media Matters to harass reporters who won’t fall in line.

In what is surely just a huge coincidence, the liberal media monitoring organization Fairness and Accuracy in the Media (FAIR) is also on a quest to delegitimize Karl. It dug through his past and discovered that in college he allegedly—horrors!—associated with conservatives. Because of this, FAIR declared Karl “a right wing mole at ABC News.” Setting aside the veracity of FAIR’s crazy claim, isn’t the fact that it was made in the first place vindication for those who assert a liberal media bias in the mainstream media? If the existence of a person who allegedly associates with conservatives is a “mole,” then what does that tell us about the rest of the media?

What all of us in the media need to remember—whatever our politics—is that we need to hold government actions to the same standard, whether they’re aimed at friends or foes. If not, there’s no one but ourselves to blame when the administration takes aim at us.

In the video below, Ms. Powers points out not only the outrageousness of the DOJ's investigation of Fox News' James Rosen, but also the Obama administration practice of punishing and prosecuting whistleblowers while letting pass all leaks of national security information which paintw the Obama administration in a favorable light.



My respect for Ms. Powers has long been full and complete. Meanwhile, three of the most vile left wing journalists, Jonathan Capehart, Josh Marshall, and Ezra Klein, were yesterday seen filing into the West Wing, no doubt for a journolist meeting with Carney, if not Obama.

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Obama's Scandals, Arrogance Unbound & The MSM

There have been countless potential scandals in the Obama government, but the supine mainstream media merely yawned. Yet now with team Obama safely ensconced in a second term, the mainstream media is actually taking some notice. Finally, Benghazi, the IRS, and the AP scandals are being deemed at least somewhat newsworthy, And one gets the distinct feel that the Obama administration did not expect this. Their response has been stonewalling and castigating. From Hillary's "what difference does it make" to Obama's rewrite of history while scolding us that the Benghazi talking points are a mere side show, they are treating us to a combined display of arrogance and shamelessness never before seen in my lifetime.

And of course, the far left is likewise in damage control mode. Donna Brazile brazenly refers to the IRS and AP scandals as lynch parties and the Benghazi investigation as itself the scandal. According to Albert Hunt, Bloomberg's Executive Editor Emeritus, these are mere "faux scandals" - "Republicans are trying to destroy President Barack Obama’s second term by magnifying bureaucratic miscues and distorting policy realities." Four dead Americans, an election where conservative voices were wrongfully silenced, and a bevy of people being treated differently by government would suggest otherwise, but Hunt is hardly the only one making such claims. Yet another left wing talking point is that some of the language in the actual Benghazi e-mails differs in form from what was reported in the stories run by Stephen Hayes and John Karl. The fact that the substance of the e-mails is unchanged is wholly ignored. The intellectual dishonesty of these people is stunning.

The Obama administration is accusing anyone who speaks of these scandals as "politicizing" them. It is rather a unique definition of "politicizing" they are pushing - to have the temerity to demand facts and seek truth that might in any way hurt the administration.

We are at an inflection point, I think. The left is bound and determined to brazen their way through these scandals. Whether the MSM will ultimately help them is unknown. If the left succeeds, it will be yet another nail in the coffin of our nation. But then again, we may finally have reached critical mass and the supine MSM will start doing their jobs. In at least one case Sunday, an old school journalist decided not to drink the Obama Kool-aide. Dumb and dumber indeed.



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The Benghazi Drip & The Incompetence Defense

In the aftermath of the document dump covering just a three day slice of time beginning two days after the Benghazi attack, the White House position is that all things Benghazi are now pure partisan politics by evil right wingers. In other words, the MSM have been given their marching orders, now its time to move on.

But it would seem that not all in the MSM are prepared to drink the Kool-Aid just yet. For instance, there was this on CBS News show Flashpoint, which noted that much about Benghazi still remains hidden:



CBS News reporter Sharyl Attkisson reports that many in the administration are pleading a defense of incompetence for leaving our people in Benghazi to die with no support forthcoming:

Obama administration officials who were in key positions on Sept. 11, 2012, acknowledge that a range of mistakes were made the night of the attacks on the U.S. missions in Benghazi, and in messaging to Congress and the public in the aftermath.

The officials spoke to CBS News in a series of interviews and communications under the condition of anonymity so that they could be more frank in their assessments. They do not all agree on the list of mistakes and it's important to note that they universally claim that any errors or missteps did not cost lives and reflect "incompetence rather than malice or cover up." Nonetheless, in the eight months since the attacks, this is the most sweeping and detailed discussion by key players of what might have been done differently.

"We're portrayed by Republicans as either being lying or idiots," said one Obama administration official who was part of the Benghazi response. "It's actually closer to us being idiots."

The Obama administration's chief critics on Benghazi, such as Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., remain skeptical. They see a pattern, even a conspiracy, to deflect attention from the idea that four Americans had been killed by al Qaeda-linked attackers, on the president's watch. "There is no conclusion a reasonable person could reach other than that for a couple of weeks after the attack, [the Obama administration was] trying to push a narrative that was politically beneficial to the president's re-election," Graham told CBS News.

The list of mea culpas by Obama administration officials involved in the Benghazi response and aftermath include: standing down the counterterrorism Foreign Emergency Support Team, failing to convene the Counterterrorism Security Group, failing to release the disputed Benghazi "talking points" when Congress asked for them, and using the word "spontaneous" while avoiding the word "terrorism."

