News Outlets Held Back Detail Of Benghazi Attack At CIA's Request

[Stephanie]

They were not only protecting as much in the way of physical assets as they could but also personnel assets both US and foreign working for the CIA. AND the assets exist in other places besides the CIA compound that was attacked, even in other countries possiblity linked to the Lybian CIA operation.

Also, how CNN was able to just walk in is as good a guess as anyone's. News crews seem to be all over the place trying to get that "scoop" and it's not really a surprise they showed up on the scene.

People thinking we just have all these people in country to immediately sweep in and take care of things are very niave'. Watching too much Rambo, Clint Eastwood and other action flicks where unrealistic outcomes happen in an hour or two.

I'm sure the administration in many ways is trying to protect existing assets (people and information) in Libya and many other areas of the Middle East--thus not a lot of discussion or talk for fear of jeopardizing lives and operations. I know the right can't figure all that out so there is really no point in answering the questions they have like I just did because they will come back with some nonsense answers using swear words and troll words and everything else. I don't discuss much here because it is a waste of keystrokes trying to have a civil & intelligent conversation with rw'er nuts!

you're more than likely wasting your time trying to use reason w/ rw, hannity-watchin', drudge surfin', kool aid drinkers

oh dots, some new lines, PLEASE

 

[saveliberty]

They were not only protecting as much in the way of physical assets as they could but also personnel assets both US and foreign working for the CIA. AND the assets exist in other places besides the CIA compound that was attacked, even in other countries possiblity linked to the Lybian CIA operation.

Also, how CNN was able to just walk in is as good a guess as anyone's. News crews seem to be all over the place trying to get that "scoop" and it's not really a surprise they showed up on the scene.

People thinking we just have all these people in country to immediately sweep in and take care of things are very niave'. Watching too much Rambo, Clint Eastwood and other action flicks where unrealistic outcomes happen in an hour or two.

I'm sure the administration in many ways is trying to protect existing assets (people and information) in Libya and many other areas of the Middle East--thus not a lot of discussion or talk for fear of jeopardizing lives and operations. I know the right can't figure all that out so there is really no point in answering the questions they have like I just did because they will come back with some nonsense answers using swear words and troll words and everything else. I don't discuss much here because it is a waste of keystrokes trying to have a civil & intelligent conversation with rw'er nuts!

oh gawd, now you're an expert on all things..
you're right, you're postings are a waste of keystrokes

I know a lot more about this sort of thing than the average rapid conspiricay nut who thinks this was a cover-up, etc.

It's obvious that people in general and especially republican crazies don't know diddly about CIA operations. My husband was an attache' (military officer) in Guatemala in the early '70's and he was also working with the CIA.

Cover stories are necessary to protect everyone involved -- our people and citizens who are cooperating and working with us.

Before and after the attack, especially before an abundance of security personnel and obvious weapons needed to fend off a major attack are obvious give-aways to what the actually operation is.

Commonly consulates and safe houses don't display or have a lot of security personnel. This explains why the secrecy and the details were "hidden".

There were people after the attack and STILL in Behghazi that we need to protect and not expose.

The CIA's secret role helps explain why security appeared inadequate at the U.S. diplomatic facility. State Department officials believed that responsibility was set to be shouldered in part by CIA personnel in the city through a series of secret agreements that even some officials in Washington didn't know about.

It also explains why the consulate was abandoned to looters for weeks afterward while U.S. efforts focused on securing the more important CIA quarters. Officials say it is unclear whether the militants knew about the CIA presence or stumbled upon the facility by following Americans there after the attack on the consulate.

The CIA's secrecy affected how the U.S. government dealt with the families of the two slain contractors. Kate Quigley, Mr. Doherty's sister, said officials who visited her mother in Massachusetts identified themselves as State Department representatives. Officials said the State Department deferred to the CIA to contact the families and the "notification teams" included CIA officers.

It is almost always the case that families do not know in advance and may not know for a time afterward that their loved ones work for the CIA to protect both them and their loved one as well as others around him or her.

One of the sisters of a victim said the details were sparse but they were very professional and compassionate.

The article further states that one point during the consulate siege, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton telephoned the CIA director directly to seek assistance. Real-time intelligence from the field was scarce and some officials at State and the Pentagon were largely in the dark about the CIA's role.

There was roughly a 10 man security force there deemed to be adequate since the operation was very secretive. Among U.S. diplomatic officials in Libya, the nearby CIA force and the secret agreement alieviated any concerns about security levels. The night of the attack, many top officials at the State Department in Washington weren't initially aware that the annex had a security force that answered to the CIA and provided backup security for the consulate.

