Fausta's Blog

Yesterday on Meet the Press,

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Some individuals have been held accountable inside of the State Department and what I’ve said is that we are going to fix this to make sure that this does not happen again, because these are folks that I send into the field. We understand that there are dangers involved but, you know, when you read the report and it confirms what we had already seen, you know, based on some of our internal reviews; there was just some sloppiness, not intentional, in terms of how we secure embassies in areas where you essentially don’t have governments that have a lot of capacity to protect those embassies. So we’re doing a thorough-going review. Not only will we implement all the recommendations that were made, but we’ll try to do more than that. You know, with respect to who carried it out, that’s an ongoing investigation. The FBI has sent individuals to Libya repeatedly. We have some very good leads, but this is not something that, you know, I’m going to be at liberty to talk about right now.

Plweez.

The murders of four Americans during a seven-hour long attack, due to “sloppiness”?

Twitter users are rightfully outraged by President Obama’s callous dismissal of the incompetence that caused the tragic deaths of four Americans in Benghazi.

Wizbang:

Again, Mr. President — you’re trying to install an unsupported narrative here. This embassy was vulnerable for at least the 6 months prior to the attack on September 11th; it had been attacks twiceprior.  The security of this consulate was already at a dangerously low level.  There were warningsthree days before the attack, which were ignored. Even the Ambassador himself asked multiple times for more security. Instead of granting those requests, his security was actually cut back. (Related: State Department withdrew 16-member special forces team from Benghazi one month before 9/11/12 terrorist attack)

This is not about sloppiness. Sloppiness implies security was implemented, but did it in a manner leaving things in a state disarray. Mr. President, you didn’t implement anything, you removed it and in doing so, thereby leaving your Ambassador Stevens and his staff wide open to attacks. Attacks this administration was warned about from several sources. What transpired wasn’t sloppiness, it was criminal.

In other news, Al-Qaida’s branch in Yemen has offered to pay tens of thousands of dollars to anyone who kills the U.S. ambassador in Sanaa or an American soldier in the country.

UPDATE:
Linked by Hot Air (thank you!),

Ahem. Obama conducted an unauthorized war against Moammar Qaddafi that decapitated the regime the previous year, which gave free reign to networks of Islamist terrorists in eastern Libya. That was no secret; in fact, it was pretty well known that those “militias” participated in the uprising we enabled. There had been a series of attacks on Western interests by these networks in 2012 before the September 11th attack that killed four Americans, including a few attempts on Americans before that. Despite all this data, State deliberately dismissed military security for the consulate and insisted it could rely on local militias for security.

And this is “just some sloppiness, not intentional”?

Last week the US House of Representatives Homeland Security Subcommittee on Oversight, Investigations, and Management issued a report updating its 2006 A Line in the Sand findings.

The new report (pdf file), A LINE IN THE SAND: COUNTERING CRIME,
VIOLENCE AND TERROR AT THE SOUTHWEST BORDER found (emphasis added):

 Although the United States tightened security at airports and land ports of entry in thewake of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, the U.S.-Mexico border remains an obvious weak link in the chain.

 Despite the near doubling of Border Patrol personnel, the Government Accountability Office found that only 44 percent of the Southwest border was under operational control.

 In 2012, National Guard presence on the Southwest border was reduced to 300 soldiers.

 Since October 2008, 138 Customs and Border Protection officers or agents have been arrested or indicted on corruption related charges.

 The Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) reports that there have been 58 incidents of shots fired at Texas lawmen by Mexican cartel operatives since 2009.

 Experts believe the Southwest border has become the great threat of terrorist infiltration into the United States.

 Iran and Hezbollah have a growing presence in Latin America.

 Hezbollah has a significant presence in the United States that could be utilized in terror attacks intended to deter U.S. efforts to curtail Iran’s nuclear program.

 Latin America has become a money laundering and major fundraising center for Hezbollah.

 Hezbollah’s relationship with Mexican drug cartels, which control secured smuggling routes into the United States, is documented as early as 2005.

 If Iran’s assassination plot against the Saudi Arabian ambassador in Washington, D.C. had been successful, Iran’s Qods Force intended to use the Los Zetas drug cartel for other attacks in the future.

Long-term readers of my blog are certainly not surprised by this information, as I have been blogging on the subject for years. Neither would the readers of Jon Perdue’s excellent book, The War of All the People: The Nexus of Latin American Radicalism and Middle Eastern Terrorism.

The Mexican government, however, strongly denies the report’s findings: Mexico disputes House GOP report alleging Iran, Hezbollah are using Mexican drug cartels

A spokesman for Mexico’s ambassador to the United States, Arturo Sarukhán, told The Daily Caller his country’s government disputes a recent House GOP report alleging that Iranian and Hezbollah terror operatives are using Mexican drug cartels as a conduit to infiltrate the United States.