There is much more to her column. She goes on to assert that Commander In Extremis force was in fact diverted from its training mission in Croatia to forward deployment in Italy, but by the time they arrived, the fighting was over. She also notes that AFRICOM was in the process of forming its own Commander In Extremis force, but it was in the U.S. finishing up its training. That still does not explain the lack of military support.

Be that as it may, that still does not explain the lack of sending other assets, whether air or land. You go to war with what you have, not with what you want to have. The fact that a specially trained QRF was not available does not mean that a host of other assets could have been on the ground or over target in time to make a difference. You will recall that the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff claimed that the military did not provide assets during the attack because they were never "asked" to do so by the State Dept. That testimony must be read in light of the testimony the other day that, at 2 a.m. Benghazi time, while the terrorist attack was ongoing, Hillary Clinton spoke by phone with State's second in charge in Libya, Johnathan Hicks, and told him that no military support would be coming. Those two statements seem to be in direct conflict. Bottom line, there is much more to this story to be told or, to use the words of POTUS, there is a lot more there there. I suspect that there is some truth to the gross incompetence story, but I also suspect that the dominant consideration in all aspects of the Benghazi scandal was political.

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The "There" of Benghazi

At a press conference yesterday, an angry Obama wanted everybody to know that Benghazi is a non-issue - or as he put it, "there's no there there." It's all just Republicans acting for wholly political motives.

Apparently seeking objective truth is purely political to the ideological left, where only "socialist truth" matters. Obama's arrogance, shamelessness and dishonesty are breathtaking.



Just a reminder of what's "there":

1. Our diplomats were put in a situation where they were left unprotected despite repeated requests for more security in an environment of ever increasing threat. We still don't know whether the decisions to deny increased security was the result of a policy decision to "normalize" our security posture, as e-mails have suggested and at least one person has testified, or, as the ARB states, the decisions were simply bad judgement by low level security officials. If it is the former, than this is ipso facto proof that this administration's policy towards radical Islam is dangerously out of touch with reality.

2. Once news of the attack hit Washington, not a single asset beyond a spy drone was activated to respond, thus leading one to speculate that our people were left to die rather than risk a messy situation two months before the election. There has yet to be anything close to an adequate and believable answer that would suggest otherwise. Where were Obama, Clinton and Panetta? Did Generals' Dempsey and Ham really sit on their thumbs and not begin to forward deploy assets? Why did the White House refuse to activate the FEST? Who told the small spec ops contingent in Tripoli not to deploy to Benghazi and why? What was Hillary's role? Why did Johnathan Hick's testify that, in a 2 a.m. phone call during the attack, Hillary told Hicks that no military response would be forthcoming? And if Hillary was in the loop, why did she not testify before the ARB?

3. Obama just engaged in a complete rewrite of history regarding the talking points. Powerline has the definitive post on this, though you can't go wrong with the Fox News panels analysis (and it is now official, Kirsten Powers is my favorite living left of center person):



I could go on, but suffice it to say that there is a hell of a lot of there there. And it matters.

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Benghazi & The Lack of Military Response

The headline in Wapo yesterday was: "Libya protests prompt U.S. to evacuate diplomats, put troops on alert." In the body of the story, we learn that, in response to potential violence directed at our diplomats, our military has forward deployed several spec ops units. For those of you with no time in the military, let me point out, this is not something special, it is utterly routine. The only thing unusual about this is that it is making the papers.

With that in mind, if we go back to the Benghazi time line, we can see several points that would have led our military to prepare for action. One, it was September 11 - that alone would have led commanders to shorten alert times for quick reaction forces at their disposal. Two, there were huge demonstrations in Cairo that nearly saw our diplomatic post come under attack at least 12 hours before first shots in Benghazi. At that point, QRF forces would have been suited up, locked and loaded, and sitting near an airport tarmac. Aircraft would have been put on alert, loaded with munitions and fuel. Tankers for fuel resupply would have been repositioned if need be. The bottom line, when the Benghazi attack occurred, the military should have been able to respond immediately with a line of assets that would have arrived in Benghazi between two and eight hours after the attack was initiated.

Yet in regards to the terrorist attack at our compound in Benghazi, there is no evidence that a single unit of any sort was triggered. The FEST unit was, inexplicably, put off the table within the first hour of the attack by the White House. The White House wants us to believe that nothing could have been done - no assets were available and that intelligence was insufficient. I am willing to be my last dollar that if you were to ask anyone who has ever served as a combat arms officer, let alone spec ops, if they believed any of that, 99.99% would say no, it is pure bullshit. Moreover, had Obama said to get assets to Benghazi and stop the attack, the military would have moved heaven and earth to make it happen.

The first leg of the Benghazi scandal, the refusal over months to provide increased security in the face of an open and obvious threat, is perhaps the most important leg of the scandal. It shows an administration that completely misunderstands the threat we face from radical Wahhabi Islamists, and indeed, whitewashes Wahabbi Islam to the point of portraying it as benign. That is a major national policy issue. The third leg of the scandal, the cover up, is likewise important because it shows that the administration did not and does not want to have a debate on this existential issue.

