Benghazi remains a confusing tragedy, due to the fog of war and conflicting accounts, some of them wrongly reported in the media. At present they are all carefully being sorted out in bipartisan fashion by reputable diplomats. At this early juncture, we do not believe that it is helpful to reply to all sorts of rumors and innuendoes and have concentrated instead on getting to the bottom of things as well as hunting down the assailants of our brave fallen Americans. As for General Petraeus, our heart goes out to his family. Obviously as soon as the president was apprised of the unfortunate situation he immediately took action and with regret, given General Petraeus’s sterling record of service, much of it during this administration, he had no choice but to ask for the CIA director’s resignation. It was the president’s understanding that the FBI had just completed a long internal and heretofore classified investigation leading to an administration briefing on Friday about the seriousness of the situation and the need to act swiftly and decisively. Such prompt action will ensure the reputation of the CIA and end the current and needless speculation. Likewise, we look forward to congressional hearings that will clear the air about the confusion arising over the Benghazi tragedy. And we wish General Petraeus well in his future endeavors, and so now consider the unfortunate incident closed.

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A Libyan security guard who said he was at the U.S. consulate here when it was attacked Tuesday night has provided new evidence that the assault on the compound that left four Americans dead, including the U.S. ambassador to Libya, was a planned attack by armed Islamists and not the outgrowth of a protest over an online video that mocks Islam and its founder, the Prophet Muhammad.

The guard, interviewed Thursday in the hospital where he is being treated for five shrapnel wounds in one leg and two bullet wounds in the other, said that the consulate area was quiet – there wasn’t a single ant outside,” he said – until about 9:35 p.m., when as many as 125 armed men descended on the compound from all directions.

- Mcclatchy News Service

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as I indicated in the last debate, when we received that phone call, I immediately made sure that, number one, we did everything we could to secure those Americans who were still in harm’s way ...”

[for example three times refusing to give the forces at the CIA safe house permission to go to the 'consulate' to rescue the ambassador - B]

...

We now learn that the government’s own Counterterrorism Security Group (CSG) was never convened during or after the attack. Members of the interagency group are steamed, and sources have been leaking information to Fox News and CBS, which reported this news yesterday.

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Petraeus’ testimony both challenges the Obama administration’s repeated claims that the attack was a “spontaneous” protest over an anti-Islam video, and according to King conflicts with his own briefing to lawmakers on Sept. 14. Sources have said Petraeus, in that briefing, also described the attack as a protest that spun out of control.

“His testimony today was that from the start, he had told us that this was a terrorist attack,” King said, adding that he told Petraeus he had a “different recollection.”
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Former CIA Director David Petraeus testified in a closed-door hearing Friday morning that his agency determined immediately after the Sept. 11 Libya attack that “Al-Qaeda involvement” was suspected — but the line was taken out in the final version circulated to administration officials, according to a top lawmaker who was briefed.

There’s your smoking gun, as the saying goes. Someone, or ones, somewhere redacted that crucial line.

Who?
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A commenter – CatDaddyKSC – on Breitbart.com has an interesting theory:

Consider this possibility … the talking points came from the CIA, and they were altered by the campaign people in Chicago. The coverup has been about hiding the sharing of classified information with campaign officials who don’t have the proper clearance. This sharing of information could also be the source of the earlier leaks such as the virus in Iran’s nuclear program.

I’ve always wondered why David Axelrod appeared on news programs to talk about the administration’s official policies when he was a campaign official. Those of us old enough to remember Watergate will recall the mixing of official administration business with CREEP (Committee to Reelect the President) activities and the Democrat’s outrage at the time. Perhaps we are seeing the results of a similar improper mix.

CatDaddyKSC may be on to something, and I am highlighting his comment in the hope that the FBI and the staffs of the House and Senate committees will take notice. I suspect too that, if true, this is more than just an “improper mix.” Legal lines may have been crossed here with a political campaign redacting or helping to redact classified material it should never have seen in the first place.

What may emerge is a kind of government by cabal, a super-government composed of David Axelrod, Valerie Jarrett, Eric Holder, and possibly a few others who operated, in the service of the president, above and beyond our legal and constitutional systems — all the time thinking what they did was for the better good of our country.

