New Disclosures on Benghazi

[RandFan]

That the talking points were grossly inadequate and incorrect? Is there any dispute about that?

Absolutely there is a dispute about that. You are assuming what was known at the time as opposed to what was believed.

That the talking points were not based on the best intelligence? Is that disputed?

Absolutely disputed. Again, you presume what people knew and ignore any all contradicting evidence that there was legitimate confusion and lots of CYA.

I agree with the then head of the CIA:

"No mention of the cable to Cairo, either? Frankly, I'd just as soon not use this, then ... NSS's call, to be sure; however, this is certainly not what Vice Chairman Ruppersberger was hoping to get for unclas use. Regardless, thx for the great work."

That after the President of Libya called the talking points preposterous and far fetched, that there should have been a major reevaluation of the talking points. We know that didn't happen.

That the White House spokesman should have been more forthcoming about the nature of the changes? No doubt.

The President of Libya is not infallable. Why is it you will not look at the Libyan president with skepticism and critical thinking? Is it due to confirmation bias?

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

Now please demonstrate where and when any previous administration tried to blame it on a utube video.

Show me where anyone from the Obama administration did that.

I've quoted some of Rice's Sunday morning talkshow statements already. She did not blame the attacks on a youtube video.

She offered a preliminary assessment (even emphasizing that it's not a definitive assessment, since we won't know until the investigation has concluded) saying that it appears that the attacks grew out of spontaneous protests of the video. I think she was pretty careful not to claim that all of the people protesting the video were involved in the deadly attacks. But she was certainly careful to say that this was just a preliminary assessment.

Nowhere did she claim anyone connected with producing or publishing the video to be culpable for the attacks or killings.

So again, this latest terrorist attack on a U.S. diplomatic facility (one that was primarily a CIA front and not under State Department control, BTW) has been politicized for no valid reason.

And arguing that calling something an "act of terror" rather than a "terrorist attack" is scandalous is as absurd as fighting a war over which end of an egg to open first.

Furthermore, the idea that the attack was either planned in advance or solely arose with no preparation from the protests is over simplistic (and presents a false dichotomy). I predict the truth will turn out to be some of both. I predict we will eventually learn that a small group had vague plans for some type of attack on U.S. facilities for some time and they took advantage of the spontaneously arising protests as a cover/diversion. In other words, they saw an opportunity and jumped on it.

But the fact is, we still don't know. So jumping all over the administration's preliminary assessment--pretending it was a definitive statement, and imagining it to be totally without merit--is at least premature. Implying a scandal in it is absurd.

ETA: By comparison, remember the violence leading IIRC to hundreds of deaths that happened in response to the Danish cartoon with a caricature of Mohammed? It is certainly correct to say that those acts of violence happened as a response or reaction to the cartoon. It is terribly incorrect to blame those deaths on the cartoon. In this case, Rice most certainly did not blame the video for the Benghazi attacks.

 

[Upchurch]

That the talking points were grossly inadequate and incorrect? Is there any dispute about that?

That the talking points were not based on the best intelligence? Is that disputed?

They were also preliminary, described as such, and hindsight is 20/20. Is that disputed?

What, then, is the scandal?

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

That the talking points were grossly inadequate and incorrect?

By "talking points" do you mean the administration's preliminary assessment presented very shortly after the attack?

No. It was not grossly inadequate and incorrect.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

They were also preliminary, described as such, and hindsight is 20/20.

And in fact we don't yet even have that perfect hindsight. We still don't know how much the attack was planned in advance or whether it happened, as I suggested above, taking advantage of the opportunity (diversion, chaos) provided by the protests.

We certainly don't have evidence, for example, that the protests were staged by terrorists and didn't actually happen in response to the video.

I'm not sure why everyone is assuming the preliminary assessment was so far off anyway.

But anyway, Rice did carefully and repeatedly caution that this was a preliminary assessment and a definitive assessment would have to wait until the investigation is complete.

 

[The Big Dog]

They were also preliminary, described as such, and hindsight is 20/20. Is that disputed?

What, then, is the scandal?

You'll have to forgive me, I have seen "Is benghazi a scandal" used as a dismissive labeling tactic on numerous occasions. In fact there is an entire meme about it.

I'd prefer to focus on the substantive intelligence and diplomatic failures that are at issue. In fact two of those issues that I raised I intentionally included because they were raised as legitimate concerns by one the people in the e-mail chain.