Yet the second leg - the refusal to send any military assets to Benghazi - is by far the most damning. Our people were left to die, likely because of domestic political considerations. It is unforgivable. The Chairman of the JCS, Martin Dempsey, testified in February that the military never received a request for help on Sep. 11 or 12, so they never reacted to anything. This claim to utter passivity is just pure bullshit. This is where the House needs to be investigating next. Where they need to start is with General Ham, the former AFRICOM Cdr, as well as reaching out to Gen. Ham's plans officer (J-3), intelligence officer (J-2) and liaisons from the State Dept. and Air Force.

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Benghazi Matters

Finally, 8 months after the murder of four Americans in Benghazi and six months after the election, the media is grudgingly becoming interested at least one leg of the Benghazi scandal - whether the administration lied to the nation in the immediate aftermath of the terrorist attack. The Obama administration succeeded in their number one priority, running out the clock on Benghazi prior to the election, and since has taken the dual positions that this is all a "political witch hunt" and, in the case of Hillary, that their potential misdeeds or stunning incompetence do not "matter." Reason's Nick Gillespie does a very good short response listing the reasons why it matters:

That is a good summary, but in at least one respect, it provides nowhere near enough emphasis. The worst thing our government has done, under Bush and now exponentially more so under Obama, is to obfuscate the dangerous problems with Islam, and in particular, the dogma and tenets of Wahhabi Islam - the most radical, xenophobic, triumphalist and retrograde force in the world today. It is not that al Qaeda or the brothers Tsarnaev and their ilk are following a perversion of Islam, it is that they are true believers in all the dogma of Wahhabi Islam. Obama - and indeed, most on the left, want to pretend that radical Islam is a rare outlier rather than the single most dominant form of Islam today. I've pontificated on this til I am blue in the face, but suffice it to say, until the problem is addressed honestly and openly, it will not go away, far more Americans will die, and Wahhabi Islam will continue to metastasize throughout the world.

Within that rubric, the causes of the attack in Benghazi, as well as the criminal refusal to provide security commensurate to the threat, matter very much indeed. It goes to the heart of the national security issue of our time - the threat to our nation and our lives from radical Islamists. If Benghazi was merely a rogue movie review conducted with violence that could not be predicted, then the administration really cannot be faulted. If, however, Benghazi represents a failure to accurately see and gauge the threat, than the Benghazi attack is the canary in the coal mine - the warning that, over a decade on from 9-11, we are still not on the track. And that is the most important reason Benghazi matters.

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The Benghazi Hearing - More Questions Than Answers

The three legs of the Benghazi scandal:

1. The criminally reckless refusal to increase security at Benghazi despite full knowledge of the increasing threat.

2. The failure to respond to the terrorist attack in Benghazi with any military assets.

3. The post attack actions of the Obama administration, from lying about the nature of the attacks to stonewalling and witness intimidation.

Today's hearing on Benghazi before the House Committee On Oversight and Government Reform informed on all of these legs, but brought to light more questions than answers.

Hicks Testimony Contradicts The Accountability Review Board

As regards the refusal to increase security at Benghazi, Gregory Hicks, former top deputy to Ambassador Christopher Stevens, said that Ambassador went to Benghazi on Sep. 11 because Sec. of State Clinton was going to convert the Benghazi mission to a permanent constituent post. Yet the Accountability Review Board, in their whitewash of Clinton and the State Dept., justified the failure to increase security in Benghazi on the grounds that it was a "temporary" post whose future was "uncertain." Those assertions are in direct contradiction - one that might have been answered if the Accountability Review Board had actually interviewed Secretary of State Clinton. It raises yet more questions as why increased security was refused. If you will recall, there are indications that it was done in respect to a policy decision referenced in certain e-mails.

Military Assets & FEST Were Denied Permission To Repond

As regards the lack of any military response, Hicks testified that a four man special ops detachment was twice denied clearance to travel from Tripoli to Benghazi to respond to the attack. No justification was given, and Hicks speculated that the stand down order came from AFRICOM.

Mark Thompson, the Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary for Counterterrorism at the State Department, on duty when the first reports of the terrorist attack reached Washington, testified that he immediately sought White House approval to activate FEST, described by the State Dept. as an:

. . . on-call, short-notice team poised to respond to terrorist incidents worldwide. Led and trained by the Operations Directorate of the Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism, it assists U.S. missions and host governments in responding quickly and effectively to terrorist attacks. The FEST, which has deployed to over 20 countries since its inception in 1986, leaves for an incident site within four hours of notification, providing the fastest assistance possible.

The FEST provides round-the-clock advice and assistance to Ambassadors and foreign governments facing crisis. The Team is comprised of seasoned experts from the Department of State, FBI, Department of Defense, Department of Energy, and the Intelligence Community. Once on the scene, FEST members help Ambassadors assess the emergency, advise on how best to respond, and assist in managing consequent operations. . . .

Thompson testified that the request was denied by the White House with no justification given. Hicks further testified that the defense attache said that jets from Italy could've been there in 2-3 hours, but there were no tankers to refuel them. To add, an F22 has a range of about 1,800 miles. Using back of an envelope calculations, a flight from the air base in Italy to Benghazi would have eaten up about half or more of the fuel, so refueling would be an issue. That said, where were the tankers and what would there response time have been?

