Seems there is a news topic or so missing - here's one

[dbucfan]

Seems to be a delay into getting to a crime scene.  Perhaps the FBI could have hitched a ride with CNN.  But if the FBI was there they would have to report - and that might be inconvenient....

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Security Concerns Keep FBI From Scene of Ambassador's Murder: Official

In this April 11, 2011 file photo, U.S. envoy Chris Stevens speaks to local media at the Tibesty Hotel where an African Union delegation was meeting with opposition leaders in Benghazi, Libya. (AP
By JASON RYAN (@JasonRyanABC) , DANA HUGHES (@dana_hughes) , RYM MOMTAZ (@RymMomtaz) and LEE FERRAN
Sept. 27, 2012
More than two weeks after militants killed a U.S. ambassador and three other Americans at a diplomatic mission in Libya, FBI investigators have not gone into the city where the attack took place due to security concerns, a federal law enforcement official said today, even if such concerns haven't stopped journalists from operating freely in the same city.

"In a perfect world, we'd be there. No one is preventing us from going there," said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "Security and safety are the big issues that will dictate when things change."

An FBI team arrived in Libya last week to investigate the Sept. 11 assault on an American diplomatic mission in Benghazi that took the lives of Ambassador Chris Stevens, a State Department computer expert and two former U.S. Navy SEALs, but has been waiting for days to actually go to the scene of the attack.

PHOTOS: Remembering the Fallen in Libya

In the days after the Benghazi assault, reporters were able to walk into the battered buildings that were targeted. CNN obtained a partial diary written by Ambassador Stevens that the network said had been left on the floor at one of the structures and several international broadcast reports appeared to show the buildings completely unsecured.

"The site is greatly degraded at this point," the law enforcement official said. "What is left?"

The FBI says on its website that the bureau "plays a critical role" in any response to major incidents abroad involving Americans. The bureau said it works with the State Department and must obtain permission from any host country to conduct a foreign investigation.

The FBI declined to comment on the failure to reach the crime scene, which was first reported by CNN, and both the State Department and the White House directed all questions about the investigation to the bureau.

The Libyan ambassador to the United Nations, Ibrahim Dabbashi, told ABC News that neither he, the Libyan ambassador to the U.S., nor the Libyan foreign minister had seen the reports about the FBI team having any trouble at all in their investigation and said their American counterparts had not brought it up.

"There is full security cooperation between the Libyan authorities and the U.S. authorities," Dabbashi said. All three high-level Libyan officials are in New York for the U.N. General Assembly.

Even if the FBI team goes in now, a former FBI agent familiar with foreign crime scenes said it will be extremely difficult to learn anything useful from the scene of a two-week-old crime.

"That scene is going to be pretty well picked over," said Chris Swecker, former FBI Assistant Director and FBI on-scene commander in Iraq in 2003. Swecker said it was "shocking" that reporters could walk through the attack site but American investigators haven't been able to get there.

"Once [the FBI team is] on the ground, they are very capable, but getting to the crime scene is important," he said.

READ: American Killed in Libya Was on Intel Mission to Track Weapons

White House Now Calls Incident 'Terrorist Attack'

The CNN report came the same day White House Press Secretary Jay Carney told reporters for the first time that President Obama believes the deadly assault was, in fact, a "terrorist attack."

The Obama administration had come under fire from Republican lawmakers for what they called inaccurate characterizations of the incident, particularly citing U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice's early description of the attack as being a protest against an anti-Islam film that was "hijacked" by violent actors.

For days the administration did not use the phrase "terrorist attack," even as reports emerged suggesting it was a well-coordinated assault that may not have been connected to any demonstrations. National Counterterrorism Center Director Matthew Olsen became the first high-level official to publicly use the term on Sept. 19 and the next day Carney said he believed it was "self-evident" that it was an act of terrorism.

President Obama spoke before the United Nations Wednesday and referred to the incident, but did not use the term "terrorism." The same day, Carney told reporters "it is certainly the case that it is our view as an administration, the President's view, that it was a terrorist attack."