As Matthew Boyle points out, on October 11 last year, two men were arrested in New York and charged with taking part in an Iranian plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the US. You can read the full details of the plot in the Department of Justice’s report.

While its government denies these findings, Mexico is the deadliest country on earth for journalists.

Also last week, the head of Mexico’s organized crime unit stepped down on Thursday, just weeks after announcing that members of his team had been charged with having links to the Sinaloa drug cartel.

Cross-posted at Liberty Unyielding.

White House denies terror delete

The White House yesterday denied it edited talking points about the terrorist attack that killed the American ambassador to Libya — contradicting remarks made a day earlier by disgraced ex-CIA chief David Petraeus.

“The only edit that was made by the White House and also by the State Department was to change the word ‘consulate’ to the word ‘diplomatic facility,’ since the facility in Benghazi was not formally a consulate,” Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes told reporters aboard Air Force One.

“Other than that, we were guided by the points that were provided by the intelligence community. So I can’t speak to any other edits that may have been made.”

So, who took the CIA talking points Petraeus testified about and edited out al-Qaeda references for the version Susan Rice offered on the Sunday shows four days after the attack?

Possibilities include: 1) The White House is lying; 2: Petraeus is lying; 3) The CIA gave the talking points to an intermediary who made the edits before giving them to the White House; 4) The White House simply came up with their own talking points; or 5) a “combo platter” mix n’ match of any of the above.

Obama 3 Days Ago: And If You Have A Problem With That, You Can Have A Discussion With Me
Obama Today: And If You Have A Problem With That, You Can Have A Discussion With the State or Defense Departments

Are we pretending these people are entirely isolated from each other with a virtual fire-wall between them?

Meanwhile, the WaPo continues to work the gossip angle, pointing out that the Petraeus scandal puts four-star general lifestyle under scrutiny

The commanders who lead the nation’s military services and those who oversee troops around the world enjoy an array of perquisites befitting a billionaire, including executive jets, palatial homes, drivers, security guards and aides to carry their bags, press their uniforms and track their schedules in 10-minute increments. Their food is prepared by gourmet chefs. If they want music with their dinner parties, their staff can summon a string quartet or a choir.

Maybe they think they’re Senators.

But all the accouterments many just point to a beta male in alpha clothing:

The hard bright line separating ALPHA from BETA is how a man deals with female aggression.

Nowhere is that made more clear than on the tango floor, but I digress.

Related:
Should the Secretary of State be a dupe?

Intel officials unable to say who changed CIA talking points on Libya, lawmaker says

Former CIA Director David Petraeus stoked the controversy over the Obama administration’s handling of the Libya terror attack, testifying Friday that references to “Al Qaeda involvement” were stripped from his agency’s original talking points — while other intelligence officials were unable to say who changed the memo, according to a top lawmaker who was briefed.
Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., told Fox News that intelligence officials who testified in a closed-door hearing a day earlier, including Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and Acting CIA Director Mike Morell, said they did not know who changed the talking points. He said they went out to multiple departments, including the State Department, National Security Council, Justice Department and White House.

CIA Benghazi Talking Points Were Changed, Older Version Mentioned Al-Qaeda

Looks like the key question now is who changed the original talking points to the version Rice was given.

Homeland Security Committee Chairman Peter King,

At Drudge,

Petraeus Says CIA's Talking Points Were Edited to Play Down Terrorism...
Knew Immediately Al Qaeda-Linked Group Responsible for Benghazi...
... ELEMENT REMOVED FROM SUSAN RICE'S TALKING POINTS
FLASHBACK: What she said...
House women: Criticizing Rice 'racist, sexist'...
Lawmakers shown video of envoy being dragged out...

WHO GOT TO SUSAN?

Who changed the report? There was infighting going on among FBI, Sate Dept.,WH, DOJ, & CIA during investigation phase. Take your pick

— Kerry Picket (@KerryPicket) November 16, 2012

Victor Davis Hanson:

