Posts tagged Libya
NO MAS! Hillary Conveniently Suffers ‘Concussion’ Gets Excused From Benghazi Hearing
Dec 17th
Timing is everything
RELATED STORY: Obama Purges Staff To Prevent Investigations Into Benghazi and ‘Furious’ Scandals
WASHINGTON (AP) — Secretary of State Hillary Clinton sustained a concussion last week after becoming extremely dehydrated and fainting while suffering from a stomach virus, the State Department said.
Obama lied and Hillary swore to it. Emails now show that the Obama administration knew that the Libya embassy attack was indeed Islamic terrorism and had nothing to do with the video.
The 65-year-old Clinton is recovering at home and has been advised by her doctors to continue to rest and avoid strenuous activity and cancel all work events for the next week. She had been scheduled to testify before a pair of congressional panels looking into the Sept. 11 attack against a diplomatic outpost in Benghazi, Libya.
Dr. Lisa Bardack of the Mt. Kisco Medical Group and Dr. Gigi El-Bayoumi of George Washington University said Saturday that Clinton was suffering from a stomach virus and fainted after becoming extremely dehydrated.
Clinton was diagnosed with a concussion Thursday after fainting at home earlier this week, according to a State Department official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss Clinton’s injury publicly. The doctors did not determine it to be a “severe” concussion, the official said.
Clinton, who is expected to leave her job soon, skipped an overseas trip this past week because of the stomach virus, the State Department said Saturday.
President Barack Obama telephoned his top diplomat Saturday to wish her well, a White House official said.
The State Department said in a statement that Clinton will continue to work from home in the week ahead and looks forward to returning to the office “soon,” the statement said.
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee said it won’t hear from Clinton as planned at a Thursday hearing into the attack at the outpost in Benghazi that killed four Americans, including the U.S. ambassador. The House Foreign Affairs Committee also said Clinton would no longer give scheduled testimony at its hearing Thursday on Libya.
Senior State Department officials William Burns and Thomas Nides are to take Clinton’s place at both hearings.
Clinton’s aides on Saturday informed the Senate committee chairman, Sen. John Kerry, about her health, and the Massachusetts Democrat “insisted that given her condition, she could not and should not appear” as planned, said Kerry spokeswoman Jodi Seth. Obama is expected to nominate Kerry to succeed Clinton.
Clinton backed out of a trip to North Africa and the Persian Gulf on Monday because she was sick. She caught the virus during a recent visit to Europe. The former first lady is known for her grueling travel schedule and is the most traveled secretary of state, having visited 112 countries while in the job. source – AP
US President Barack Obama Behind Morsi’s Power Grab In Egypt
Nov 28th
In politics there are no accidents or coincidences
If you think that the recent power grab of Egyptian president Mohammed Morsi is happening in a vacuum or by mere happenstance, you are greatly fooling yourself. The move by Morsi to make himself Egypt’s new Pharaoh is exactly what the plan has been all along since Obama and the Muslim Brotherhood started the Arab Spring.
Haven’t you wondered why Obama, so vocal during the Gaza-Israeli conflict, is now as quiet as a Mosque Mouse? Not one word has he spoken against Morsi’s coup. And he won’t until he is sure how it will all wind up.
We ask you to consider the following:
- Back in the very beginning of the Ara Spring, Obama sided with the Muslim Brotherhood.
- Obama put the muscle in place to assasinate Muammar Gaddhafi.
- Obama did nothing to stop the Arab Spring as it spread across the Middle East.
- Obama aided the Brotherhood in Yemen with airstirkes.
- Obama convinces G8 to give Muslim Brotherhood $8 billion for Arab Spring.
- The liberal media aided Obama by whole-heartedly embracing the Arab Spring.
- After taking over Egypt, Obama then publicly declared the US-Muslim Brotherhood partnership.
The aboved-cited articles are barely even the tip of the iceberg showing Obama’s blood-stained hands in his partnership with the Muslim Brotherhood. Do a category search on our site and see all the evidence, it’s quite overwhelming.
Obama’s legacy will be that he installed the Muslim Brotherhood firmly in power all across the new Middle East. Its now the United States new foreign policy.