The testimony as to FEST is indeed significant, but on the larger issue of a lack of military response, it is little more than walking around the margins. The day of the attack was Sept. 11. Hours earlier there had already been a potential incident at the Embassy in Cairo. I spent too long in the military as an infantry officer, including doing plans and operations in Korea, to believe anything other than that AFRICOM, responsible for military operations in Egypt and Libya, would have had contingency plans operational and soldiers suited up and on alert for just such an attack as occurred in Benghazi. Knowing what I know, anything else is inconceivable. The one person we have yet to hear from is General Ham, the Commander of AFRICOM on Sep. 11, 2012. He has not been heard from since Sept. 11, 2012, but he was relieved of his command early, a little more than a month after the attack. Get him in front of a hearing and we will get full and honest answers to why there was a complete lack of military response, leaving our State Dept. and CIA personnel in Benghazi to fight and die wholly on their own.

On a related note, the Hill is running a story today that Obama's Pentagon is refusing to comply with a request from the House to provide "access to documents on last year’s terrorist attack in Benghazi."

Post Attack Cover-up

Lastly, on the issue of the post attack actions by the White House and Sec. of State, Hicks testified that no one from the State Dept. mission in Libya ever characterized the attack as anything other than a terrorist attack. There was never even a suggestion that it was a movie review gone rogue. This from PJM:

Hicks testified to a pattern of behavior that leads to the reasonable conclusion that many officials within the State Department wanted him to remain silent after the Benghazi attack. He said that on the night of the attack he was personally commended both by Secretary Clinton and President Barack Obama. But he later questioned why Ambassador Rice blamed the YouTube movie, and from that point on his superior, Acting Assistant Secretary for Near Eastern Affairs Beth Jones, questioned his “management style” and told him directly that no one in State should want him on their team in the field again. He was eventually demoted to a desk job after having been deputy to Ambassador Stevens, and remains in that post. Hick also testified that the Accountability Review Board, convened by Clinton last fall allegedly to determine the facts of the attack, never had stenographers in the room during his tw0-hour interview. Nordstrom concurred. Thompson was not even allowed to testify to the ARB despite having direct knowledge of the attacks due to his position on the U.S. Foreign Emergency Support Team. Thompson testified that the FEST was designed to go from zero to wheels up very quickly but was not deployed at all. He wanted to tell his story to the ARB, but was not allowed to. Hicks also testified that for the first time in his career, the State Department assigned a lawyer/minder to attend witness interviews with the ARB. He also testified that Jones told him not to be personally interviewed by Rep. Jason Chaffetz, the Republican House member who was investigating the attack on behalf of the House Government Oversight and Reform Committee. It all adds up to a pattern of witness control and intimidation.

Questions Raised Or Left Unanswered

In sum, as regards the three legs of this scandal, this hearing scratched a bit below the surface, but left more questions than answers on each of the issues. We still don't know anything approaching the full story behind the criminally reckless refusals to increase security, only now we know that the ostensible reason for the refusal given by the Accountability Review Board is likely false.

We now know that some military assets were withheld and we now know that someone in the White House made a decision to sideline the FEST team. Who and why remain unanswered. Further, as to all available military assets, we need to hear directly from Gen. Ham. Lastly, never addressed during the hearing - but still out there - is Obama's role in the non-response. I can guarantee that if he said deploy to Benghazi and deploy now, the military would have had assets on the ground long before the last two Americans died some seven hours after hostilities began.

As to the post attack cover-up, there seems to be no question that we were lied to by the Sec. of State and the President in the days and weeks following the attack. There is a real question as to whether the Accountability Review Board report, issued in Dec., was a whitewash. I will add that it seems obvious that it was.

Likely Scenario

Finally, let me speculate on what I think happened as to the three legs of this scandal. The refusals to provide additional security despite the dangerously increasing threat were the result of a policy approved by or at least known to Clinton, if not Obama. Do remember the e-mails discussing a decision made to "normalize" our security posture in Libya. As to the second leg, when the attack came, Obama did precisely as I forecast he or Clinton would do in such a situation in a post I wrote in 2008 - he made a purely political decision not to deploy assets and risk a major embarrassment prior to the election. Lastly, the charges of a cover up really go beyond speculation at this point. Obama will stonewall this for as long as possible, and every left wing media outlet in the nation has already circled the wagons around Hillary. The reality is that their cover-up may work - or at least it will until the House gets Gen. Ham under oath. Then I will be proven wrong or the dam will break.

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Rand Paul To Hillary Clinton: You Should Have Been Fired Over Benghazi

Hillary Clinton is finally appearing before Congress to answer questions on Benghazi. This in the wake of a State Dept. "investigation" that was an utter whitewash, finding that no one in the State Dept., from Hillary on down, bore culpability for the criminally reckless decisions that led to the death of our Ambassador in Libya and three other Americans. Clinton, in her opening statement, is magnanimously taking "full responsibility" for the Benghazi scandal, but defending against any culpability on the grounds that she had no idea what was going on. Kudo's to Rand Paul for hitting the nail on the head in his response to Clinton's testimony:



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A Complete Whitewash: The Accountability Review Board Report On Benghazi

The Accountability Review Board, established by Hillary Clinton in the wake of the 9-11-12 attack on our consulate in Benghazi, has released its report, an unclassified version of which you can find here. It is a travesty. On the issues of who made the decisions to deny requests for greater security in Benghazi, why they made those decisions, and why our government sent no military assets in response to the attack that lasted over seven hours, the report is an utterly worthless whitewash. The Board excuses failure, ignores relevant fact, makes bald assertions disclaiming responsibility, and holds no one liable.

