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January 14, 2014, 06:00 am
Feinstein rejects NYT on Benghazi
By Julian Pecquet
.The chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee said that key conclusions of a recent New York Times investigation into the 2012 Benghazi attack are wrong.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) rejected the Times’s conclusion that al Qaeda wasn’t responsible for the attack that killed Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans. She also took issue with the notion that the Libya strike was sparked by a U.S.-made anti-Islam video online.
“I believe that groups loosely associated with al Qaeda were” involved in the attack, she told The Hill last week. “That’s my understanding.”
She also disputed the notion that the Sept. 11, 2012, assault evolved from a protest against the video, which was widely disseminated by Islamic clerics shortly before the attack.
“It doesn’t jibe with me,” she said.
The months-long Times investigation, which was published late last month, “turned up no evidence that Al Qaeda or other international terrorist groups had any role in the assault.” It concluded, after talking to actors on the ground, that “contrary to claims by some members of Congress, it was fueled in large part by anger at an American-made video denigrating Islam.”
A spokesman for the senator took issue with The Hill’s characterization of Feinstein’s comments.
“When Senator Feinstein said ‘loosely affiliated’ she clearly was referring to groups not directly connected to (or taking orders from) core AQ in Pakistan — which was essentially the conclusion of The New York Times as well,” said Brian Weiss. “So to say she ‘rejected’ the conclusion of The New York Times is an overstatement.”
Still, Feinstein’s comments represent a departure from the Times’s reporting. The Dec. 28, 2013, article pinned the blame on Ansar al-Sharia, which it deemed a “purely local extremist” organization and “Benghazi’s most overtly anti-Western militia.”
Critics say the Times was overly reliant on militants’ assertion that they had no link to al Qaeda.
They point out that an August 2012 report from the research division of the Library of Congress found that Ansar al-Sharia “has increasingly embodied al Qaeda’s presence in Libya.” And they fault the news outlet for making no mention of the suspected role played by other groups that have known ties with al Qaeda’s senior leadership, such as Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and the Muhammad Jamal network, despite previous reporting in the Times itself.
“The article makes clear that the attack was led by groups sympathetic to Al Qaeda's goals but states there is ‘no evidence that Al Qaeda or other international terrorist groups had any role in the assault,’ “ New York Times Company spokesperson Danielle Rhoades Ha said in an email.
“The article also explains that many of the attackers were motivated by anger at the American-made video denigrating Islam, which they believed was set for its debut on 9/11,” she added.
The report has rekindled debate about Benghazi on Capitol Hill. The incident is likely to be a major national security issue in this year’s midterms and the 2016 presidential campaign, especially if Hillary Clinton —who was the secretary of State at the time of the attack — decides to run.
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