The real postelection mystery is why we ever had a secondary consulate in Benghazi in the first place, when most nations had long ago pulled their embassies out of war-torn Libya altogether.
Why, about a mile from the consulate, did we have a large CIA-staffed “annex” that seems to have been busy with all sorts of things other than providing adequate security for our nearby diplomats?
Before the election, the media was not interested in figuring out what Ambassador Christopher Stevens actually was doing in Benghazi, what so many CIA people and military contractors were up to, and what was the relationship of our large presence in Libya to Turkey, insurgents in Syria and the scattered Gadhafi arms depots.
But the strangest “coincidentally” of all is the bizarre resignation of American hero Gen. David Petraeus from the CIA just three days after the election — apparently due to a long-investigated extramarital affair with a sort of court biographer and her spat with a woman she perceived as a romantic rival.
If the affair was haphazardly hushed up for about a year, how exactly did Petraeus become confirmed as CIA director, a position that allows no secrets, much less an entire secret life?
How and why did the FBI investigate the Petraeus matter? To whom and when did it report its findings? And what was the administration reaction?
Coincidentally, if it is true that Petraeus can no longer testify as CIA director to the House and Senate intelligence committees about the ignored requests of CIA personnel on the ground in Benghazi for more help, can he as a private citizen testify more freely, without the burdens of CIA directorship and pre-election politics?

Read the whole thing.

And, one more thing,
CBS: CIA talking points for Rice never mentioned terrorism

Why wouldn’t she have had access to other information?  Because Rice had no operational responsibility for anything other than relations with the United Nations.  So why did the “White House,” as Obama put it yesterday, ask her to go on five talk shows on Sunday to impart this story to the media and the public?  That request had to come from Obama himself, and it bypassed other more likely candidates for that assignment such as Tom Donilon, James Clapper, Hillary Clinton, or David Petraeus, all of whom had some responsibility for the incident.  And here’s a related question — why didn’t those five media outlets raise that very question when the “White House” offered Rice as a spokesperson for that explanation?  Didn’t that seem even a little curious – especially when the Libyan President was saying exactly the opposite?

Hillary’s not going to testify until the end of December, maybe.

Terrorist Ahmed Jabari buys the farm,

Details at The Other McCain.

Again,

As one of the most wonderfully front-loaded distraction campaigns in recent memory keeps on rolling along and we get to hear all about the “social liaisons” (where is Pierre Choderlos de Laclos when we need him?), the real news is that David Petraeus has agreed to testify about the Libya terror attack before the House and Senate intelligence committees.

On his part, Obama Offered Rehearesed Tough-Guy Message on Benghazi, But Avoided Actual Answers, and the media fawned over O (imagine that!), who deigned to give his first press conference in five eight (!) months and was asked 10 questions

No one asked him if he really did not know about the Petraeus affair.

But fret not.

The Washington Post assures its readers that “Obama [is] relatively unscathed by [the] Petraeus investigation.” In the online version, the Post goes further, describing Obama as “untouched” by the affair.

In other (unrelated) news, the Dow’s down 185.23 today, down 674,73 since before election day.

At this rate, the only way we’ll have to to make ends meet is to become “social liaisons”.

Cross-posted at Liberty Unyielding.

There were four previous Islamist attacks in Benghazi this year before the 9-11 terrorist attack.
One of the attacks was an IED atack at the US Consulate on June 6, 2012.

Classified cable warned consulate couldn’t withstand ‘coordinated attack’

In a three-page cable on Sept 11, the day Stevens and the three other Americans were killed, Stevens wrote about “growing problems with security” in Benghazi and “growing frustration” with the security forces and Libyan police. The ambassador saw both as “too weak to keep the country secure.”
Fox News asked the State Department to respond to a series of questions about the Aug. 16 cable, including who was specifically charged with reviewing it and whether action was taken by Washington or Tripoli. Fox News also asked, given the specific warnings and the detailed intelligence laid out in the cable, whether the State Department considered extra measures for the consulate in light of the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks – and if no action was taken, who made that call.
The State Department press office declined to answer specific questions, citing the classified nature of the cable.

Ty Woods’s father speaks,

And I capitalize the “S” in requestS because there were more than one (emphasis added),

Fox News has learned from sources who were on the ground in Benghazi that an urgent request from the CIA annex for military back-up during the attack on the U.S. consulate and subsequent attack several hours later on the annex itself was denied by the CIA chain of command — who also told the CIA operators twice to “stand down” rather than help the ambassador’s team when shots were heard at approximately 9:40 p.m. in Benghazi on Sept. 11.

Former Navy SEAL Tyrone Woods was part of a small team who was at the CIA annex about a mile from the U.S. consulate where Ambassador Chris Stevens and his team came under attack. When he and others heard the shots fired, they informed their higher-ups at the annex to tell them what they were hearing and requested permission to go to the consulate and help out. They were told to “stand down,” according to sources familiar with the exchange. Soon after, they were again told to “stand down.”

Woods and at least two others ignored those orders and made their way to the consulate which at that point was on fire. Shots were exchanged. The rescue team from the CIA annex evacuated those who remained at the consulate and Sean Smith, who had been killed in the initial attack. They could not find the ambassador and returned to the CIA annex at about midnight.