Here is the ARB's first finding:

The attacks were security related, involving arson, small arms and machine gun fire, and the use of RPGs, grenades, and mortars against U.S. personnel at two separate facilities – the SMC and the Annex – and en route between them. Responsibility for the tragic loss of life, injuries, and damage to U.S. facilities and property rests solely and completely with the terrorists who perpetrated the attacks. The Board concluded that there was no protest prior to the attacks, which were unanticipated in their scale and intensity.

Let's pull that apart. Yes, responsibility for the loss of life lies with the terrorists. But that statement, implying as it does that the people who made the decisions denying greater security in Benghazi bear no responsibility is simply beyond the pale. Those decisions were not merely reckless, they were, in the context, criminally reckless. This ARB attempt to remove all moral and ethical condemnation from those who denied the security requests is a set up for the ARB's later finding that no one is culpable for the policies and decisions that left four Americans dead, including a U.S. Ambassador.

As to the Board's conclusion that there was no protest prior to the attacks – well, it would be impossible to claim otherwise at this point. As to their conclusion that the “attacks . . . were unanticipated in their scale and intensity,” that is ridiculous. The report itself lays out a list of 20 significant attacks that occurred in or near Benghazi in the run up to September 11. The report neglects to note that a month prior to the attack, the security personnel in Benghazi sent a report addressed to Hillary Clinton laying out their concerns that such an attack as occurred on 9-11 might happen, and that it would over-run the U.S. compounds. How much more “anticipated” could this attack have been?

The Board gets a bit more specific on this issue in their fifth finding, but it is no more accurate in its factual underpinnings, nor more acceptable in its conclusion:

The Board found that certain senior State Department officials within two bureaus demonstrated a lack of proactive leadership and management ability in their responses to security concerns posed by Special Mission Benghazi, given the deteriorating threat environment and the lack of reliable host government protection. However, the Board did not find reasonable cause to determine that any individual U.S. government employee breached his or her duty.

At no point in this report is there a discussion of precisely why each request for security was denied, merely some vague references to failures in management and leadership and a suggestion of budgetary problems. There is no reference whatsoever to the policy decision to “normalize” the security posture in Benghazi, and of course no identification of who originated that policy. And the finding that, despite criminally reckless decisions not to have adequate security in Benghazi, no one is liable, can only be described as very convenient for the administration. There is no reason for the decision makers to tell their side of the story if they are being protected in their jobs. This is despicable.

Lastly, the Board issued the finding that “there simply was not enough time for armed U.S. military assets to have made a difference.” That is made as a bald assertion, with no discussion of the assets available and their response times. No facts whatsoever are given in support of this assertion. And indeed, some of the facts given in the report suggest otherwise. The report makes clear that the people in Benghazi had ongoing communications with “Washington.” It also makes clear that AFRICOM was able to quickly get drones in the air over Benghazi. Indeed, the bald assertion of the ARB is in contravention to all of the known facts regarding the potential for deployment of our military in response to the Benghazi attack.

On the issues of who made the decisions to deny security and why, and on the issue of the failure of the U.S. to respond militarily to the attack, this report is less than worthless. It gives no answers, merely excuses. The Board's report does not, as many MSM and blogs are asserting today, rip the State Department - it covers for it.

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Benghazi: Secret Cable Shows The State Dept. Knew Of The Precise Danger To Our Consulate

The worst scandal in living memory - the slaughter of four Americans in Benghazi by al Qaeda and related groups - just got worse yet again, this time via the leak of a Secret cable showing that our people in Benghazi specifically saw such a coordinated attack as possible and assessed that it would succeed. This from Fox News:

The U.S. Mission in Benghazi convened an “emergency meeting” less than a month before the assault that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans, because Al Qaeda had training camps in Benghazi and the consulate could not defend against a “coordinated attack,” according to a classified cable reviewed by Fox News.

Summarizing an Aug. 15 emergency meeting convened by the U.S. Mission in Benghazi, the Aug. 16 cable marked “SECRET” said that the State Department’s senior security officer, also known as the RSO, did not believe the consulate could be protected.

“RSO (Regional Security Officer) expressed concerns with the ability to defend Post in the event of a coordinated attack due to limited manpower, security measures, weapons capabilities, host nation support, and the overall size of the compound,” the cable said.

That cable was addressed to "Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the Emergency Action Committee." That this is being embargoed by the MSM is an obscenity. I am waiting again to hear Hillary pawn off responsibility for security decisions in the run up to the 9-11 attacks. Obama refused to answer who denied requests for more security in Benghazi and why. The reason virtually has to be because of a policy decision by either Clinton or Obama. We need those answers before Nov. 6. - as well as the answers to the other equally serious legs of this scandal. Who denied military support to the consulate during the seven hour attack, and why did the Obama government claim for weeks that the attack was the spontaneous reaction to a youtube video?

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Benghazi: Who Put The 3 A.M. Phone Call On Hold?

Benghazi was the administration's 3 A.M. phone call. Someone in the administration, perhaps Obama himself or with his knowledge, put that phone call on hold, abandoning our people in Benghazi to their death. Their inaction, no doubt borne of political calculations, is criminal. No need to take my word for it.