Events like Benghazi could and should be whitewashed, since in their views Obama’s continued rule was of paramount importance. To say this is a crime beyond Watergate is to understate it. In the coming days we shall see how this evolves. It is the duty of every American citizen to watch carefully, since many forces conspire to push it under the rug. - Roger Simon PJMedia

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Former Ambassador John Bolton said that General Petraeus’ testimony this morning ‘put this dead cat right on the White House’s door step,” referring to Petraeus’ revelation that the CIA had included that it was a terrorist attack by an Al Qaeda linked group.

Bolton goes on to say that short of evidence to the contrary, the only explanation as to how the talking points on Benghazi were edited to remove references to Al Qaeda and Ansar Al Sharia is that the White House did it. And he says it’s perfectly consistent with the fact that top level officials in intelligence and the State Department and elsewhere don’t have a clue who wrote the final talking points for Ambassador Rice.

Bolton on Fox

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• Romney pointing at it
  
• A trailer for a video no one saw, released months and months before Benhghazi
  
• A sex scandal...tho liberals finally getting even with 'General Betrayus' should be a scandal hung around liberal's necks
  
• Broadwell having classified documents...she had a security clearance
  
• That 'we can can't fix what went wrong if you're going to politicize it'
  
  Benghazi is about
  
• Assigning an American ambassador in Libya to organize an al qaeda genocide against the quasi-christian Alawites in Syria...that's what he was doin, recruiting salafist fighters and organizing arms shipments to Syria
  
• organizing a genocide against the christian Alawites without notifying and getting the approval of the American people
  
• Failing to have any upgraded security in place on 9/11 knowing how alqaeda operates on significant dates
  
• Denying permission to rescue Americans under al qaeda attack for nine hours
  
  Listen to the interview
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The Benghazi coverup is much worse than you think. Clearly there were air assets on the scene above the CIA annex and they were denied permission to fire.

Tyrone Woods was painting a target with a ground laser designator (GLD). Those are only used when the air asset is overhead, ready to fire. The jihadis can use cell phones with night-vision capabilities to see the laser beam, which then pinpoints the location of the person using the GLD. As a former Navy SEAL, Woods would’ve known that. He would only have exposed himself if he thought that the mortar squad was about to be taken out. The air asset didn’t fire, and Woods and Glen Doherty were killed by the mortar squad.

There was either a Spectre gunship or an armed Predator or Reaper drone overhead, and it was denied permission to fire. That’s the only explanation that fits. Woods would not have used his GLD for any other reason than to paint a target for an immediate air strike.

Only the commander of AFRICOM and the president have the authority to tell the air asset to not fire in this situation. - Thomas Wictor

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This Benghazi fiasco is Obama’s baby 100% and there is no way for him to wiggle out.

The system is designed to ENSURE that when a crisis is happening, (and a missing ambassador with a consulate under attack is “Crisis Level Infinity”), and military assets are already charging in to the rescue, the president must be in the loop to grant the the cross-border authorization. Nobdy else can do this. This one formality must be followed, “just put your intitials here, Mr. President, for history,” so to speak. Boiler plate, but it must be done.

(Can you imagine Reagan or either Bush saying “No. Cross border permission not granted. Stop the rescue. Stand down.”)

The POTUS has to tell the Sec. State and JCS, “Yes, do it, execute the rescue, cross the borders.” Then it WILL happen, without delay, since the military is already on the way, flying in from all directions toward Benghazi.

But if POTUS says at 5pm DC time, “No military action, no cross border,” and then he becomes “unavailable,” then his last standing order stands until he changes it. So if he went to bed, for example, nobody could change his standing orders.

I imagine that a lot of extreme military, CIA and State Dept. craziness was going down while Obama was sleeping. Aircraft must be told proceed, or return to base, or they fall from the sky. I imagine many HEATED arguments around the globe on phone, text and email, subject, “Well wake the damn president up!” Followed by, “I can’t! You MUST stand down the mission!”

Just imagine dozens of inbound planes, jets and helos. Ships moving at full speed into position to be “lilypads” for long-range over-water helo refueling. Airborne refueling tankers all head to the area. It’s a complicated ballet. The Pentagon is wide awake, the military is on full alert. The rescue is in process, from the first minutes after the alarm.

Everybody in all the planes and involved HQs knows how many minutes/miles to the Libyan border, Benghazi, and their “bingo fuel” moment, when they must turn around or run dry and crash. Ships can “loiter,” but planes fall from the sky.

