David Ignatius reports that CIA documents support the story that Susan Rice presented on the Sunday shows after the Benghazi attacks.
The Romney campaign may have misfired with its suggestion that statements by President Obama and U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice about the Benghazi attack last month weren’t supported by intelligence, according to documents provided by a senior U.S. intelligence official.But it gets even worse. At The Cable Josh Rogin says the documents Issa released exposed the names of several Libyans that were working with the US creating a threat to their lives.
“Talking points” prepared by the CIA on Sept. 15, the same day that Rice taped three television appearances, support her description of the Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. Consulate as a reaction to Arab anger about an anti-Muslim video prepared in the United States. According to the CIA account, “The currently available information suggests that the demonstrations in Benghazi were spontaneously inspired by the protests at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo and evolved into a direct assault against the U.S. Consulate and subsequently its annex. There are indications that extremists participated in the violent demonstrations.”
House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA) compromised the identities of several Libyans working with the U.S. government and placed their lives in danger when he released reams of State Department communications Friday, according to Obama administration officials.But there is still more, emptywheel looked at the documents and found that a large CIA presence was also exposed.
Issa posted 166 pages of sensitive but unclassified State Department communications related to Libya on the committee's website afternoon as part of his effort to investigate security failures and expose contradictions in the administration's statements regarding the Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi that resulted in the death of Amb. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans.
PDF 1: In December, Jeffrey Feltman asked Patrick Kennedy to approve “a combined footprint of 35 U.S. government personnel in Benghazi.” That would include 10 people identified as State: 8 State Department and USAID, and 2 temporary duty personnel.I agree with BoMan that Issa should step down from the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee if not the Congress. Darrell Issa is nothing but a vile political hack and has headed up one witch hunt after another and this time he has endangered lives.
Which leaves 25 people unaccounted for.
As it happens, the Libyans say there were 29 people they hadn’t expected when they came to evacuate the Americans. They complained afterwards that the Americans hadn’t told them about all the spooks they’d have onsite.
Well, now, Issa just confirmed they were not State or even USAID personnel. He has confirmed the Libyans’ claims–that they were spooks.
In the past, highly placed government officials, especially those in the State Department, have been given wide latitude with "truth" when they make public statements, in part not to reveal how much they may or may not know about a subject. In the world of international diplomacy and foreign affairs such talk is not only normal but to be expected.
ReplyDeleteGOP attacks are removing this tool from the diplomatic toolbox. The President Obama's sub rosa remarks to the Russian president, which may or may not have had any diplomatic significance, have been used in political ads as evidence of sinister, perhaps treasonous intent on his part.
And now the narrative of the Benghazi affair has been stripped of any diplomatic integrity by being used as nothing more than a domestic political affair. What Rep. Issa did is no different from what Bradley Manning did. This affair really stinks.