[VinBucFan]

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/09/28/170078/intelligence-office-says-it-got.html

[Bayfisher]

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/09/28/170078/intelligence-office-says-it-got.html

I got as far as the title of that article and couldn't stop laughing. 

[dbucfan]

Opinion: Editorials
Examiner Editorial: The growing stench of Obama's Libya cover-up
September 29, 2012 | 8:00 pm

Libyans watch the protest against Ansar al-Shariah Brigades and other Islamic militias, in Benghazi, Libya Sept. 21. (AP Photo)
Examiner Editorial
The Washington Examiner

As reporters obsessed over Mitt Romney's "gaffe" in criticizing President Obama's initial handling of a national security crisis in Egypt and Libya, the chief executive and his top officials were misleading the media about the true nature of the attacks on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi.

Despite the public clues that the attack in Benghazi, in which the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans were brutally murdered, was a highly coordinated, preplanned terrorist strike (most notable among the clues was the attackers' use of mortars and rocket-propelled grenades on Sept. 11), the Obama administration repeatedly tried to portray it as part of an impromptu response to an obscure anti-Islamic movie posted on YouTube. This was demonstrated in a timeline of official statements compiled by the Washington Post's Glenn Kessler.

The morning after the attacks, for example, Obama implicitly connected the video to the violence, stating, "We reject all efforts to denigrate the religious beliefs of others. But there is absolutely no justification to this type of senseless violence." The next day, White House spokesman Jay Carney said, "I think it's important to note with regards to that protest that there are protests taking place in different countries across the world that are responding to the movie that has circulated on the Internet." U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice, appearing on CBS' "Face the Nation" on Sept. 16, was explicit: "Based on the best information we have to date ... it began spontaneously in Benghazi as a reaction to what had transpired some hours earlier in Cairo, where, of course, as you know, there was a violent protest outside of our embassy sparked by this hateful video." Then just four days later, Carney conceded, "It is, I think, self-evident that what happened in Benghazi was a terrorist attack."

It's one thing if the Obama administration's narrative shifted as more information became available, but two blockbuster reports by Newsweek/Daily Beast national security reporter Eli Lake have shown that from the very early stages following the attack, evidence pointed toward preplanned terrorism. On Wednesday, Lake reported that, "Within 24 hours of the 9-11 anniversary attack on the United States consulate in Benghazi, U.S. intelligence agencies had strong indications al Qaeda-affiliated operatives were behind the attack, and had even pinpointed the location of one of those attackers." On Friday, he reported that in the hours after the attack, U.S. intelligence agencies intercepted communications in which members of the Libyan group Ansar al-Sharia "bragged about their successful attack against the American consulate and the U.S. ambassador" to members of al Qaeda's North African affiliate.

One could argue that the initial evidence may not have been definitive enough to brand the event a terrorist attack. But ABC News also reported that "intelligence officials on the ground immediately suspected the attack was not tied to the movie at all" -- yet that didn't stop officials from Obama on down from publicly promoting the canard that the controversial film was the culprit.

It may be awhile until Americans get the full story of what happened in Libya. But the president's effort to cover up evidence of another terrorist attack against the U.S. on Sept. 11 just two months before the election is deeply troubling.

And it thickens....

http://washingtonexaminer.com/examiner-editorial-the-growing-stench-of-obamas-libya-cover-up/article/2509347#.UGijEI40-Pl

[dbucfan]

If this is accurate - and considering the source it needs to be verified - this just pisses me off.  Folks died due to neglect


U.S. Consulate in Benghazi Bombed Twice in Run-Up to 9/11 Anniversary
Jihadists twice set off explosives at the consulate prior to the incident that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens, and announced threats on Facebook about escalating attacks on Western targets in the run-up to the 9/11 anniversary, according to whistleblowers reaching out to House Republicans.

by Eli Lake  | October 2, 2012 4:45 AM EDT
In the five months leading up to this year’s 9/11 anniversary, there were two bombings on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi and increasing threats to and attacks on the Libyan nationals hired to provide security at the U.S. missions in Tripoli and Benghazi. 

