Further, and perhaps more troubling for the Obama Administration, White House sources confirm that in the run up to the decision to involve U.S. military personnel, President Obama was fully briefed that a large portion of the Libyan rebel forces most active in areas around such critical cities as Benghazi had ties to al Qaeda, particularly Al Qaeda in Iraq, the wing of the terrorist group that killed hundreds of U.S. troops in Iraq.
"He was warned that should we reach a point where NATO needs to re-arm the rebels -- it appears that time is coming now -- we will be arming the very enemy that we have been fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan," says a career employee at the State Department. "Secretary Clinton knows it, the White House knows it, but we're working with these thugs anyway because the President thinks it's the moral thing to do in the face of Gaddafi."
