The White House has officially denied that it deleted references to a terrorist attack and to al-Qaeda from the CIA's memo on Benghazi, or that talking points provided by the CIA were changed to edit those references out.
Which of course directly contradicts what ex-CIA head General David Petraeus testified to in front of Congress on Friday, November 16th.
“The only edit that was made by the White House and also by the State Department was to change the word ‘consulate’ to the word ‘diplomatic facility,’ since the facility in Benghazi was not formally a consulate,” Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes told reporters aboard Air Force One.
“Other than that, we were guided by the points that were provided by the intelligence community. So I can’t speak to any other edits that may have been made.”{...}
“The main question today is that somebody briefed Susan Rice and she said she took the best information that the intelligence community had,” said Rep. Peter King (R-LI), a member of the House Intelligence Committee, probing the botched response. “Now we’re trying to put all the pieces together.”
But he added, “It’s going to be a long process before we find out anything else.”
What General Petraeus had to say on Friday directly contradicted what he told congress on September 13th, which was in lockstep with the White House line about a spontaneous mob attack sparked by a video. If General Petraeus is telling the truth now, did he dissemble back on September 13th because the White House informed him they knew about his extramarital hijinks and offered to keep it quiet if he played ball?
Did he change his story now because they didn't keep their word and outed him?
The president knew this was a terrorist attack with al-Qaeda involvement within 72 hours and almost certainly beforehand when he was briefed at 5PM Washington time by Secretary Leon Panetta. There was a drone overhead broadcasting what was going on to the Situation Room in real time, and phone contact between the consulate and the CIA annex telling the White House what was going on.Why did the president and major members of his Cabinet tell the American people a story about a spontaneous mob and outrage over a video for 8 days?
Why was the security at Benghazi removed in spite of Ambassador Stevens' request for more at the consulate?
Why were none of the military assets we had with easy reach of the consulate sent in to rescue our people? We had an ex-Navy SEAL in the CIA annex with a laser sight phoning in exact coordinates of targets that could have been taken out either by helicopter gunships or a unit of the Commander's In-extremis Force (CIF), a unit specifically designed for exactly these kinds of situations already deployed at our base in Sigonella, Sicily, less than a two-hour plane ride away. Why weren't they called in?
And what was Ambassador Stevens doing in Benghazi anyway? The city is a hotbed of Islamist terrorists and al-Qaeda linked groups and we know from the ambassador's own journal that he knew he was on an al-Qaeda hit list.
Rep. King is entirely correct. This is like a bunch of children around a broken lamp, all saying 'not me'!
Eventually, we'll get the answers and it isn't going to be pretty.
5 comments:
General Petraeus' testimony was damning. I mean, I didn't read it or hear it. Because I wasn't there. It seems like you were there, no? Oh, you're just getting your information from secondhand partisan sources. Well, keep it up then.
Please continue with this Benghazi nonsense. Watching Romney implode was fun, this is just icing on the cake.
PS. No post about Romney's recent comments? Yeah, I'd be embarrassed, too...
Do you lack basic reading comprehension?
If you follow the links, troll, you'll see that one of them leads to a FOX article where Rep. Peter King briefed the media on the basics of what Petraeus said to them.They even have quotes.
As for Benghazi, I see your OK with what happened, because it's Obama. If it was a Republican, you and your lefty pals would be screaming bloody murder, and you know what? For once you'd be right.
What an ass.
getting your information from secondhand partisan sources
Rep. Peter King briefed the media on the basics of what Petraeus said to them
Well, Q.E.D. there.
Peter King, who's on the committee Petraeus spoke to is a partisan source just because he's a Republican?
You really are an ass. Q.E.D.
When General Petraeus took over the situation in Iraq, the US was on its way to catastrophic defeat. He took this situation and, in spite of ridiculous rules of engagement placed on our warriors, managed to turn the situation around and achieve a staelmate where the US was able to redeploy with honor and dignity, while weakening an implacable enemy.
As such, it comes hardly as any surprise that many in the government and the media would want to destroy him. In their minds, he and anyone like him can never be forgiven for such indescretions as acting to defend America or to promote its interests.
Not to excuse such indescretions on the General's part, but he is/was one of the great general's this country has ever had. The difficutlies he faced in Afghanistan were far more difficult than any general faced during WWII or most any other American military conflict. The American people will forever owe this man one for his service and what he accomplished specifically in Iraq.
Men and Women have indescretions of this type, especially influential ones, and they seldom lose their jobs. Again, NOT to excuse such behavior. Given the situation and the norms of how things are typically handled, there's clearly more going on as to why Mr. Petraeus was forced to resign rather than an affair.
It was probably someone within CIA that deleted the references to the terrorist attack before it was diseminaated to the White House and others. It is well known by anyone who is paying attention that the US government is infiltrated at all levels, especially the top ones, by Islamists and their sympathizers. Such forces would likely be capable of manipulating the images from the drones that the WH was supposedly getting live.
The problems with exposing the Islamists or their symapthizers is likely at least twofold. 1.)No one wants to look bad. 2.) No one wants to p*ss off the Islamist or their sympathizers, as they are very powerful. Mr. Petraeus very likley p*ssed them off and they used his indescretions against him to make him pay a huge price.
"Why were none of the assets with easy reach of the consulate sent to rescue our people?" There is nothing "easy" per say about it. 1.)You are going to have get the permission of the countries or areas where these assets are based to cross the areas that need to be crossed to get to the consulate or where ever we might want to deploy them. This process will take time. 2.)It risks escalating the situation. As it is there are several people dead. Had the troops along with the equipment been sent in, there might be more dead and we could have ended up with a hostage situation mucy like Iran and the military aircraft and other military assets may have been captured by the enemy giving them access to things we don't want them to have access to.
Please understand I'm not saying don't send in the forces to try and resuce these people. I am howver, correctly pointing out that there is nothing "easy reach" about it. This is a VERY powerful enemy.
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