From the very beginning, NTEB has shown you the ever-evolving partnership between Obama and the US with the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. All this was done for one reason and one reason only, and that answer is found here in the Holy Scriptures:
The Coming Psalm 83 War Against Israel
“They have said, Come, and let us cut them off from being a nation; that the name of Israel may be no more in remembrance. For they have consulted together with one consent: they are confederate against thee: The tabernacles of Edom, and the Ishmaelites; of Moab, and the Hagarenes; Gebal, and Ammon, and Amalek; the Philistines with the inhabitants of Tyre; Assur also is joined with them: they have holpen the children of Lot. Selah.” Psalm 83: 2-8
Lets take a look at who the Muslim nations are that are referenced in Psalm 83:
- The Tabernacles of Edom: South Jordan and Palestine.
- The Ishmaelites: Saudi Arabia
- Moab: Palestinians and Central Jordan
- Hagarenes: Egyptians
- Gebal: Hezbollah and North Lebanon
- Ammon: Palestinians and North Jordan
- Amalek: Sinai
- The Philistines: Hamas of Gaza
- Inhabitants of Tyre: Hezbollah and Southern Lebanon
- Assur: Syrian and Northern Iraq
Interesting note: Contrary to popular belief, the word Selah in the bible at the end of verse 6 does not indicate a “timely pause” or ask the reader to “meditate on what they read”. Instead, it refers to the red rock city of Selah Petra where the Jews will flee during the time of Jacob’s trouble.
This is where the Jews will flee for safety during the time of Jacob’s Trouble – the Red Rock City of Selah, Petra
“Alas! for that day is great, so that none is like it: it is even the time of Jacob’s trouble; but he shall be saved out of it.” Jeremiah 30:7
One by one, we have watched over the last year and a half most of these nations coming together under the mantle of the Arab Spring, and we believe that in short order the remaining nations will as well. This partnership is unique in both world and Muslim history, but is well-known to students of bible prophecy. The Psalm 83 Confederacy is alive and well.
Keep in mind that none of this would have been possible had it not been for Barack Hussein Obama supporting the efforts of the Muslim Brotherhood with American taxpayer dollars, influence and military might. and everywhere he has travelled he has beat the drum for other major nations to kick in money and support as well.
You might say it’s the world’s largest non-secret conspiracy theory
Now that he has won a second term as US president, Obama’s naked ambitions will become more and more obvious and all consuming. He has been placed in office by God primarily to judge American for her rebellion and wickedness, and to create the Psalm 83 confederacy.
Can it be stopped? No, it cannot. Ultimately, God’s Sovereignty will decide the exact day and hour of when the attack outlined in Psalm 83 will happen. And no amount of planning and scheming by man will stop or even delay its progress.
Its exciting to be alive in the time of the end spoke of in the bible, just make sure you have this squared away before events really heat up.
Benghazi Embassy 9/11 Attack Cover-up Threatens To Sink Obama White House
Oct 25th
Benghazi Cover-up Rocking The Obama White House
RELATED STORY: HE LIED! Obama Knew Embassy Attack Was Islamic Terrorism 2 Hours After It Happened
(CNSNews.com) – The White House is declining to say when President Barack Obama first learned of three e-mails that the State Department sent to the White House on Sept. 11, 2012, directly notifying the Executive Office of the President that the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi was under attack, that U.S. Amb. Chris Stevens was at the Benghazi mission at the time of the attack, and that the group Ansar al-Sharia had taken credit for the attack.
Whie House: ‘We Decline to Comment’ on When Obama Learned of E-Mails, Met With NSC on Benghazi
The White House also declined to say when the president first met with the National Security Council after the Benghazi attack.
“I have been asked by one of our spokespeople to relay ‘that we decline to comment,’” said White House National Security Staff aide Debbie Bird in a written response to CNSNews.com.
CNSNews.com had asked Bird: 1) “When did the President first meet with the National Security Council after the Benghazi attack on 9/11/12?” 2) “When did White House staff first discuss the substance of the e-mails that went to the White House with the President or with the National Security Advisor?”
Carney also took a question about the e-mails today during a press gaggle held aboard Air Force One at 9:34 a.m. A reporter asked: “Jay, there are some emails that have emerged, which suggest that the White House and other areas of the government were told within hours of the Benghazi attack that an extremist group had claimed responsibility. How is that compatible with the idea that it was a spontaneous attack?”
Carney downplayed the significance of the State Department emails.
“There were emails about all sorts of information that was becoming available in the aftermath of the attack,” Carney said. “The email you’re referring to was an open-source, unclassified email referring to an assertion made on a social media site that everyone in this room had access to and knew about instantaneously. There was a variety of information coming in.