The night of the attack the alarm was sounded and the security team from the annex came to assist. More personnel came from Tripoli (it took 50 mins. for them to get there).

The drone arrived over 4 hrs. after the attack ended not during the attack and shot pics of the burning buildings and helped identify certain areas that were targeted.

2 security officials were killed in a secondary attack while searching the embassy for bodies and/or materials. The consulate compound remained ungauraded because of limited assest and the focus was on the annex to destroy and/or secure sensitive documents. (eplains why CNN got into the other compound and retrieved ambassador's diary).

So there you have it. It pretty well explains everything and knocks down the big consipiracy theory, supposed cover-up and the fact that Obama did NOT let people die! Give it a rest!

LINK

The British pulled out two weeks prior to the attack. There was no mystery as to what was going to happen. Obama left them exposed. Makes your protecting assets line ring hallow.

 

[bitterlyclingin]

[So, of course it was necessary to let the American Ambassador be sodomized to death with a steel pipe because it was a CIA Op, then, wasn't it? Then that opens the possibility that the attack was planned, coordinated and carried out by Iranian forces masquerading as Ansar al Sharia, doesn't it, something that could be construed as an act of war in retaliation for American support of the Syrian rebels? That may nave been why the Chicago Jesus looked like Bambi frozen in the headlights a few days after when he came out to push his "It was all about the video" lie. This whole sorry episode revolves around a cover your @ss maneuver by a WhiteHouse desperately trying to remain in power in the election campaign and a slavishly complicit media willing to do anything and everything to help their ObaMessiah in any way possible even if it means lying and deceiving the American people]

"Benghazi story with an emphasis on the open questions:

The Benghazi debacle is a drama in three parts: the lack of security before the attacks, the flaccid response during the attacks, and the misleading narrative after the attacks. There are unanswered questions about each part. Here are some of the most important.

Part One

Before the attack, a wide array of U.S. officials provided stark warnings about inadequate security in Benghazi. They include Eric Nordstrom, former regional security officer for the State Department in Libya; Lt. Col. Andrew Wood, a site security commander in Libya from February to August 2012; the unknown author of letters dated the day of the attack and found on the consulate floor; and, of course, the late Ambassador Christopher Stevens himself. Why didn’t they receive the assistance they requested?

"During the vice presidential debate, Joe Biden claimed: “We weren’t told they wanted more security there.” National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor later clarified that Biden was speaking “for himself and the president.” In fact, an August 16 State Department cable summarizing an emergency meeting at the U.S. mission in Benghazi was circulated to White House and NSC officials just three weeks before the attack. It reported that the 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.” Does the administration maintain that no one at the White House or NSC was aware of these urgent requests?

Part Two

Citing sources on the ground in Benghazi, Fox News reported that Tyrone Woods was “painting” mortar sites with a laser from his rooftop position shortly before he was killed. A subsequent CIA timeline provided to Washington Post columnist David Ignatius contradicts this, saying that “the rooftop defenders never ‘laser the mortars,’ as has been reported.” Can the CIA make this claim with certainty? If Woods was painting the mortar sites as eyewitnesses claim, presumably at considerable personal risk, why was he doing so? Did he have reason to believe that reinforcements were coming?

President Obama says that he gave “three very clear directives.” They were: “Number one, make sure that we are securing our personnel and doing whatever we need to. Number two, we’re going to investigate exactly what happened so that it doesn’t happen again. Number three, find out who did this so we can bring them to justice.” To whom was the first of those directives transmitted and when?

A CIA statement claims that no one in the CIA chain of command denied requests for help. A statement from NSC spokesman Tommy Vietor claims no one at the White House denied requests for assistance. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta said that the military did not have “real-time information” to act on. Did military officials not communicate with top State Department officials such as Charlene Lamb, who testified under oath that she and others were following the attack in real time from their post at the State -Department? Was President Obama aware of requests for assistance from the men under attack in Benghazi? Panetta also said: “You don’t deploy forces into harm’s way without knowing what’s going on.” Does this statement imply that there were requests for help from the field that senior defense officials judged it imprudent to act on? In any case, isn’t going into harm’s way without complete information precisely the job of our most highly trained military personnel? Does the president agree with Panetta? Doesn’t announcing that the U.S. military needs perfect intelligence before engaging an enemy encourage similar attacks in the future?