At that point, they called again for military support and help because they were taking fire at the CIA safe house, or annex. The request was denied. There were no communications problems at the annex, according those present at the compound. The team was in constant radio contact with their headquarters. In fact, at least one member of the team was on the roof of the annex manning a heavy machine gun when mortars were fired at the CIA compound. The security officer had a laser on the target that was firing and repeatedly requested back-up support from a Spectre gunship, which is commonly used by U.S. Special Operations forces to provide support to Special Operations teams on the ground involved in intense firefights. The fighting at the CIA annex went on for more than four hours — enough time for any planes based in Sigonella Air base, just 480 miles away, to arrive. Fox News has also learned that two separate Tier One Special operations forces were told to wait, among them Delta Force operators.

And, it gets worse:
AC-130U Gunship was On-Scene in Benghazi, Obama Admin Refused to Let It Fire.

Gunships.

Q&O:

Let’s try this again … you had your people under attack, you had drones on site, you had a spec ops guy on the roof lasing the mortar team and Panetta claims they “didn’t know what was going on?”

That says a hell of a lot more about Panetta and Obama than anyone else. Anyone worth their salt goes for over kill, not “wait and see” in a situation like that. Situations like this are why you have contingency plans and units designated as Quick Reaction Forces (QRF). You can always recall your forces. And, if you give even a stinking whit about force protection you go in and secure the area and personnel who were under attack anyway.

Where was the Commander in Chief?

Meanwhile Crazy Joe Biden handles the situation with his characteristic tact.

UPDATE,
BLACKFIVE:

If that SEAL was actively “painting” a target; something was on station to engage!

Read the whole post.

The Captain’s Journal first emailed me about this last night,
White House told of militant claim two hours after Libya attack: emails

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.

Specifically, they knew terrorists were claiming credit,

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.”

Our diplomats fought for seven hours without any aid from outside the country.

A drone was deployed to monitor the attack from above,

The NY Post reported on Oct 21 that the drone that monitored the final hour of the Benghazi battle was a Predator. So it’s very likely that that drone was armed, as the US used armed Predators during the Libyan revolution and uses them to dispatch terrorists as the opportunity arises. But there is no reporting that the drone fired any of its Hellfire missiles during the battle. It was relaying video back the United States where–

“They stood, and they watched, and our people died,” former CIA commander Gary Berntsen told CBS News.

The Post also reported:

Fighter jets and Specter AC-130 gunships — which could have been used to help disperse the bloodthirsty mob — were also stationed at three nearby bases, sources told the network.

Bing West, former assistant secretary of defense

The Obama national-security team had several hours in which to move forces from Sigonella to Benghazi.

Fighter jets could have been at Benghazi in an hour; the commandos inside three hours. If the attackers were a mob, as intelligence reported, then an F18 in afterburner, roaring like a lion, would unnerve them. This procedure was applied often in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Conversely, if the attackers were terrorists, then the U.S. commandos would eliminate them. But no forces were dispatched from Sigonella.

Why Sigonella?

Sigonella, Sicily, was 480 miles away from Benghazi. Stationed at Sigonella were Special Operations Forces, transport aircraft, and attack aircraft — a much more formidable force than 22 men from the embassy.

Instead, “The president then nipped off to bed, as he had to fly to an important campaign fundraiser in Las Vegas the next day.” On September 12, Obama went on a CBS interview,

Fourteen hours after the attack, President Obama sat down with Steve Kroft of “60 Minutes” for a previously scheduled interview and said he did not believe it was simply due to mob violence.

He also gave some lip service to “get[ting] our folks out safe” – watch:

and left for Vegas.

By September 13, Hillary Clinton was talking about the video,

Five days after the attaack, on September 16, Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice went on ABC News’ “This Week“, NBC News’ “Meet the Press”, CBS News’ “Face the Nation”, and “Fox News Sunday“, to say that it was

a spontaneous reaction to what had just transpired hours before in Cairo, almost a copycat of– of the demonstrations against our facility in Cairo, which were prompted, of course, by the video.

On September 20, Obama blamed the video during the Univision forum (full video here). Obama later condemned the video on “The View” on September 24, and at the UN on September 25.

Heritage did a video on the misinformation campaign,

[update] Brian Jacoutut is also posting a timeline on White House statements.

Bryan Preston and drillanwr at Babalu speculate on the US gun-walking arms to Libyan rebels. More on that from Frank Gaffney.

What’s Obama doing? Going on MTV on Friday.

What’s in the headlines today? Bottom-feeders Gloria Allred and Donald Trump.