Details on these alleged incidents stem in part from the testimony of a handful of whistleblowers who approached the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform in the days and weeks following the attack on the Benghazi consulate. The incidents are disclosed in a letter to be sent Tuesday to Hillary Clinton from Rep. Darrell Issa, the chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, and Rep. Jason Chaffetz, the chairman of the oversight committee’s subcommittee that deals with national security.

The State Department did not offer comment on the record last night.Â

The new information disclosed in the letter obtained by The Daily Beast strongly suggests the U.S. consulate in Benghazi and the late Ambassador Chris Stevens were known by U.S. security personnel to be targets for terrorists. Indeed, the terrorists made their threats openly on Facebook.

For example, following a May 22 early-morning attack on a facility that housed the International Committee on the Red Cross, a Facebook page claimed responsibility, and said the attack was a warning and a “message for the Americans disturbing the skies over Derna.� That reference was likely to American surveillance drones over a city that provided fighters to al Qaeda in Iraq in the last decade.

In June a Facebook page associated with militants linked to the late Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi posted a threat to Stevens based on the route he took for his morning jog. The Facebook page also posted a picture of Stevens. The letter to Clinton notes that “after stopping these morning runs for about a week, the Ambassador resumed them.â€� 

A senior State Department official contacted for this story said the ambassador was “not reckless� with his own security or that of his staff. But this official also acknowledged that the ambassador was “an old-school diplomat� and strongly desired to have as few barriers between himself and the Libyan people.

A picture shows broken furniture outside the U.S. consulate building in Benghazi on September 13, 2012, following an attack on the building late on September 11 in which the US ambassador to Libya, Chris Stevens, and three other US nationals were killed. (Gianluigi Guercia, AFP / Getty Images)

The letter also discloses for the first time a bombing at the U.S. consulate that occurred on April 6, 2012. It says that on that day, two former security guards for the consulate in Benghazi threw homemade improvised explosives over the consulate fence. That incident resulted in no casualties. The Wall Street Journal first reported last month that on June 6 militants detonated an explosive at the perimeter gate of the consulate, blowing a hole through the barrier. The letter to Clinton quotes one source who described the crater as “big enough for forty men to go through.�

Obama administration officials have said there was no specific intelligence predicting the 9/11 anniversary assault on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi. A senior State Department official acknowledged that there were five serious attacks on Western targets since the spring in the lead-up to the attack on the 9/11 anniversary. Speaking of the June 6 attack at the consulate’s perimeter gate, this official said, “The IED attack caused no loss of life and no injury. The wall acted as designed. It absorbed it.� This official said that compared with the 9/11 anniversary assault, the earlier attacks in Benghazi were mild. “We faced a coordinated, military-style assault. We’ve never seen that kind of attack before,� this official added.

John Avlon, Harry Siegel, and Keli Goff on the Obama administration's handling of Benghazi

Until Sept. 19, eight days after the consulate attack, senior administration officials had said it resulted spontaneously from riots at the U.S. embassy in Cairo against an Internet video denigrating the Muslim prophet. Spokesmen for the State Department and the National Security Council did not return emails late Monday evening.

Rep. Chaffetz told The Daily Beast Monday that the allegations detailed in the letter were based on whistleblowers he described as “people who have firsthand knowledge of the incidents themselves.� Chaffetz declined to provide more details about the whistleblowers other than to say they were U.S. government employees and there were fewer than 10 of them.

A senior State Department official contacted for this story said the ambassador was “not reckless� with his own security or that of his staff.

In some cases the incidents against U.S. personnel or Libyans working to protect U.S. personnel were mild. In April a U.S. foreign-service officer stationed in Benghazi was attending a “trade-related eventâ€� at the International Medical University when the security forces of the university got into a fistfight and then a gunfight with the security detail for the trade delegation. Eventually the American officer had to be evacuated by the local Libyan militia that provided security for the consulate, known as the February 17 Brigade. 

