Footage from the night of Sept. 11 might be the clearest evidence yet of a military-style assault on the consulate in Benghazi.
Eli Lake
The Daily Beast
10/12/2012
Video footage from the United States consulate in Benghazi, Libya, taken the night of the Sept. 11 anniversary attacks, shows an organized group of armed men attacking the compound, according to two U.S. intelligence officials who have seen the footage and are involved in the ongoing investigation. The footage, which was recovered from the site last week by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, offers some of the most tangible evidence yet that a military-style assault took place, according to these officials…
…Video from the compound’s cameras debunk the initial line from the Obama administration that there was a protest in front of the consulate on the night of the attacks, according to one of the U.S. intelligence officials who has seen the footage, and a senior Obama administration official familiar with what they show…
Read the complete article at The Daily Beast.
Meanwhile, Clueless: 1 month on, Clinton says Benghazi details “still remain unclear”
…Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Friday the precise details of the deadly Sept. 11 attack on the compound in Libya still remain unclear.
The entire administration looks incompetent at this point…
Preventable tragedy. Obama administration can’t spin its way out of blame for Benghazi
…despite repeated concerns by diplomats working in Libya, the administration shortchanged security. And when the worst happened, it wasn’t willing to tell the truth to the American people.
And as of Wednesday, administration officials continued to insist that the consulate had adequate security.
The tragedy is magnified by the fact that Stevens, by all accounts, was passionately devoted to restoring Libya as a U.S. ally. He wanted to help build a democratic nation. But he wasn’t blind to the danger still posed by militant Islamists and other anti-American groups.
The murder of Stevens and his colleagues raises serious questions about the administration’s priorities and competence.
Unbelievable…even for this administration: Libya security cut while Vienna embassy gained Chevy Volts Examining the State Department’s misplaced green priorities
In a May 3, 2012, email, the State Department denied a request by a group of Special Forces assigned to protect the U.S. embassy in Libya to continue their use of a DC- 3 airplane for security operations throughout the country.
The subject line of the email, on which slain Ambassador Chris Stevens was copied, read: “Termination of Tripoli DC-3 Support.”
Four days later, on May 7, the State Department authorized the U.S. embassy in Vienna to purchase a $108,000 electric vehicle charging station for the embassy motor pool’s new Chevrolet Volts. The purchase was a part of the State Department’s “Energy Efficiency Sweep of Europe” initiative, which included hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars on green program expenditures at various U.S. Embassies.
In fact, at a May 10 gala held at the U.S. embassy in Vienna, the ambassador showcased his new Volts and other green investments as part of the U.S. government’s commitment to “climate change solutions.”…
Gingrich: Biden’s Benghazi response will “haunt” Obama
It takes Newt Gingrich a little while to get his edge in this clip from his appearance on CBS News this morning with former Michigan governor Jennifer Granholm, but when Granholm offers Gingrich an opening, he becomes the quintessential Newt. Gingrich provides analysis of the debate, noting that Ryan had his first experience on a truly national stage last night against a deeply experienced politician, and offers a fairly balanced perspective on how each succeeded in their strategies. However, he tells CBS that Biden’s deception on Benghazi will “haunt” Barack Obama in the final three weeks:
…I wrote before the first debate that Team Romney had to tread carefully on the Benghazi issue, and that it alone wouldn’t make the difference for voters. However, if they can weave it into a larger argument about incompetence and dishonesty that ties together with Obama’s stewardship of the economy, it might bolster a very powerful narrative — and Biden handed Team Romney plenty of ammunition for that strategy.
Update: Biden’s Benghazi Gaffe Makes Admin Scramble to Duck Responsibility
This was easily the most disturbing moment of the entire debate — so much so that media outlets like the Washington Post and BuzzFeed immediately published rebuttals to Joe Biden’s claim at the end of the debate. When Martha Raddatz opened the event by talking about Libya, Paul Ryan hammered the Obama administration for not heeding the calls for better security in an area where everyone knew that al-Qaeda and other radical Islamist terror networks had grown significantly since Obama and NATO decapitated the Qaddafi regime. Biden’s defense? Claim ignorance…
…So … it’s official that no one at the White House had a clue what was happening in a mess Obama helped create in eastern Libya? Words fail me.