So you can imagine why General Ham of Africom was relieved for refusing to stand down. He probably KNEW Obama was “unavailable,” and was screaming over the phone, “Well, wake him up, dammit!!”

Planes and jets and helicopters and ships and commando teams are zooming all around the central Med, keying in on Benghazi——

And in that environment, OBAMA WAS ASLEEP AND UNREACHABLE!!!!! Resting up for Las Vegas! With a MISSING AMBASSADOR, in Al-Queadatown!

Anybody not furious is a vegetable. - Travis McGee

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THE WEEKLY STANDARD understands that it will take some time to “gather all the facts” about what happened on the ground in Benghazi. But presumably the White House already has all the facts about what happened that afternoon and evening in Washington—or, at least, in the White House. The president was, it appears, in the White House from the time the attack on the consulate in Benghazi began, at around 2:40 pm ET, until the end of combat at the annex, sometime after 9 p.m. ET. So it should be possible to answer these simple questions as to what the president did that afternoon and evening, and when he did it, simply by consulting White House meeting and phone records, and asking the president for his recollections.

1.) To whom did the president give the first of his “three very clear directives”—that is, “make sure that we are securing our personnel and doing whatever we need to?”

2.) How did he transmit this directive to the military and other agencies?

3.) During the time when Americans were under attack, did the president convene a formal or informal meeting of his national security council? Did the president go to the situation room?

4.) During this time, with which members of the national security team did the president speak directly?

5.) Did Obama speak by phone or teleconference with the combatant commanders who would have sent assistance to the men under attack?

6.) Did he speak with CIA director David Petraeus?

7.) Was the president made aware of the repeated requests for assistance from the men under attack? When and by whom?

8.) Did he issue any directives in response to these requests?

9.) Did the president refuse to authorize an armed drone strike on the attackers?

10.) Did the president refuse to authorize a C-130 to enter Libyan airspace during the attack?

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The reason it’s important is here’s a man who knows the administration holds his fate in its hands, and he gives testimony completely at variance with what the Secretary of Defense had said the day before, at variance with what he’d heard from his station chief in Tripoli, and with everything that we had heard. Was he influenced by the fact that he knew his fate was held by people within the administration at that time?”
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It is just not believable that Attorney General Eric Holder knew about the affair and the investigation in late summer, and the FBI knew about it at least since May, yet the President was kept in the dark that his CIA director was under investigation.
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In other words, President Obama was taking the credit for whatever “presentation” Rice made during her talk show appearances. Rep. Heck told Fox News, “The initial talking points, which were put together in an unclassified format at the request of the House Intelligence Committee initially did state that al-Qaeda affiliated groups were involved, however, we understand that by the time it went through its editing process after it left Langley (CIA), that reference was taken out.”
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Was Petraeus changing his story and no longer parroting the White House’s line? That remained unclear, but it certainly appears that he changed his tune. Another oddity was the timing of an announcement by the CIA on Thursday, the day before Petraeus would be talking to the committees for the first time since his resignation, that the CIA inspector general would be conducting an investigation into his conduct. Another warning to toe the party line?

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In a blockbuster report, John Solomon, the former Associated Press and Post reporter, has ferreted out the president’s daily brief that informed him within 72 hours of the Sept. 11 attack that the Benghazi attack was a jihadist operation.

Citing officials directly familiar with the information, Solomon writes in the Washington Guardian that Obama and other administration officials were told that “that the attack was likely carried out by local militia and other armed extremists sympathetic to al-Qaida in the region.”

read the whole thing

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"First, the information about individuals linked to al-Qaeda was derived from classified sources. Second, when links were so tenuous—as they still are—it makes sense to be cautious before pointing fingers so you don’t set off a chain of circular and self-reinforcing assumptions. Third, it is important to be careful not to prejudice a criminal investigation in its early stages.”

“Most people understand that saying “extremists” were involved in a direct assault on the mission isn’t shying away from the idea of terrorist involvement," the official said. "People assumed that it was apparent in this context that extremists who attack US facilities and kill Americans are, by definition, terrorists. Because of the various elements involved in the attack, the term extremist was meant to capture the range of participants."

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At this very moment, every story you read and every news snippet you watch regarding the Petraeus scandal is meant to do one thing: Cast doubt on anything General Petraeus says going forward.