On May 1 at the U.S. Embassy in Tripoli, the deputy commander of the embassy’s local security force was “carjacked, beaten, and detained by a group of armed youth.� Eventually the man escaped his captors and phoned the embassy. “Libyan security forces fought a gun battle with the assailants in order to recover a number of stolen vehicles and release other detainees,� the letter says.

Security deteriorated significantly in June. On June 10, a man fired a rocket-propelled grenade in broad daylight into a convoy carrying the British ambassador to Libya. Later that month, the Red Cross was attacked again. By the end of June, the British Consulate and the Red Cross closed their facilities in Benghazi. By the start of July, the U.S. Consulate was one of the only Western targets left in the city.

“This was not a safe country on its way to a normalized situation. It was a very volatile situation,� Chaffetz told The Daily Beast.

The House Oversight Committee is expected to hold a hearing on Oct. 10 on the threats leading up to the attack.

©2011 The Newsweek/Daily Beast Company LLC

[Bayfisher]

It is a travesty.  Everyone has their head buried in the sand.  The past few months are some of the most corrupt I can remember when dealing with politics.  They aren't even hiding the lies anymore.  The govt  just says no comment.  It is a joke.

The congressmen said the consulate asked for more security to deal with the growing threat but was turned down by the administration.

“In addition, multiple U.S. federal government officials have confirmed to the Committee that, prior to the September 11 attack, the U.S. mission in Libya made repeated requests for increased security in Benghazi. The mission in Libya, however, was denied these resources by officials in Washington.”
http://thehill.com/blogs/global-affairs/middle-east-north-africa/259677-report-libya-consulate-subject-to-previous-threats-attacks

White House press secretary Jay Carney declined to comment on an assertion by the chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee that requests from diplomats in Libya for added security prior to the September 11, 2012 attack on the diplomatic post in Benghazi, Libya, were denied.
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/10/white-house-has-no-comment-on-house-gopers-assertions-that-libyan-mission-requested-security-prior-to-91112-attack/

[dbucfan]

Seems like this might be something that comes up during a debate....

[VinBucFan]

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/10/08/top-clinton-aide-swiftly-briefed-capitol-hill-on-coordinated-attack/

[VinBucFan]

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/10/security-team-commander-says-ambassador-stevens-wanted-his-team-to-stay-in-libya-past-august-2/

[Biggs3535]

It is a travesty.  Everyone has their head buried in the sand.  The past few months are some of the most corrupt I can remember when dealing with politics.  They aren't even hiding the lies anymore.  The govt  just says no comment.  It is a joke.

The congressmen said the consulate asked for more security to deal with the growing threat but was turned down by the administration.

“In addition, multiple U.S. federal government officials have confirmed to the Committee that, prior to the September 11 attack, the U.S. mission in Libya made repeated requests for increased security in Benghazi. The mission in Libya, however, was denied these resources by officials in Washington.”
http://thehill.com/blogs/global-affairs/middle-east-north-africa/259677-report-libya-consulate-subject-to-previous-threats-attacks

White House press secretary Jay Carney declined to comment on an assertion by the chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee that requests from diplomats in Libya for added security prior to the September 11, 2012 attack on the diplomatic post in Benghazi, Libya, were denied.
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/10/white-house-has-no-comment-on-house-gopers-assertions-that-libyan-mission-requested-security-prior-to-91112-attack/

Unfortunately for the White House, this controversy isn't fading away:

http://www.freep.com/usatoday/article/1624145?odyssey=mod

ABC News reports that Nordstrom has told congressional investigators that security at the Benghazi post was "inappropriately low" -- and he thought State Department officials stood in the way of his attempts to change that.

The State Department, in a break with other administration offices, now says it never believed the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi was a film protest gone awry, as early accounts by the administration suggested, the Associated Press reports.