Bumps in the road: The President said the killing of ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans in Libya was some of the ‘bumps in the road’ along the ‘rocky path’ to Middle Eastern peace
“The whole point of an intelligence community and what they do is to assess strands of information and make judgments about what happened and who was responsible,” said Carney, “and I would refer you to what we’ve already said about, and what the DNI [Director of National Intelligence] has already said about, the initial assessments of the intelligence community, and the fact that throughout this process, I and others made very clear that our preliminary assessments were preliminary, that an investigation was underway, and that as more facts became available, we would make the American people aware of them.
“Again,” said Carney, “this was an open-source, unclassified email about a posting on a Facebook site. I would also note I think that within a few hours, that organization itself claimed that it had not been responsible. Neither should be taken as fact. That’s why there’s an investigation underway.”
The NSC is chaired by the president, and includes Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, National Security Advisor Tom Donilon, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Martin Dempsey, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder. A NSC meeting would allow the leader of the intelligence community to communicate directly with the leader of the State Department in the presence of the president and for all of them to weigh any conflicting information.
The three emails in question, which were obtained by CBS News, were sent by the State Department to various government officials, including two officials in the Executive Office of the President, on Sept. 11, 2012, while the attack on the Benghazi was taking place and immediately after it had taken place. source – CNS News
HE LIED! Obama Knew Embassy Attack Was Islamic Terrorism 2 Hours After It Happened
Oct 24th
“There is no more serious issue in a presidential campaign than trust,” Obama told a rally of 11,000 people in Florida on October 23, 2012 – read quote
(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.
Obama lied and Hillary swore to it. Emails now show that the Obama administration knew that the Libya embassy attack was indeed Islamic terrorism and had nothing to do with the video.
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.
U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans were killed in the Benghazi assault, which President Barack Obama and other U.S. officials ultimately acknowledged was a “terrorist” attack carried out by militants with suspected links to al Qaeda affiliates or sympathizers.
Administration spokesmen, including White House spokesman Jay Carney, citing an unclassified assessment prepared by the CIA, maintained for days that the attacks likely were a spontaneous protest against an anti-Muslim film.
While officials did mention the possible involvement of “extremists,” they did not lay blame on any specific militant groups or possible links to al Qaeda or its affiliates until intelligence officials publicly alleged that on September 28.
There were indications that extremists with possible al Qaeda connections were involved, but also evidence that the attacks could have erupted spontaneously, they said, adding that government experts wanted to be cautious about pointing fingers prematurely.
U.S. intelligence officials have emphasized since shortly after the attack that early intelligence reporting about the attack was mixed.
Spokesmen for the White House and State Department had no immediate response to requests for comments on the emails.
MISSIVES FROM LIBYA
The records obtained by Reuters consist of three emails dispatched by the State Department’s Operations Center to multiple government offices, including addresses at the White House, Pentagon, intelligence community and FBI, on the afternoon of September 11.
The first email, timed at 4:05 p.m. Washington time – or 10:05 p.m. Benghazi time, 20-30 minutes after the attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission allegedly began – carried the subject line “U.S. Diplomatic Mission in Benghazi Under Attack” and the notation “SBU”, meaning “Sensitive But Unclassified.”
The text said the State Department’s regional security office had reported that the diplomatic mission in Benghazi was “under attack. Embassy in Tripoli reports approximately 20 armed people fired shots; explosions have been heard as well.”
The message continued: “Ambassador Stevens, who is currently in Benghazi, and four … personnel are in the compound safe haven. The 17th of February militia is providing security support.”
A second email, headed “Update 1: U.S. Diplomatic Mission in Benghazi” and timed 4:54 p.m. Washington time, said that the Embassy in Tripoli had reported that “the firing at the U.S. Diplomatic Mission in Benghazi had stopped and the compound had been cleared.” It said a “response team” was at the site attempting to locate missing personnel.
A third email, also marked SBU and sent at 6:07 p.m. Washington time, carried the subject line: “Update 2: Ansar al-Sharia Claims Responsibility for Benghazi Attack.”
The message reported: “Embassy Tripoli reports the group claimed responsibility on Facebook and Twitter and has called for an attack on Embassy Tripoli.”