 

[elbe]

Again, I was so wrong in predicting this thread would fail to yield any substantive talk on U.S. politics and would only give us CT-type discussion!

I don't know, I found it quite educational. I learned more about Benghazi in a two day span than I did in the entire half year after.

 

[IDB87]

That the talking points were grossly inadequate and incorrect? Is there any dispute about that?

No, everyone agrees with that. That is why all mention of those responsible (we still don't know, don't we?) were stricken from the talking points, because there is no reason to think "Al Qaeda [et al] did it" when there's no evidence they actually did. So if the White House were to say Al Qaeda did it, and it turns out they didn't, it would look bad on the White House and the Intelligence Community.

That the talking points were not based on the best intelligence? Is that disputed?

It was based on the best available intelligence at that time. Hindsight doesn't qualify.

That after the President of Libya called the talking points preposterous and far fetched, that there should have been a major reevaluation of the talking points. We know that didn't happen.

On what evidence does he claim that the talking points are preposterous and far fetched if he himself doesn't know who was responsible? Any new development with these "foreigners" he mentioned?

That the White House spokesman should have been more forthcoming about the nature of the changes? No doubt.

He was forthcoming enough that those who understand what he said take no issue with it, while those who don't are obviously upset.

 

[RandFan]

You'll have to forgive me, I have seen "Is benghazi a scandal" used as a dismissive labeling tactic on numerous occasions.

It's a legitimate question given the calls for impeachment from the GOP. If the GOP wouldn't try to make a scandal out of it we wouldn't ask.

I'd prefer to focus on the substantive intelligence and diplomatic failures that are at issue. In fact two of those issues that I raised I intentionally included because they were raised as legitimate concerns by one the people in the e-mail chain.

Ignoring facts, questions, arguments and points is hardly a way to focus on substantive issues. And JAQing off isn't helping either. What we need on your part is substantive evidence of wrongdoing. Got any of that?

 

[Upchurch]

You'll have to forgive me, I have seen "Is benghazi a scandal" used as a dismissive labeling tactic on numerous occasions. In fact there is an entire meme about it.

I'd prefer to focus on the substantive intelligence and diplomatic failures that are at issue. In fact two of those issues that I raised I intentionally included because they were raised as legitimate concerns by one the people in the e-mail chain.

Since you did not address it, may I assume that you agree that the talking points were preliminary and were, in fact, described as such?

Do you dispute that the information was updated two or three days later as clarity of what happened became more clear?

 

[The Big Dog]

Now that the emails have been released (which I think was a hell of smart idea by the Administration) I expect that there is going to be long hard look at the claim that the attack spontaneously arose out of non-existent protest. The one thing every one agrees about is that there was no protest, Rice admitted it, Hicks testified to it, the State Department videos showed the lack of it.

Further, given what we now know about the extent of the State Department's input into the talking points, how can that be reconciled with the State Departments other statement, especially this one:

"Question: What in all of these events that you’ve described led officials to believe for the first several days that this was prompted by protests against the video?

Senior state department official two: That is a question that you would have to ask others. That was not our conclusion. I’m not saying that we had a conclusion, but we outlined what happened. The Ambassador walked guests out around 8:30 or so, there was no one on the street at approximately 9:40, then there was the noise and then we saw on the cameras the – a large number of armed men assaulting the compound."

 

[RandFan]

Now that the emails have been released (which I think was a hell of smart idea by the Administration) I expect that there is going to be long hard look at the claim that the attack spontaneously arose out of non-existent protest. The one thing every one agrees about is that there was no protest, Rice admitted it, Hicks testified to it, the State Department videos showed the lack of it.

Further, given what we now know about the extent of the State Department's input into the talking points, how can that be reconciled with the State Departments other statement, especially this one:

"Question: What in all of these events that you’ve described led officials to believe for the first several days that this was prompted by protests against the video?

Senior state department official two: That is a question that you would have to ask others. That was not our conclusion. I’m not saying that we had a conclusion, but we outlined what happened. The Ambassador walked guests out around 8:30 or so, there was no one on the street at approximately 9:40, then there was the noise and then we saw on the cameras the – a large number of armed men assaulting the compound."

For crying in the dark. It was in the CIA's memo. What is it that is so difficult to understand about that?

 

[The Big Dog]

It was based on the best available intelligence at that time. Hindsight doesn't qualify.