Susan Rice, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, has come under heavy GOP criticism for saying initially that the administration believed the violence in Benghazi was unplanned and that extremists "hijacked" a protest against an anti-Islamic video. She did qualify her remarks to say that was the best information she had at the time and has since denied trying to mislead Congress.The AP reports Wednesday that a concurrent CIA memo obtained by the news agency cited intelligence suggesting the demonstrations in Benghazi "were spontaneously inspired by the protests at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo" and "evolved into a direct assault" on the diplomatic posts by "extremists."

Republican Rep. Jason Chaffetz of Utah, a Romney surrogate and chairman of a House subcommittee on National Security, Homeland Defense and Foreign Operations, rejects Democratic claims that Republicans are playing up the Libya attack as a way to embarrass President Obama a month before the election. "I didn't plan on having four Americans murdered in Libya," Chaffetz tells Politico. "That was not part of the game plan. It would be totally irresponsible to punt this until after the election. Imagine the outrage, rightfully so, if we just ignored this until after the election."

[NovaBuc]

Unfortunately, there's blame to go around. One aspect I'm not seeing reported much is the role Congress' cutting the security budget for the State Department might have played.

 http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/sep/27/benghazi-attack-followed-deep-cuts-in-state-depart/?page=all

Investigators looking for lessons from the fatal terrorist attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi might want to start on Capitol Hill, where Congress slashed spending on diplomatic security and U.S. embassy construction over the past two years.
Since 2010, Congress cut $296 million from the State Department’s spending request for embassy security and construction, with additional cuts in other State Department security accounts, according to an analysis by a former appropriations committee staffer.
Rep. Michael Rogers, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, made clear Wednesday that congressional staff will be looking into the attack, in addition to a probe by the State Department’s inspector general and another State Department investigation required by federal law.
The cuts to the embassy construction, security and maintenance budget was almost 10 percent of the entire appropriation for that account over those two years, said Scott Lilly, now a scholar at the left-leaning Center for American Progress.

That being said..

 

He (State Department counter-terrorism adviser Michael B. Kraft) is skeptical that budget cuts might have affected the outcome of the deadly events in Benghazi, noting that up to 100 extremists with rocket-propelled grenade launchers, heavy machine guns and mortars had stormed the compound.
“There are some levels of attack for which no reasonable precautions can prepare,” he said, adding that “any reasonable security presence” would likely have been overwhelmed by the gunmen.
Former Ambassador Charles Ray, who left the foreign service recently, said that he had “on multiple occasions dealt with [situations] … where security upgrades were warranted by conditions on the ground but unfunded.” He did not comment directly on the Benghazi attack.

[dbucfan]

Red herring?
"He said he did not know whether the cuts had impacted security at the Benghazi consulate that was stormed on the 11th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks by heavily armed Islamic extremists, who burned down the building and killed U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans.  A State Department official told The Washington Times that there was no impact on security in Benghazi from the cuts."

[wreck ship]

If this is accurate - and considering the source it needs to be verified - this just pisses me off. Folks died due to neglect


U.S. Consulate in Benghazi Bombed Twice in Run-Up to 9/11 Anniversary
Jihadists twice set off explosives at the consulate prior to the incident that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens, and announced threats on Facebook about escalating attacks on Western targets in the run-up to the 9/11 anniversary, according to whistleblowers reaching out to House Republicans.

What neglect? Seems like the jihadist were efficient at communicating their goals to me.

[NovaBuc]

 Hearings today were a disaster. The representative from Utah thought the State Department was showing classified information (it was a commercially available satellite photograph) and in the ensuing discussion/argument, it was revealed that 'not all of the security forces at Benghazi compounds' were under operational control of the State Department. Nice job outing the CIA folks over there, this is why these hearings are normally conducted behind closed doors without the media or CSPAN present.

[dbucfan]

Guess Biden should have watched - he would have found out that everyone - well except for perhaps he and the president - were aware of the crime being committed by terrorists within 24 hours.  I would offer than isn't the way it worked.