Botched in Benghazi: New evidence on the Libya debacle and false White House spin
Thursday, October 11, 2012
Botched in Benghazi: New evidence on the Libya debacle and
false White House spin
Wall Street Journal Editorial
At Wednesday's House oversight hearings into the attack on the
U.S. diplomatic mission in Libya, Democrats protested loudly about
a GOP political witch hunt. If only such alleged partisanship were
always so educational. The Congressional investigation has in a few
hours brought greater clarity about what happened before, during
and after the events of 9/11/12 than the Obama Administration has
provided in a month.
Among the revelations:
• There was no public demonstration whatsoever against an
anti-Islam video, or any other grievance, outside the consulate in
Benghazi the night of the attack.
"There had been nothing unusual during the day at
all outside [our emphasis]," a State Department official
told reporters in a Tuesday night briefing hastily organized before
the House committee session. Only at 9:40 p.m. on September 11 did
a large pack of armed men storm the compound, firing guns and
grenades and eventually setting buildings on fire. Ambassador
Christopher Stevens and three other Americans were murdered.
For more than a week afterwards, Obama Administration officials
said the attacks were the result of a demonstration triggered by
anger over a YouTube video, as were protests earlier in the day in
Cairo. "What happened in Benghazi was in fact initially a
spontaneous reaction to what had just transpired hours before in
Cairo, almost a copycat of the demonstrations against our facility
in Cairo, prompted by the video," said U.S. Ambassador to the
United Nations Susan Rice on September 16 on NBC's "Meet the
Press."
On Tuesday night, a State Department official said, "That was
not our conclusion."
• The frontal attack by an extremist militia group with links to
al Qaeda was recognized as such by some Obama Administration
officials within 24 hours. Testifying on Wednesday, Lieutenant
Colonel Andrew Wood, a Utah National Guard Green Beret who
commanded a 16-member security team in Tripoli, said the attacks
were "instantly recognizable as a terrorist attack. . . . I almost
expected it to come."
• The State Department denied repeated requests to improve
security at the Libyan mission. It kept the consulate in Benghazi
open after Britain and the Red Cross had pulled out of the city
after security deteriorated this year. No special security measures
were in place for the anniversary of 9/11.
Lt. Col. Wood said he had argued to extend his team's tour in
Libya but was pulled out in August. The State Department approved a
30% "danger pay" bonus for Americans working in Libya, but it
turned down an Embassy request to keep a DC-3 plane in the country
for security support.
Eric Nordstrom, a State official who was the regional security
officer in Libya until June, told the committee about a "complete
and total absence of planning" for security. The U.S. was relying
on a Libyan government that was "overwhelmed and could not
guarantee our protection," according to an October 1 memorandum
written by Mr. Nordstrom.
Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Darrell Issa has forced
the Administration to start to answer for this stunning and deadly
assault on U.S. sovereign soil in Libya, but a lot of questions
demand further investigation. Were warnings of an imminent threat
ignored? Was incompetence or a systemic failure to blame for the
security lapse?
The most immediate question concerns the Administration's
response, and this is where electoral politics deserves to come in.
Ms. Rice has defended her false and misleading statements by saying
she was reading off a script prepared by U.S.
intelligence-apparently a script not shared with the State
Department she formally reports to.
It'd be instructive to know who provided her this script, and
whether or not she spoke to White House political aide David
Plouffe or the Chicago campaign office as she prepared for her
Sunday TV show appearances on September 16.
Ms. Rice's Sunday story happened to fit the narrative offered by
White House spokesman Jay Carney two days earlier that a rogue
video had caused the anti-American demonstrations, which also fit
the Obama campaign narrative that the President has made the U.S.
more popular and that terrorism is on the wane in the world. A
terror attack that killed Americans in Benghazi blows up that happy
tale.
In a campaign speech Monday night, President Obama kept at it,
saying that "al Qaeda is on its heels and Osama bin Laden is no
more." The second half of the sentence is true. But the more we
learn about what happened in Benghazi, the more the first sounds
like fantasy, and the less Americans can trust this White House to
tell them the truth.