Admiral James Lyons, U.S.N., Ret., former commander of the Pacific Fleet, doesn't hold back on the Obama administrations failures in Benghazi or the degree of deception he sees being practiced. Adm. Lyons writes in the Washington Times today, calling for immediate and "full disclosure of what has become the “Benghazi Betrayal and Cover-up:"

Once the attack commenced at 10:00 p.m. Libyan time (4:00 p.m. EST), we know the mission security staff immediately contacted Washington and our embassy in Tripoli. It now appears the White House, Pentagon, State Department, CIA, NDI, JCS and various other military commands monitored the entire battle in real time via frantic phone calls from our compound and video from an overhead drone. The cries for help and support went unanswered.

Panetta's claim that there was insufficient intelligence to launch our military assets in support of the Benghazi mission is just pure, unadulterated bullshit. He had better real time intel than any commander could hope to have going into a combat situation. As to Panetta's claim that Gen. Ham and Gen. Dempsey concurred - I want to hear that with my own ears. That is simply unbelievable. More on Gen. Ham at the bottom of this post.

To continue from Adm. Lyons:

The Obama national security team, including CIA, DNI, State Department and the Pentagon, watched and listened to the assault but did nothing to answer repeated calls for assistance. It has been reported that President Obama met with Vice President Joseph R. Biden and Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta in the Oval Office, presumably to see what support could be provided. After all, we had very credible military resources within striking distance. At our military base in Sigonella, Sicily, which is slightly over 400 miles from Benghazi, we had a fully equipped Special Forces unit with both transport and jet strike aircraft prepositioned. Certainly this was a force much more capable than the 22-man force from our embassy in Tripoli.

I know those Special Forces personnel were ready to leap at the opportunity. There is no doubt in my mind they would have wiped out the terrorists attackers. Also I have no doubt that Admiral William McRaven, Commander of U.S. Special Operations Command, would have had his local commander at Sigonella ready to launch; however, apparently he was countermanded—by whom? We need to know.

I also understand we had a C-130 gunship available, which would have quickly disposed of the terrorist attackers. This attack went on for seven hours. Our fighter jets could have been at our Benghazi mission within an hour. Our Special Forces out of Sigonella could have been there within a few hours. There is not any doubt that action on our part could have saved the lives of our two former Navy SEALs and possibly the ambassador.

Having been in a number of similar situations, I know you have to have the courage to do what’s right and take immediate action. Obviously, that courage was lacking for Benghazi. The safety of your personnel always remains paramount. With all the technology and military capability we had in theater, for our leadership to have deliberately ignored the pleas for assistance is not only in incomprehensible, it is un-American.

To anyone without any military experience, Panetta's claim that there was not sufficient intelligence and that, as a matter of doctrine, we don't put soldier's in harms way without a complete intel picture probably sounds reasonable. I can virtually assure you that to every current and former military officer - on the facts of Benghazi - Panetta's explanation is ludicrous. It is meant to gloss over deliberate inaction that was criminal. As Adm. Lyons concludes:

Somebody high up in the administration made the decision that no assistance (outside our Tripoli embassy) would be provided, and let our people be killed. The person who made that callous decision needs to be brought to light and held accountable. According to a CIA spokesperson, “No one at any level in the CIA told anybody not to help those in need.” We also need to know whether the director of CIA and the director of National Intelligence were facilitators in the fabricated video lie and the overall cover-up. Their credibility is on the line. A congressional committee should be immediately formed to get the facts out to the American people. Nothing less is acceptable.

Obama was asked directly, at the Town Hall debate, who denied the requests for additional security in Benghazi in the run up to 9-11 and why they denied those requests. Obama did not answer the questions. Obama was asked directly by a reporter last week whether the administration denied requests for help during the Benghazi attack. Obama did not answer the question. Obama is trying to string this out until after the election. This is a scandal far worse than Watergate, and yet Obama is being aided at every turn by a MSM totally vested in his reelection. This really is surreal.

Update: This from Michael Ramirez at IBD captures the situation perfectly:

The first person we need to hear from is Gen. Ham, the AFRICOM commander during the Benghazi attack. Panetta claims that Gen. Ham agreed with him, that there was insufficient intel to send military support to Benghazi. There is a rumor that Gen. Ham was relieved of his command on that night because he was preparing to disobey an order to stand down. We know that Gen. Ham is still listed as the AFRICOM Cdr, but that Panetta announced his replacement two weeks ago after Gen Ham had only been in command for 18 months. Further, we now learn that Gen Ham is no longer even at his post, he has returned to the U.S. and is being processed out of the Army into retirement. It would be very unusual indeed for a Commanding officer to physically leave his post at any time before a change of command ceremony in which both he and the incoming commander would participate. Someone needs to interview Gen. Ham.

(H/T Hot Air)

Update: The White House has just released photos of Obama in the WH Situation Room, looking at a large screen video link and getting an update on Sandy. Instapundit links to various twitter responses, asking where the pic is of Obama in the Situation Room during the Benghazi attack. Where indeed?

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"Inexcusable" - Former National Security Advisor McFarlane On Benghazi

(H/T Gateway Pundit)

This is a massive scandal. Americans died because of foreign policy based on fantasy, then a horrendous refusal to provide military support during the seven hour assault, a decision driven by politically motivated risk aversion. In the weeks and month since, the Obama administration has covered up and iied to the American people. Yet the number of front page stories at the NYT devoted to this scandal so far - 0. On today's Sunday morning news shows, only Fox News even brought up the issue of Benghazi.

