Merged State Department admits there was no protest at Benghazi consulate

[Puppycow]

And still no official response from the White House, accepting any responsibility for the miscommunication, or failure to provide the requested increase in security.

http://washingtonexaminer.com/obama...n-policy-failure/article/2511382#.UIVwf6PVBaQ

Did you even read the post above yours?

Have Republicans apologized for cutting the State Department security budget yet?

 

[Kestrel]

I see that people are still second-guessing the Commander in Chief, without actually having full knowlege of the situation.

I guess that these people have no respect for the military chain of command, or the CIC.

Their goal is to spread disrespect for the Commander in Chief.

 

[Skeptical Greg]

Did you even read the post above yours?

Have Republicans apologized for cutting the State Department security budget yet?

Has anyone shown that Republicans cutting the security budget ( lack of funds ) was the basis for the denial of the request for increased security that preceded the attack ?

 

[Puppycow]

Has anyone shown that Republicans cutting the security budget ( lack of funds ) was the basis for the denial of the request for increased security that preceded the attack ?

Has anyone shown that increased security in Tripoli would have made a difference in Benghazi?

The requests were denied, but they were largely focused on extending the tours of security guards at the American Embassy in Tripoli — not at the diplomatic compound in Benghazi, 400 miles away. And State Department officials testified this week during a hearing by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee that extending the tour of additional guards — a 16-member military security team — through mid-September would not have changed the bloody outcome because they were based in Tripoli, not Benghazi.

ETA:

Based on interviews with administration officials, as well as in diplomatic cables, and Congressional testimony, those security decisions appear to have been made largely by midlevel State Department security officials, and did not involve Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton or her top aides.

 

[Skeptical Greg]

So, it wasn't a lack of funds due to Republican budget cuts ?

The requests were denied, but they were largely focused on extending the tours of security guards at the American Embassy in Tripoli

I'm sure that makes the Bengahzi people feel better..

State Department and military officials painted a horrific picture for lawmakers on Wednesday as they detailed a series of refused requests for added security at the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya.

Testifying before the House, the officials said they were denied multiple requests for more protection at the consulate, which was attacked last month on the 11th anniversary of 9/11, killing the U.S. ambassador and three others diplomats.

http://thehill.com/blogs/global-aff...-security-wouldnt-have-prevented-libya-deaths

 

[A'isha]

From your link:

Republicans have pointed to comments by the two whistleblowers as evidence that the administration did not respond to the consulate’s fear of being attacked.

But Nordstrom partially shot holes in the GOP argument on Wednesday by acknowledging to the panel’s chairman, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), that even with the additional security forces, the attack wouldn’t have been prevented.

“The ferocity and intensity of the attack was nothing that we had seen in Libya, or that I had seen in my time in the Diplomatic Security Service,” Nordstrom said.

“Having an extra foot of wall, or an extra-half dozen guards or agents would not have enabled us to respond to that kind of assault,” Nordstrom said at Wednesday’s hearing.

Fingers as to who was responsible for the denied security requests increasingly pointed to Deputy Assistant Secretary for International Programs Charlene Lamb, who was the stateside officer in charge of fielding appeals for more resources.

Which is exactly what Puppycow said: the requests were denied at a level far below Clinton and Obama, and they wouldn't have prevented the deaths in Benghazi even if they had been approved.

 

[AlBell]

Did you even read the post above yours?

Have Republicans apologized for cutting the State Department security budget yet?

The budget the senate has not provided for over 3 years now? That budget?

 

[Skeptical Greg]

...the requests were denied at a level far below Clinton and Obama,

The buck stops, where ?

 

[A'isha]

The buck stops, where ?

With those responsible for making the decisions. "The buck stops here" is not a blanket shifting of all blame and responsibility onto the president. It was about the responsibility of the president to make the decisions that he needs to make, and not pass the buck on making those decisions onto anyone else, such as a subordinate.

Deciding to send the SEALs into Bin Laden's compound is an example of such a decision...President Obama could not have passed the buck for giving the go/no-go decision onto a subordinate, and so he's the one that would have had to deal with any fallout if the raid had failed (as Carter did when he ordered a similar mission when he was president). The buck stopped with Obama when it came to that decision.

However, Obama is not responsible for deciding whether to accept or reject internal State Department requests that never even reach his desk. He and Secretary Clinton bear overall leadership responsibility for what happened (which they've both publicly accepted), but "the buck stops here" as it relates to the presidency has no relevance here.