While some information identifying recipients of this message was redacted from copies of the messages obtained by Reuters, a government source said that one of the addresses to which the message was sent was the White House Situation Room, the president’s secure command post.
Other addressees included intelligence and military units as well as one used by the FBI command center, the source said.
It was not known what other messages were received by agencies in Washington from Libya that day about who might have been behind the attacks.
Intelligence experts caution that initial reports from the scene of any attack or disaster are often inaccurate.
By the morning of September 12, the day after the Benghazi attack, Reuters reported that there were indications that members of both Ansar al-Sharia, a militia based in the Benghazi area, and al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, the North African affiliate of al Qaeda’s faltering central command, may have been involved in organizing the attacks.
One U.S. intelligence official said that during the first classified briefing about Benghazi given to members of Congress, officials “carefully laid out the full range of sparsely available information, relying on the best analysis available at the time.”
The official added, however, that the initial analysis of the attack that was presented to legislators was mixed.
“Briefers said extremists were involved in attacks that appeared spontaneous, there may have been a variety of motivating factors, and possible links to groups such as (al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and Ansar al-Sharia) were being looked at closely,” the official said. source – Reuters
Cowardly Obama Still Has No Answer To Al-Qaeda Attack On US Embassy In Libya
Oct 2nd
Just five weeks before America’s presidential election, US intelligence reports signs that al Qaeda leader Ayman Zuwahiri is preparing a string of terrorist attacks as the sequel to the murders of US ambassador Chris Stevens and three other US officials in Benghazi on Sept. 11, according to evidence collected across Asia, Africa and the Middle East.
Ronald Reagan would have sent the fighter jets over Libya within 72 hours after an attack. Obama cannot muster up even enough courage to call it terrorism.
His twin goals are to influence the poll’s results and to build up his reputation as a master of spectacular terrorist operations. Eager to impress Al Qaeda’s franchise chiefs, Zuwahiri is reported to be celebrating his “Benghazi feat” – his first as Al Qaeda leader – and boasting of the harm to the Obama campaign caused by his administration’s stammering denials that it was an act of terror. The new terrorist chief claims his tactics had an instant, devastating impact on Washington and they were therefore superior to those of his predecessor, Osama bin Laden.
The Al Qaeda leader is now seen – not only by US intelligence experts, but by most experts in the West, the Middle East and Israel – to be impatient to capitalize on this success and so dramatically expose to the Muslim world America’s perceived weakness and his own worth as commander of the jihadist movement.
His planning for a new offensive has taken advantage of the Arab Spring upheavals in the Middle East and North Africa and turned them around to strike at the heart of the Obama administration’s Middle East policy objectives. The Arab revolutions have let Islamist extremist and fundamentalist Salafi groups off the leash in Tunisia, Libya and Egypt, while Lebanon Jordan, Iraq and Syria teeter on the brink of chaos. The extremists now enjoy free rein to organize for political action while also gaining access to vast stocks of modern arms.
In the view of Western counterterrorism experts, Salafi groups have long maintained clandestine relations with al Qaeda, especially Ayman Zuwahiri, who joined al Qaeda in the first place as head of the violent Egyptian Islamic Jihad and stayed in close touch with its secret cells.
Al Qaeda planning also took advantage of the US counterterrorism focus in the last couple of years on the Arabian Peninsula franchise (AQAP) based in Yemen. Less US attention was devoted to the Islamist extremism simmering in North African and other Middle East arenas. It was there that Zuwahiri went to work to fashion new terrorist networks alongside Al Qaeda in the Maghreb (AQIM) from the Salafi groups now rampant across a broad geographical area encompassing Libya, Tunisia, Algeria and Mali and thrusting into the Middle East through Egyptian Sinai.
America is therefore confronted with a broad new al Qaeda front, armed with scanty intelligence. Worst of all, Washington can’t trust the new regimes and local military and intelligence organizations, thrown into power in the post-“Arab revolt” countries, for cooperation in fighting terror.
Instead of confrontation, the Obama administration has opted for retreat.
debkafile’s exclusive sources report that an administration team has hurriedly put together a list of 20 endangered countries where US diplomatic, military and economic may be targeted for al Qaeda attack. The list is prioritized according to the level of risk and US security capability for protection.
The highest-risk locations have been quietly evacuated – either to the US or West European countries - leaving only a skeleton staff behind for emergencies. A senior American source told DEBKAfle Tuesday that Tunisia, Libya, Mali, Nigeria and Egypt have been virtually denuded of a US presence.