On what evidence does he claim that the talking points are preposterous and far fetched if he himself doesn't know who was responsible? Any new development with these "foreigners" he mentioned?

I'm going to focus on these two points. I want to make it absolutely clear that I dispute the claim that it was based on the best intelligence at the time. Deleting the reference to Ansar al sharia and and Al Quaeda, which the FBI said were responsible in the emails makes it absolutely clear that we are not dealing with the best intelligence. In addition, the FBI interviewed the evacuees from the consulate no later than the 14th, including (for example Hicks) Although the full details have not been released, we know that there was no protest. Further, see the quote above from the state department. Further, the head of the CIA himself said he would not release them.

With regard to the foreigners, yes, as a happy result of the continuing focus on the issues, the AG announced that they had preliminary identified ring leaders and were actively searching for them.

That was yesterday.

 

[The Big Dog]

Since you did not address it, may I assume that you agree that the talking points were preliminary and were, in fact, described as such?

Do you dispute that the information was updated two or three days later as clarity of what happened became more clear?

I'm not sure what you are referring to, but i absolutely dispute that the story that the protest spontaneously arose out of an anti-video protest was clarified two or three days later.

As late as September 24 Obama was still talking about the video protest in connection with the attack.

 

[Upchurch]

Sorry if this has been posted already.

As for the White House’s role, well, the e-mails suggest there wasn’t much of one. “The internal debate did not include political interference from the White House, according to the e-mails, which were provided to congressional intelligence committees several months ago,” report The Washington Post’s Scott Wilson and Karen DeYoung. As for why the talking points seemed to blame protesters rather than terrorists for the attack that killed the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans? Well:

According to the e-mails and initial CIA-drafted talking points, the agency believed the attack included a mix of Islamist extremists from Ansar al-Sharia, a group affiliated with al-Qaeda, and angry demonstrators.
White House officials did not challenge that analysis, the e-mails show, nor did they object to its inclusion in the public talking points.

But CIA deputy director Michael Morell later removed the reference to Ansar al-Sharia because the assessment was still classified and because FBI officials believed that making the information public could compromise their investigation, said senior administration officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the internal debate.

So far, it’s hard to see what, exactly, the scandal here is supposed to be.

From the OP:

We should learn a lot tomorrow about what the witnesses knew, and why their evidence was not included in the Administration's talking points to the American People.

Okay, so, what's the big deal, again? What actual harm has been done? It's not like we acted on bad information from these talking points to invade a country or falsely arrest ...puppies. I don't know.

Are you upset that White House officials didn't come out in the hours following the attacks and shout out classified information?

 

[The Big Dog]

Sorry if this has been posted already.


From the OP:

Okay, so, what's the big deal, again? What actual harm has been done? It's not like we acted on bad information from these talking points to invade a country or falsely arrest ...puppies. I don't know.

Are you upset that White House officials didn't come out in the hours following the attacks and shout out classified information?

Thanks for posting that because this:

"But CIA deputy director Michael Morell later removed the reference to Ansar al-Sharia because the assessment was still classified and because FBI officials believed that making the information public could compromise their investigation, said senior administration officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the internal debate."

Is clearly not true. Who wrote that? Did they not read the e-mails???

If it was classified, why did they put it in there in the first place, and why did Elizabeth Jones tell the Libyan Ambassador?

 

[marplots]

I think there's a bit of a false picture here when we assume everyone knows what everyone else is up to or has the same goal in mind.

My idea of how this all works is closer to that of a huge corporation with multiple divisions and plenty of Balkanization. It's probably a mistake to think our executive branch runs in a linear, "makes sense" kind of way.

You know that term "fog of war?" Think of "fog of bureaucracy."

 

[A'isha]

Does 16.5 think that telling an ambassador something is the same thing as putting that thing in talking points intended for public use?

 

[jj]

Does 16.5 think that telling an ambassador something is the same thing as putting that thing in talking points intended for public use?

It's even worse than that. The answer one can get from an individual who has something revealed to them can often be quite informative.

 

[jj]

and why did Elizabeth Jones tell the Libyan Ambassador?

So, you are asserting that we should keep our own ambassadors in the dark? Are you asserting that we should not attempt to find out what information others have available in a crisis situation?

What? Exactly what are you suggesting here when somebody tells one of OUR OWN ambassadors something classified? You're suggesting that ambassadors are not cleared for this? What?