 

[Skeptical Greg]

It still remains to be seen why Obama was pushing the " Video caused the attack " story for days after the attack, when he had information on the day of the attack, that the video had nothing to do with it.

 

[Kestrel]

It still remains to be seen why Obama was pushing the " Video caused the attack " story for days after the attack, when he had information on the day of the attack, that the video had nothing to do with it.

Looking over the Presidents remarks in the days after the attack, I don't see him even mentioning the movie trailer.

 

[A'isha]

It still remains to be seen why Obama was pushing the " Video caused the attack " story for days after the attack, when he had information on the day of the attack, that the video had nothing to do with it.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opini...ad82ae-1a2d-11e2-bd10-5ff056538b7c_story.html

The senior intelligence official said the analysts’ judgment was based in part on monitoring of some of the Benghazi attackers, which showed they had been watching the Cairo protests live on television and talking about them before they assaulted the consulate.

“We believe the timing of the attack was influenced by events in Cairo,” the senior official said, reaffirming the Cairo-Benghazi link. He said that judgment is repeated in a new report prepared this week for the House intelligence committee.

Here’s how the senior official described the jumble of events in Benghazi that day: “The attackers were disorganized; some seemed more interested in looting. Some who claimed to have participated joined the attack as it began or after it was under way. There is no evidence of rehearsals, they never got into the safe room . . . never took any hostages, didn’t bring explosives to blow the safe room door, and didn’t use a car bomb to blow the gates.”

The Benghazi flap is the sort of situation that intelligence officers dread: when politicians are demanding hard “yes” or “no” answers but evidence is fragmentary and conflicting. The political debate has focused on whether the attack was spontaneous or planned, but the official said there’s evidence of both, and that different attackers may have had different motives. There’s no dispute, however, that it was “an act of terror,” as Obama described it the next day.

“It was a flash mob with weapons,” is how the senior official described the attackers. The mob included members of the Ansar al-Sharia militia, about four members of al-Qaeda in the Maghreb, and members of the Egypt-based Muhammad Jamal network, along with other unarmed looters.

 

[Skeptical Greg]

Libya Attack Emails: White House Told Of Militant Claim 2 Hours After Benghazi Attack

 

[Skeptical Greg]

Looking over the Presidents remarks in the days after the attack, I don't see him even mentioning the movie trailer.

Have you looked at the transcript of his UN Address ?

 

[A'isha]

Libya Attack Emails: White House Told Of Militant Claim 2 Hours After Benghazi Attack

Yeah, and? Ansar al-Sharia's claim of responsibility was reported in the press at the time and even discussed here pretty much immediately at JREF...as was their denial of responsibility right afterwards.

 

[Virus]

Emails show state department knew about Bengazi.

Reuters claims to have emails showing that the state department was informed two hours after that the attack on the diplomatic compund was a terrorist attack and not a protest that got out of hand.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Officials at the White House and State Department were advised two hours after attackers assaulted the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, on September 11 that an Islamic militant group had claimed credit for the attack, official emails show.

The emails, obtained by Reuters from government sources not connected with U.S. spy agencies or the State Department and who requested anonymity, specifically mention that the Libyan group called Ansar al-Sharia had asserted responsibility for the attacks.

The brief emails also show how U.S. diplomats described the attack, even as it was still under way, to Washington.

http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSBRE89N02C20121024?irpc=932


If this is true, who's going to be fired?

 

[Meadmaker]

If this is true, who's going to be fired?

No need to fire anyone. This whole affair I think is a large part of what is driving that 1 or 2 percent shift toward Romney, and if that holds up, everyone involved who has any real responsibility will be fired simultaneously.


But the more I see about this affair, the more I'm inclined to say that Hilary Clinton screwed this up big time.

 

[UTLonghorn]

All it proves is that a terrorist group claimed responsibility. That's pretty common whenever any attack happens.

 

[Tony]

*yawn*

The crazy conservatives are desperate to make a scandal out of this.

 

[Ryokan]

All it proves is that a terrorist group claimed responsibility. That's pretty common whenever any attack happens.

Yeah, Islamic groups quickly took responsibility for the Oslo attacks last year too. As common as that is, it's good that governments don't immediately go with that instead of making sure.