Middle East intelligence observers have told debkafile that they don’t recall US diplomatic military and intelligence personnel, businessmen and technical staff with their families being withdrawn from the region on this scale or at comparable speed.
President Obama made American retreat his order of the day after refusing to heed calls for a US military operation against AQIM and its head, Abdelmalek Droukdel. It was Droukdel, according to accumulating intelligence who, acting on behalf of Zuwahiri, orchestrated the Libyan Ansar al-Shariah militia’s murderous attack on the US Benghazi consulate.
The Washington Post reported Tuesday, Oct. 1, that Obama also decided against a punitive attack against al Qaeda’s stronghold in Mali. source – DEBKA
Libya Embassy Attack Reveals Obama Utterly Ignorant Of The Mideast
Sep 23rd
President Obama has been forced to reassess his view of what caused the attack in Benghazi, Libya that killed US Ambassador Christopher Stevens, raising questions about whether the White House has a solid grasp on the underpinnings of the angry convulsions rocking the Middle East and the impact of the so-called “Cairo doctrine” laid out by Obama shortly after he took office in 2009.
The White House initially laid the blame for the attack, as well as dozens of other protests that continue to roil the Mideast, on a YouTube clip from a movie called “The Innocence of Muslims” insulting of the Prophet Mohammed. White House spokesman Jay Carney first said the attack came “in response to … a film that we have judged to be reprehensible and disgusting.”
But this week, Mr. Carney changed the White House position and called the killing of Ambassador Stevens and three more diplomatic personnel a “terrorist attack.” In a TV interview Friday, Obama added that radical Libyan factions had used the movie as an “excuse” for a sophisticated incursion.
RELATED STORY: Obama’s Foreign Policy An Utter Failure As Mideast Spirals Out Of Control
To be sure, when President Obama in 2009 offered a “new beginning” for US-Mideast relations based on “mutual respect and mutual interest,” he also acknowledged that turmoil in the region had historical antecedents that “go beyond any current policy debate.”
But emerging information about the attack and the continuing protests, some of which have turned deadly in recent days, have contrasted the President’s lofty hopes for the region with the impact of that policy, and whether it really quells tensions by reducing hatred for the US and the West among radical Muslims. Favorable views in Muslim countries toward the US dropped from 25 percent in 2009 to 15 percent in 2012, according to a Pew Global Attitudes survey released in June.
To some analysts, the seismic cultural and political convulsions in the past year, including protests in 20 nations over the YouTube clip, is testing the central premise of adjusting American interests while wielding softer power in the region.
“On … big issues that help define U.S.-Muslim relations – Iran, the stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, and the Arab Spring – the President has seen a combination of setback, stalemate, and frustration,” writes Ben Feller of the Associated Press in a detailed analysis.
Overall, President Obama continues to receive significantly higher marks from Americans than his GOP challenger, Mitt Romney, when it comes to foreign policy.
But the past two weeks have also been a reality check for an administration still trying to understand the Benghazi incursion and the continuing protests across the region, an effort underscored for many Americans by the sight of the black Salafism flags, often claimed by Al Qaeda elements, flying over the US Embassy in Cairo on the 11th anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks.
Before making broad judgments, some foreign policy analysts urge Americans to consider myriad factors playing into the protests and violence, including localized grievances and power vacuums still unfilled after the US-backed “Arab Spring” uprisings last year. In fact, the US has come to believe that the Benghazi attack may have been partly a response to the drone-killing of a regional Al Qaeda leader with ties to Libya rather than to broader anti-Americanism.
“The current anti-American backlash in the region is the byproduct of genuine misunderstanding, real ignorance, and political jockeying among Islamic groups,” Abdeslam Maghraoui, a Duke University political scientist, tells the AP.
Yet some conservative commentators seized on the White House’s about-face on the genesis of the Benghazi attack as insight into a president unwilling to starkly assess American policy abroad, including what many conservatives see as an apologetic tone and outreach to groups like the Muslim Brotherhood.
Obama acknowledging that the 14-minute trailer to the film was not the root cause of the attack, writes the Washington Post’s Charles Krauthammer, is for a “staggered and confused” White House to “admit that its doctrinal premises were supremely naïve and its policies deeply corrosive to American influence.”
Some Americans are starting to ask similar questions in the wake of the consulate attack in Benghazi and continued anti-American protests in the region.
A Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll taken before the White House confirmed Benghazi was a terror attack shows support for Obama’s foreign policy slipping by 5 percent since August, to below 50 percent, with 12 percent of independent voters withdrawing their support.
To be sure, the events in Benghazi are just now starting to emerge from the “fog of war” as an official State Department investigation is underway to determine the extent, and cause, of the security breach. But one growing perception in the Middle East is that the murder of Ambassador Stevens and three other embassy personnel may have been a revenge killing by a group known as Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb that has been exploiting the power vacuum in Libya.
While the White House may have been under pressure to say something concrete about the Benghazi attack before more details were known, the late acknowledgement of a terror attack suggests to some that the Obama administration has struggled to understand the dynamics of the tumult.
In the case of the Benghazi attack, “I think this is a case of an administration saying what they wished to be true before waiting for all the facts to come in,” a senior retired CIA official said. source – Yahoo News
Obama Admin Finally Forced To Admit 9/11 Attack In Libya Was Muslim Terrorism
Sep 19th
The Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi was in fact “a terrorist attack” and the U.S. government has indications that members of al Qaeda were directly involved, a top Obama administration official said Wednesday morning.
Obama once said in that the “sweetest sound I’ve ever heard is the Muslim call to prayer.” He says he’s a “christian”…I wonder what book of the bible he got that idea from?
“I would say yes, they were killed in the course of a terrorist attack on our embassy,” Matt Olsen, the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, said Wednesday at a hearing of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, in response to questioning from Chairman Joe Lieberman (I-CT) about the attack that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans.
As for who was responsible, Olsen said it appears there were attackers from a number of different militant groups that operate in and around Benghazi, and said there are already signs of al Qaeda involvement.
“We are looking at indications that individuals involved in the attack may have had connections to al Qaeda or al Qaeda’s affiliates; in particular, al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb,” he said.
The U.S. government just isn’t sure yet whether the terrorist attack was pre-planned or whether it was an example of terrorists taking advantage of protests against an anti-Islam film, Olsen said.
“It appears that individuals who were certainly well-armed seized on the opportunity presented as the events unfolded that evening and into the morning hours of September 12th. We do know that a number of militants in the area, as I mentioned, are well-armed and maintain those arms. What we don’t have at this point is specific intelligence that there was a significant advanced planning or coordination for this attack,” he said.
His statements go further than those of the White House Press Secretary Jay Carney, who said last week that the protests in Cairo and Benghazi were a reaction to the video and not a pre-planned attack. Today, Carney didn’t repeat the assertion that the video was solely to blame, but he said again that there is no evidence the Benghazi attack was pre-planned.
“What I can tell you is that, as I said last week, as … our ambassador to the United Nations said on Sunday and as I said the other day, based on what we know now and knew at the time, we have no evidence of a preplanned or premeditated attack,” Carney said Wednesday. “It is a simple fact that there are in post-revolution, post-war Libya armed groups; there are bad actors hostile to the government, hostile to the West, hostile to the United States. And as has been the case in other countries in the region, it is certainly conceivable that these groups take advantage of and exploit situations that develop, when they develop, to protest against or attack either Westerners, Americans, Western sites, or American sites.”
Committee ranking Republican Susan Collins (R-ME) declared at the hearing that she believes the attacks were planned well in advance and she referenced information she had received from U.S. intelligence officials behind closed doors.
“First, I will tell you that based on the briefings I have had, I’ve come to the opposite conclusion and agree with the president of Libya that this was a premeditated, planned attack that was associated with the date of 9/11, the anniversary of 9/11,” she said. “I just don’t think that people come to protests equipped with RPGs and other heavy weapons. And the reports of complicity — and they are many — with the Libyan guards who were assigned to guard the consulate also suggest to me that this was premeditated.”
Collins said she was concerned by the lack of security at the Benghazi consulate, especially since there had been an attack on the mission in June and a more serious attack on the British ambassador’s convoy as well. Olsen said the U.S. government was aware of the danger but not of impending attack that killed the four Americans.
“So there were reports detailing those attacks and detailing generally the threat that was faced to U.S. and Western individuals and interests in Eastern Libya from, again, armed militants as well as elements connected to al Qaeda,” he said. “There was no specific intelligence regarding an imminent attack prior to September 11th on our post in Benghazi.” source – Foreign Policy