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Never having spent decades pushing my leftist agenda from behind the camera while desperately, humiliatingly covering tracks for "the talent," my sociopathic spouse -- and then, having finally burst out from behind that demeaning mask, finding myself reduced to running interference again for yet another sociopath -- I cannot deny that I, too, might be suffering from vertigo.

My question, however, is why this illness and minor injury, from which she is purported to be recovering happily at home, should be considered an acceptable excuse for not having to testify about a scandal in which she was a major player -- a foreign policy disaster for which she has expressly declared herself the buck's final destination.

Men died after a seven hour battle, and after their repeated pleas to Washington for help were rejected. In the wake of this horror, the Obama administration created a calculated cloud of conflicting half-stories in order to protect Obama's re-election bid. The centerpiece of their cloud of lies was a fabrication about a "spontaneous" or "natural" protest that never occurred -- and that they knew never occurred -- a lie which, by emphasizing and repeatedly blaming a "disgusting" video about Muhammad, actually stoked real and deadly protests throughout the Middle East.

But she isn't feeling well, and wants to stay home this week, so you should just forget the whole thing; goodness knows she'd like to forget it. (By the way, is this not the kind of fragility in the face of duty that ought to disqualify her as a presidential candidate?)...dismiss any ideas about offering her a rain check. After all, rescheduling her appearance for a future date is only likely to remind her of that urgent meeting she has to attend in Bora Bora, or the hair appointment she promised herself for Christmas, or poker night with the gals at Huma's. - American Thinker

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And, by the way, I've gotten some pushback in email and on the web, saying that it was "shameful" and "appalling" for me to tie Clinton's health problems to a possible intent to avoid testifying about Benghazi. Let me tell you that a core motivation to my blogging — and I've been going at this for 9 years now — is to stand tough against people who try to cut off debate with this kind of shaming. So I'm glad that this performance of outrage was directed at me. I know it when I see it, and it fires me up. You want silence? You want backing down? You want me not to dare say a thing like that? That's how you want to control political debate in the United States? Thanks for reminding me once again how deeply I hate that and for giving me an (easy) opportunity to model courage for the more timid people out there who are cowed by the fear of shaming.

ADDED: Here's something I would dearly love to do with this blog: I want to make it so that emotive, intimidating outrage like that backfires. I want people to learn that they can't get away with empty assertions like "I am aghast" or "You are despicable." You have to give reasons for what you think. Even if you really feel those feelings. And, of course, many of these hack writers don't actually feel the feelings they scribble about. They just don't want to have to talk about the actual issue. They want to make it something that everyone feels they'd better not talk about. But that should be a loud signal: We need to talk about it!

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Rand Paul's "had I been president" moment explains why Rand Paul will never be president

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What was most notable about Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s testimony to Congress yesterday was this fact: if you didn’t look at the TV or if you listened to it on the radio you KNEW which party many lawmakers belonged to without hearing them identify themselves.
Democrats praised her profusely. And many of the GOPers sounded less like members of Congress and more like callers on conservative talk shows, or people who were repeating key points made by Sean Hannity and others on Fox News. You got the sense from some of the tone of their questions they considered her a potential Democratic Presidential nominee — and wanted to start cutting her down to size.

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Clinton appeared to be if not the only adult, one of the adults in a room with sugar-crammed children, often taking questions from GOPers who were acting out.

Some acted out their own personal issues and bitterness over lost battles (Arizona Sen. John McCain), others seemed to want to make a splash and extract a big apology (Sen. Ron Johnson) and Sen. Rand Paul seemed to be making a craven attempt to win over the GOP base in an all but formal announcement in his lectures to Clinton about how he’d fire her if he had been President (REALITY TO RAND PAUL: You won’t ever be President since your appeal is so narrow and has zero appeal to the country’s growing demographics that sunk the GOP in the 2012 national election — and you narrowed your appeal some more but you sure pleased Rush, Sean and Mark and many conservative bloggers).
And before we get flooded with name-calling emails (liberal! leftie! not moderate! how can you say that about Rand Paul? you have an agenda! liar!), GO HERE to read a USA Today piece about how Rand Paul was sending out video of the exchange.

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De Villiers has spent most of his life cultivating spies and diplomats, who seem to enjoy seeing themselves and their secrets transfigured into pop fiction (with their own names carefully disguised), and his books regularly contain information about terror plots, espionage and wars that has never appeared elsewhere. Other pop novelists, like John le Carré and Tom Clancy, may flavor their work with a few real-world scenarios and some spy lingo, but de Villiers’s books are ahead of the news and sometimes even ahead of events themselves.