Part Three

State Department officials in Washington followed the attacks as they happened and knew instantly, in the words of Undersecretary of State Patrick Kennedy, that the assault in Benghazi was “an unprecedented attack by dozens of heavily armed men.” A CIA timeline provided to reporters late last week notes that at 1:15 a.m. on the night of the attack, less than five hours after it began, CIA -officials attempting to rescue Ambassador Stevens reported that terrorists from Ansar al Sharia had surrounded the hospital in Benghazi. On September 12, the day after the attack, the CIA station chief in Libya cabled Washington to report that the assault had been a terrorist attack. By September 13, the FBI was interviewing CIA officials who were on the ground in -Benghazi, several of whom described a sophisticated terrorist attack on the compound.

Yet when CIA director David Petraeus briefed members of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence on September 14, he suggested that the attack was triggered by a YouTube video. Two days later, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice made the same claim about the video on political talk shows. Two days after that, President Obama blamed the video in an interview with David Letterman. And a week after that, the president cited the video six times in his speech at the U.N. General Assembly. Why all the misleading information from senior administration officials?

While President Obama and other administration officials misleadingly tied the attack in Benghazi to an anti-Islam film, they have been reluctant to discuss al Qaeda’s very real ties to the assault. We know that Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), a terrorist organization that has sworn loyalty to al Qaeda’s senior leadership, was involved. So was Ansar al Sharia, which has al Qaeda ties. CNN has reported that members of Al Qaeda in Iraq, another terrorist organization that has sworn loyalty to Ayman al Zawahiri, are suspected of taking part in the attack. And then there is a terrorist named Mohammed Jamal, an Egyptian with longstanding ties to Zawahiri, whose fighters, according to multiple reports, assaulted the compound. Instead of a “spontaneous” attack that grew out of a protest, the assault on the U.S. consulate was carried out by a consortium of al Qaeda allies. To date, the administration has not identified the terrorists responsible for killing four Americans. When will the administration present the American people with an accurate description of the terrorists responsible, including their al Qaeda ties?

Whether Barack Obama remains president or not, he owes the American people a full accounting of the Benghazi fiasco."

Mysteries of Benghazi | Power Line

 

[bitterlyclingin]

Michelle rips the poseur in chief a new anus as only she can.


Michelle Malkin » Poser of the United States: The photo-op presidency

 

[California Girl]

Told you so!

It was a CIA Operation

Just being reported , several of the SEALS at Benghazi were actually contractors working for the CIA and several news outlets were aware of this. The information was embargoed, presumably to allow the CIA time to clear out any assets and salvage what information it could from the operation.

Short story is THAT is why the administration was less that forthcoming and willing to allow people to think it was just an angry mob. This was apparently a group of militants who know EXACTLY what they were after when the attacked the Consulate. After the attack there were still sensitive assets (including CIA operatives) still on the ground in Libya, and the administration wanted more time to assess the situation.

News Outlets Held Back Detail Of Benghazi Attack At CIA's Request

NEW YORK -- U.S. intelligence officials, speaking on a not-for-attribution basis, provided reporters Thursday with the most detailed explanation yet of the CIA's presence in Benghazi, Libya, and the agency's response to the Sept. 11, 2012, attack, while also identifying the two former Navy SEALs killed that night as being employed by the CIA.

But some news organizations, including the Associated Press, The New York Times and The Washington Post, already knew that the two former SEALs -- Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty -- were working for the CIA and had agreed not to publish the information at the government's request.

While AP, the Times and the Post held back this detail following an official request, reporters at other news outlets may also have known or assumed the men were not security contractors given the nature of their work in Libya. ABC News, for example, reported that Doherty had been working to "round up dangerous weapons" in the country. One national security reporter told The Huffington Post that it was an "open secret" in national security circles that the former SEALs were working for the CIA.

Doherty and Woods were in Libya on conract with the CIA. They say they omitted mention of the 2 former SEALs' CIA connection so that other lives wouldn't be endangered. Thus the "silence" from the administration (gasp! they were actually trying to protect other people!!)

Only seven of the 30 people evacuated were with the State Department. Thus the rest were CIA and primarily under the direction and supervision of the CIA, not State.

Now it is clear the Seals killed that night were not part of any security detail. It was an attack on an intelligence gathering installation rather than an embassy which paints a vastly different picture.

...disclosing such information could jeopardize future sensitive government activities and put at risk American personnel working in dangerous settings

.

Strange, I read about this a couple of weeks ago, why do you think it proves Obama is not an idiot?

Yea, but it's not 'true' until the HuffPuff says it is.

It never fails to make me laugh (and piss me off) when people accept whatever the media tells them as 'truth'. CrapsOnHistory 'told us so'... and backs up his 'truth' with 'evidence' from the HuffPuff. Now, that is some funny shit.

Sadly, I am (again) laughing at CrapsOnHistory, not with him... because I suspect he doesn't understand just how fucking stupid his OP is.