At first blush, it appears Libyan and Obama administration officials are offering two completely different accounts. The Libyans, including the Libyan president, say the attack was pre-planned. The Obama administration says it was spontaneous. Both sides are sticking to their version of events.
But Obama administration officials may be easing off just a little, in acknowledging that the protest in Libya before the attack was a relatively tiny one and that perhaps agenda-driven extremists took their cue from protests in Cairo and seized the opportunity to strike.
U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice said as much when she told ABC News' "This Week" that "as that unfolded, it seems to have been hijacked, let us say, by some individual clusters of extremists who came with heavier weapons."
This, by itself, is not so far off from what the Libyans are saying. The administration just won't go so far as to call this a coordinated terrorist attack. To the contrary, they still describe the whole situation as spontaneous.
To that, the Libyans say "preposterous."
Fox News was told that the assault on the consulate came without warning, and, to strengthen the view that it was pre-meditated, the assault included RPGs and mortars -- including at least one round that hit the consulate roof.
There were two waves to the assault, Fox News was told. According to the intelligence source, in the first wave, the attackers were heard to say "we got him" -- a reference to Ambassador Chris Stevens, who was killed in the attack. Word spread, the attackers regrouped and the second wave went after the motorcade and support personnel.