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The Benghazi Scandal Worsens - Risk Aversion Results In A Complete Operational Failure (Update 3)

The Benghazi scandal just got much worse. I posted below that it appears that the decision to deny the requests for additional security in Benghazi made in the months prior to 9-11 was a political decision made at the Clinton / Obama level. Now Fox News has broken a story that, during the attack itself, one that lasted, on and off, over a period of seven hours, the consulate's multiple calls for assistance were refused by the 'chain of command' - that even though we had a drone on station providing real time intelligence and more than sufficient assets to provide a rapid and effective response. American lives were lost because of that it.

[Update: Bill Kristol, in a column linked at the bottom of this post, notes that the CIA has, in a denial made in response to the Fox News story below, "thrown Obama under the bus." Kristol makes the case that the decision to deny military support had to come directly from Obama.]

This from Fox News:

Fox News has learned from sources who were on the ground in Benghazi that an urgent request from the CIA annex for military back-up during the attack on the U.S. consulate and subsequent attack several hours later on the annex itself was denied by the CIA chain of command -- who also told the CIA operators twice to "stand down" rather than help the ambassador's team when shots were heard at approximately 9:40 p.m. in Benghazi on Sept. 11.

This part, referencing the "CIA chain of command," is unclear. Maybe the CIA station chief?

Former Navy SEAL Tyrone Woods was part of a small team who was at the CIA annex about a mile from the U.S. consulate where Ambassador Chris Stevens and his team came under attack. When he and others heard the shots fired, they informed their higher-ups at the annex to tell them what they were hearing and requested permission to go to the consulate and help out. They were told to "stand down," according to sources familiar with the exchange. Soon after, they were again told to "stand down."

Woods and at least two others ignored those orders and made their way to the consulate which at that point was on fire. Shots were exchanged. The rescue team from the CIA annex evacuated those who remained at the consulate and Sean Smith, who had been killed in the initial attack. They could not find the ambassador and returned to the CIA annex at about midnight.

At that point, they called again for military support and help because they were taking fire at the CIA safe house, or annex. The request was denied. . . .

Although Fox uses the word "again," this is the first mention of a request for outside military support. What was the situation report, who did it go to, who had operational control of responsive assets, were they alerted, and who ultimately denied the request?

Moreover, the people on the ground in Benghazi were not operating in a vacuum. Everyone up the chain of command to Obama, would have been alerted of the attack soon after it began. Sec. of Def. Panetta, CIA Chief Petraeus, and Gen. Ham of the U.S. Africa Commmand (AFRICOM) would not have been just standing around waiting for reports. They would be conducting their own analysis of what the situation required. There would be contingency plans in place that would have been - and clearly were - activated. Special ops units were immediately deployed to Italy awaiting deployment to Libya - orders that never came.

Update 3: There is a rumor that Gen. Ham was in the midst of violating an order from Panetta and deploying his Spec Ops resources to Benghazi when he was stopped by his second in command who, so the story goes, informed Gen. Ham that he was immediately relieved of his command by Panetta. Is this true?

There is at least some evidence that would lend credence to the rumor. The prior commander of AFRICOM, Gen. Ward, served 3 1/2 years in that position. Sec. of Def. Panetta just announced seven days ago that Gen. David Rodriguez had been tapped as the new AFRICOM commander. Gen. Ham had only served in his position as AFRICOM Commander for 1 1/2 years. This would seem a very early exit indeed. The announcement gave no indication of what, if any, would be Gen. Ham's follow on assignment.

Further, per Protein Wisdom:

As I was typing this I heard John Bolton on Greta say that there are conflicting reports of General Ham’s comments on this tragedy and why a rapid response unit was not deployed. Bolton says someone needs to find out what Ham was saying on 9/11/12.

Indeed they do. To continue with the Fox News story:

There were no communications problems at the annex, according those present at the compound. The team was in constant radio contact with their headquarters. In fact, at least one member of the team was on the roof of the annex manning a heavy machine gun when mortars were fired at the CIA compound. The security officer had a laser on the target that was firing and repeatedly requested back-up support from a Spectre gunship, which is commonly used by U.S. Special Operations forces to provide support to Special Operations teams on the ground involved in intense firefights. The fighting at the CIA annex went on for more than four hours -- enough time for any planes based in Sigonella Air base, just 480 miles away, to arrive. Fox News has also learned that two separate Tier One Special operations forces were told to wait, among them Delta Force operators.

A Special Operations team, or CIF which stands for Commanders in Extremis Force, operating in Central Europe had been moved to Sigonella, Italy, but they were never told to deploy. In fact, a Pentagon official says there were never any requests to deploy assets from outside the country.

That a "pentagon official" would mention that as an excuse is utterly ridiculous.  Whether or not a request for additional military support was communicated to the Pentagon is virtually meaningless. These are professionals paid to analyze and respond to a situation, not to wait with their thumbs up their collective asses to be told what to do by the people on the ground - people who may or may not even be aware of what assets are available.

A second force that specializes in counterterrorism rescues was on hand at Sigonella, according to senior military and intelligence sources. According to those sources, they could have flown to Benghazi in less than two hours. They were the same distance to Benghazi as those that were sent from Tripoli. Spectre gunships are commonly used by the Special Operations community to provide close air support.

According to sources on the ground during the attack, the special operator on the roof of the CIA annex had visual contact and a laser pointing at the Libyan mortar team that was targeting the CIA annex. The operators were calling in coordinates of where the Libyan forces were firing from.