Nearly a year ago he published a novel about the threat of Islamist groups in post-revolutionary Libya that focused on jihadis in Benghazi and on the role of the C.I.A. in fighting them. The novel, “Les Fous de Benghazi,” came out six months before the death of the American ambassador, J. Christopher Stevens, and included descriptions of the C.I.A. command center in Benghazi (a closely held secret at that time), which was to become central in the controversy over Stevens’s death.

Other de Villiers books have included even more striking auguries. In 1980, he wrote a novel in which militant Islamists murder the Egyptian president, Anwar Sadat, a year before the actual assassination took place...

Though he is almost unknown in the United States, de Villiers’s publishers estimate that the S.A.S. series has sold about 100 million copies worldwide, which would make it one of the top-selling series in history, on a par with Ian Fleming’s James Bond books. S.A.S. may be the longest-running fiction series ever written by a single author. The first book, “S.A.S. in Istanbul,” appeared in March 1965; de Villiers is now working on No. 197.

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The IG's office is said by well-placed sources to be seeking to determine whether the Accountability Review Board, or ARB -- led by former U.N. Ambassador Thomas Pickering and former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen -- failed to interview key witnesses who had asked to provide their accounts of the Benghazi attacks to the panel.

The IG's office notified the department of the "special review" on March 28, according to Doug Welty, the congressional and public affairs officer of the IG's office.

This disclosure marks a significant turn in the ongoing Benghazi case, as it calls into question the reliability of the blue-ribbon panel that then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton convened to review the entire matter. Until the report was concluded, she and all other senior Obama administration officials regularly refused to answer questions about what happened in Benghazi.

Since the ARB report was issued in December -- finding that "systemic failures and leadership and management deficiencies at senior levels" well below Clinton were to blame for the "inadequate" security at Benghazi -- Clinton and other top officials have routinely referred questioners to the conclusions of the board report. Now the methodology and final product of the ARB are themselves coming under the scrutiny of the department's own top auditor.
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Joe diGenova, a former U.S. attorney, told host Geraldo Rivera that he is legally representing a career State Department officer whom the board failed to interview. DiGenova called the ARB a "cover-up."

DiGenova and his wife Victoria Toensing, a former Justice Department official who represents another State Department whistle-blower in the Benghazi case, said their respective clients will testify next Wednesday at a hearing of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee being chaired by Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif.

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“But the most extraordinary aspect of the talking points editing process is what was never mentioned, at least as far I have seen — the supposedly infamous Mohammed video. Not a word of that. While emailing each other, these officials from the CIA, State, the Pentagon, and the White House seem to have completely ignored it.” - Roger Simon

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Bob SCHIEFFER: We spoke yesterday to former Secretary of Defense bob gates at historic William and Mary College in Virginia we asked to give us his perspective on the Bengazi situation.

BOB GATES: Well, first of all I have to say I only know what I have read in the media. I haven't had any briefings or anything. And I-- I think the one where place where I might be able to say something useful-- has to do with some of the talk about-- the military response. And I listened to the testimony of-- both Secretary Panetta and General Dempsey. And-- and frankly had I been in the job at the time-- I think my decisions would have been just as theirs were. We don't have a ready force standing by in the Middle East. Despite all the turmoil that's going on, with planes on strip alert, troops ready to deploy at a moment's notice. And so getting somebody there in a timely way-- would have been very difficult, if not impossible. And frankly, I've heard "Well, why didn't you just fly a fighter jet over and try and scare 'em with the noise or something?" Well, given the number of surface to air missiles that have disappeared from Qaddafi's arsenals, I would not have approved sending an aircraft, a single aircraft-- over Benghazi under those circumstances. And-- and with respect to-- sending in special forces or a small group of people to try and provide help, based on everything I have read, people really didn't know what was going on in Benghazi contemporaneously. And to send some small number of special forces or other troops in without knowing what the environment is, without knowing what the threat is, without having any intelligence in terms of what is actually going on on the ground, I think, would have been very dangerous. And personally, I would not have approved that because we just don't it's sort of a cartoonish impression of military capabilities and military forces. The one thing that our forces are noted for is planning and preparation before we send people in harm's way. And there just wasn't time to do that.

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