Benghazi Hearings

[Frenchise]

From the Wall Street Journal:

WASHINGTON—President Barack Obama was told in his daily intelligence briefing for more than a week after the consulate siege in Benghazi that the assault grew out of a spontaneous protest, despite conflicting reports from witnesses and other sources that began to cast doubt on the accuracy of that assessment almost from the start.
New details about the contents of the President's Daily Brief, which haven't been reported previously, show that the Central Intelligence Agency didn't adjust the classified assessment until Sept. 22, fueling tensions between the administration and the agency.

The daily brief repeated that same assessment about a protest on Sept. 15, one day before Susan Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, used similar language in television interviews based on talking points that were provided to her that afternoon by the CIA.

That weekend, officials at the office of the Director of National Intelligence began to seriously question the accuracy of the assessment after receiving new information Sept. 15 and Sept. 16 from sources that suggested the consulate attack wasn't preceded by a protest.

Intelligence officials didn't tell Ms. Rice about the conflicting reports before she went on air because they weren't sure the information was conclusive, officials said.

CIA analysis was focused more on whether there was forewarning of the attack and who was behind it, a senior U.S. official said, adding that the question of a protest preceding the attack is the least important component of the analysis.

"What's getting lost is how small this change actually was….It doesn't matter whether there were protests ongoing at the time," the senior U.S. official said, adding that the analysis reflected from the beginning that "the attack was conducted by terrorists and most likely inspired by events in Cairo."

Effectively, there wasn't a protest, but there was spontaneous attack by Islamist/terrorist militias/groups.

 

[AE 87]

AE, I'm not going to watch several videos. Make a claim and I will debate it with you. I do not argue when you only make implications. You said the annex was told not to deploy, that was factually incorrect and the delay was quite small. Excuse me for thinking you didn't know about stuff.

Thank you for clarifying your personality. Some people when confronted with contrary opinions are willing to consider other facts. Others only consider opinions and data which support what they already believe.

You are clearly one of the latter. I am not interested in debating opinions. I like discussing data. Your unwillingness to look at data disappoints me, but it's not surprising.

 

[AE 87]

From the Wall Street Journal:

WASHINGTON—President Barack Obama was told in his daily intelligence briefing for more than a week after the consulate siege in Benghazi that the assault grew out of a spontaneous protest, despite conflicting reports from witnesses and other sources that began to cast doubt on the accuracy of that assessment almost from the start.
New details about the contents of the President's Daily Brief, which haven't been reported previously, show that the Central Intelligence Agency didn't adjust the classified assessment until Sept. 22, fueling tensions between the administration and the agency.





Effectively, there wasn't a protest, but there was spontaneous attack by Islamist/terrorist militias/groups.

Yes, then CIA director Patraeus did push that story, and it could have been on the daily brief.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/201...eus-benghazi-explanation-testimony-shows.html

However, if you are willing to read the link, you'll see that the director who replaced Petraeus said that the Agency NEVER linked Benghazi to the video.

 

[MWBATL]

I think you're missing something. Based on intial reports, the attack was thought to be terrorist-related. Emails/cables go out, including to the Egyptian PM. Then, as more accounts on the ground come in, there are reports on the ground of the attackers screaming about the video. That happened after the email to the Egyptian PM/family.
It is indeed interesting to me that America's top diplomat, who is supposed to be the best we have at careful use of language in pressure packed situations said this: “We know that the attack in Libya had nothing to do with the film. It was a planned attack—not a protest.” And is now saying that wasn't the case, the fog of war, etc etc One can indeed take the stance that you have, but one can also (very easily) see how the current protestations refuting that initial email are hard to believe. The administration has every reason to claim "fog of war" to counter the claim that they lied. Yet, it was to their clear political benefit to lie as Obama's political claim was the "al-Quida was on the run" and the election was less than 7 weeks away. So, a defense of "trust me" and the fog of war is not necessarily persuasive to neutral observers. At the very least, it speaks poorly of her diplomatic skills. Further, I am not sure I have seen any "evidence" that supports the assertions that there were intelligence assessments claiming the video was the trigger.....merely claims, not facts.
Considering that there are third party newspaper accounts of the attackers mentioning the video, one cannot say the video had nothing to do with it. As I've said before, there were several indications that the attack was somewhat spontaneous(having only 3 mortars), which indicates the video was a convenient way of rallying the Islamist militia/terror group to attack. Was an attack going to come at some point? Probably, but the video(or to be clearer the Imam on Egyptian TV blaming the US for the video) did play some part in causing the attack on that day, as evidenced by the words of the attackers themselves.
I would be curious to see evidence of the third party newspaper accounts you mention as well as the accounts from the attackers themselves stating this. I have seen reports that were hearsay statements saying the attackers told other Libyans this was the case, but hearsay evidence is quite suspect, imho. As far as I know, the attackers have been silent on this matter since their arrest.
Lastly, why on earth would they have told anyone ready to respond to stand down? There's clear evidence the annex station chief got the go ahead to assist. Same for the group from Tripoli. It's not murky. Multiple bipartisan reports agree on that fact. No military assets could assist in time.
Just to be clear, my comment was that this area was murky, NOT that there was any order to stand down. I am not sure I believe there ever was a stand down order nor did I say so in my original reply...I merely stated that things were very murky.
If I remember correctly, Sheryl Atkinson was fired over shoddy reporting(poorly vetting sources, I think) on that 60 minutes piece, by the way. EDIT: that was Lara Logan, AE did not link that video.