If you have a target 'painted' with a laser, that means that our laser guided munitions can be fired from the air with pin point accuracy. We had weapons platforms within one to two hours of the target. An AC130 Spectre gunship would have ended that threat faster than the blink of an eye and with mimimal collateral damage. That none of these assets were launched is just utterly inexplicable.

Update 2: From a Special Ops commenter at Blackfive:

One of the former SEALs was actively painting the target. That means that Specter WAS ON STATION! Probably an AC130U. A ground laser designator is not a briefing pointer laser. You do not "paint" a target until the weapons system/designator is synched; which means that the AC130 was on station.

Only two places could have called off the attack at that point; the WH situation command (based on POTUS direction) or AFRICOM commander based on information directly from the target area.

If the AC130 never left Sigonella (as Penetta says) that means that the Predator that was filming the whole thing was armed.

If that SEAL was actively "painting" a target; something was on station to engage! And the decision to stand down goes directly to POTUS.

Continuing with the Fox News story:

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta told reporters at the Pentagon on Thursday that there was not a clear enough picture of what was occurring on the ground in Benghazi to send help.

"There's a lot of Monday morning quarterbacking going on here," Panetta said Thursday. "But the basic principle here ... is that you don't deploy forces into harm's way without knowing what's going on."

That is pure, unadulterated, absolute and utter bullshit. Panetta needs to be removed from office immediately. There were two military drones on station providing real time visual intelligence - that in addition to continuous ground reports. The most dangerous enemy asset was laser designated, for God's sake. Bottom line, Panetta had better real time intelligence than 99.99% of all military commanders in history have ever had when deploying troops. There is a pretty clear line between criticizing unconscionable operational failure and "monday morning quarterbacking." This failure to act was the former, it was was pure risk aversion that got our people killed.

U.S. officials argue that there was a period of several hours when the fighting stopped before the mortars were fired at the annex, leading officials to believe the attack was over.

Wow. Again, as an excuse, that one doesn't even begin to cut it. Our people in Benghazi had just suffered an attack from a sizable and organized militia group, our forces had taken casualties, and the Ambassador himself was MIA. So what, the fighting had stopped, so just let the survivors hang out there in their precarious position? You would want to immediately send security to stabilize the situation and protect the survivors just in case THE FIGHTING STARTED AGAIN!!!!!! Unbelievable.

Fox News has learned that there were two military surveillance drones redirected to Benghazi shortly after the attack on the consulate began. They were already in the vicinity. The second surveillance craft was sent to relieve the first drone, perhaps due to fuel issues. Both were capable of sending real time visuals back to U.S. officials in Washington, D.C. Any U.S. official or agency with the proper clearance, including the White House Situation Room, State Department, CIA, Pentagon and others, could call up that video in real time on their computers.

Tyrone Woods was later joined at the scene by fellow former Navy SEAL Glen Doherty, who was sent in from Tripoli as part of a Global Response Staff or GRS that provides security to CIA case officers and provides countersurveillance and surveillance protection. They were killed by a mortar shell at 4 a.m. Libyan time, nearly seven hours after the attack on the consulate began -- a window that represented more than enough time for the U.S. military to send back-up from nearby bases in Europe, according to sources familiar with Special Operations. Four mortars were fired at the annex. The first one struck outside the annex. Three more hit the annex.

A motorcade of dozens of Libyan vehicles, some mounted with 50 caliber machine guns, belonging to the February 17th Brigades, a Libyan militia which is friendly to the U.S., finally showed up at the CIA annex at approximately 3 a.m. An American Quick Reaction Force sent from Tripoli had arrived at the Benghazi airport at 2 a.m. (four hours after the initial attack on the consulate) and was delayed for 45 minutes at the airport because they could not at first get transportation, allegedly due to confusion among Libyan militias who were supposed to escort them to the annex, according to Benghazi sources.

The American special operators, Woods, Doherty and at least two others were part of the Global Response Staff, a CIA element, based at the CIA annex and were protecting CIA operators who were part of a mission to track and repurchase arms in Benghazi that had proliferated in the wake of Muammar Qaddafi's fall. Part of their mission was to find the more than 20,000 missing MANPADS, or shoulder-held missiles capable of bringing down a commercial aircraft. According to a source on the ground at the time of the attack, the team inside the CIA annex had captured three Libyan attackers and was forced to hand them over to the Libyans. U.S. officials do not know what happened to those three attackers and whether they were released by the Libyan forces. . . .

Every single aspect of the Benghazi debacle stinks of scandal and failure. Each new revelation just compounds this travesty. The truth needs to be made known and people held accountable. I have no illusions that this will happen before Nov. 6, but this is one that should not and cannot be swept under the rug.

Update: The CIA has responded with a carefully worded statement, not denying that requests for more assistance were made during the firefight, but only that "[n]o one at any level in the CIA told anybody not to help those in need." As Bill Kristol, writing at the Weekly Standard, describes this statement, CIA Chief Gen. Petraeus just threw Obama under the bus. As Kristol explains the implications:

So who in the government did tell “anybody” not to help those in need? Someone decided not to send in military assets to help those Agency operators. Would the secretary of defense make such a decision on his own? No.

It would have been a presidential decision. There was presumably a rationale for such a decision. What was it? When and why—and based on whose counsel obtained in what meetings or conversations—did President Obama decide against sending in military assets to help the Americans in need?

It would seem that all roads in this scandal lead to the Oval Office.

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