Senate Intel Committee: Benghazi Was Preventable,Al Qaeda Was Involved, And The White House Knew It

The bi-partisan Senate Intelligence Committee finally issued its long-delayed report on the Benghazi attack, and based on what it said, it's pretty understandable why some of the Democrats on the committee strung things out as long as they could and fought over the wording. But some things simply give off too foul a stench for any perfume to make a difference.

The committee’s minority Republicans criticized the White House for obstructing the report, which the committee had wanted to complete much earlier, and openly accused Patrick Kennedy, U.S. undersecretary of State for Management of shielding the Obama administration from Congressional oversight.

Of course, Kennedy was also concentrating on covering his own behind. Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) who normally votes with the Democrats an dis the very epitome of bi-partisanship angrily made a point of saying that Kennedy “failed to ensure that a facility he personally approved in December 2011 had the necessary security to match the heightened threat environment.”

The committee's report said that Benghazi was entirely preventable, and that the State Department failed to increase security at the Benghazi consulate in spite numerous warnings. As I've mentioned on these pages before,even the Brits and the International Red Cross had pulled their people out because Benghazi, thanks to President Obama's timely intervention had become a major headquarters for al-Qaeda and other Islamists. Anyone who knows anything about Ansar al Shariah and its connections to al-Qaeda in the Maghreb (AQIM) understood that a long time ago.

The report states, unequivocally: “Individuals affiliated with terrorist groups, including AQIM, Ansar al-Sharia, AQAP, and the Mohammad Jamal Network, participated in the September 11, 2012, attacks.”



The very fact that mortars and other heavy weapons were used points to long time planning. A mortar isn't like a Kalishnikov. It takes training, and it takes time to scope out ranges and angles of fire.

Georgia Republican Senator Saxby Chambliss summarized the report, saying,

“In spite of the deteriorating security situation in Benghazi and ample strategic warnings, the United States Government simply did not do enough to prevent these attacks and ensure the safety of those serving in Benghazi.”

Another thing that came out is that the entire 'protest over a video' narrative pushed by the president, Mrs. Clinton, Jay Carney, Susan Rice and goodness knows how many others was an outright lie...and just like ObamaCare, they lied knowingly, although the report doesn't put it in such blunt terms.

What we were told - conveniently after the 2012 elections- is that the original fairy tales about the video and a spontaneous protest occurred because the situation 'was developing.'

It wasn't.

In fact, the FBI interviewed the Benghazi survivors over a three-day period right after the attack, when they were still being prevented from speaking to anyone. None of them reported a protest or a demonstration.

Republican Senator Lindsey Graham (SC) said that “The FBI confirmed to me that when they interviewed the survivors on the 15th the 16th and the 17th [of September], not one person ever mentioned anything other than a terrorist attack. No one mentioned a protest outside the consulate.”

“So, how could the Obama administration come up with a protest story if everybody on the ground during the attack said it was a terrorist attack and there was no protest?” he asks.

As for what the Obama team know and when the knew it, newly declassified transcripts show that General Carter Ham, then the head of AFRICOM, spoke directly to then-Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and JCS head General Martin Dempsey and told them directly that Benghazi was a terrorist attack that night. When he testified before Congress he said, “Again, sir, I think, you know, there was some preliminary discussion about, you know, maybe there was a demonstration. But I think at the command, I personally and I think the command very quickly got to the point that this was not a demonstration, this was a terrorist attack”.

Panetta was quite emphatic that he briefed the president directly early in the evening Washington time,before the President went to bed to rest for his fundraiser in Chicago the next day. And certainly Panetta, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and others knew exactly what was going on within a very short time. We also know that the CIA Head of Station in Libya reported within 24 hours that the attack on Benghazi was carried out by al-Qaeda and associated groups, that it was a planned operation, and that it had nothing to do with any protest or unrest over a video. Yet for 9 days, the president and his team kept the fiction going that this was a spontaneous protest over an obscure video.

Greg Hicks, a career diplomat and Ambassador Chris Steven's Deputy testified before Congress that he called Hillary Clinton at 8PM EST the same night of the assault to tell her that the consulate was under attack by al-Qaeda terrorists and that Ambassador Stevens was now missing.He called again at 9PM EST after he received a call from the then–Libyan prime minister, Abdurrahim el-Keib, informing him that Ansar al-Sharia had brought Stevens' mutilated body into a hospital and that the ambassador was dead. Hicks immediately called DC, but Secretary Clinton wasn't available..just not taking calls. And not only didn't she call Hicks back that evening, but she didn't even bother getting in touch with him the following day.

So they knew, they all knew. But they huddled together like witches around a cauldron to create talking points to protect themselves and a clueless amateur of a president in an election campaign who was more interested in an upcoming fundraiser than in doing the job he was supposedly elected to do.

They even lied to the families of the 4 men that died, face to face, literally over their coffins.

Richard Nixon was forced to resign for doing far less.And no one died because of the third rate breaking and entering known as Watergate, or Nixon's hapless effort to shield his subordinates after the fact.