Thread: Exclusive: Dozens of CIA operatives on the ground during Benghazi attack

Exclusive: Dozens of CIA operatives on the ground during Benghazi attack

CNN has uncovered exclusive new information about what is allegedly happening at the CIA, in the wake of the deadly Benghazi terror attack.

Four Americans, including Ambassador Christopher Stevens, were killed in the assault by armed militants last September 11 in eastern Libya.

Sources now tell CNN dozens of people working for the CIA were on the ground that night, and that the agency is going to great lengths to make sure whatever it was doing, remains a secret.

CNN has learned the CIA is involved in what one source calls an unprecedented attempt to keep the spy agency's Benghazi secrets from ever leaking out.

Read: Analysis: CIA role in Benghazi underreported
Since January, some CIA operatives involved in the agency's missions in Libya, have been subjected to frequent, even monthly polygraph examinations, according to a source with deep inside knowledge of the agency's workings.
The goal of the questioning, according to sources, is to find out if anyone is talking to the media or Congress.

It is being described as pure intimidation, with the threat that any unauthorized CIA employee who leaks information could face the end of his or her career.
In exclusive communications obtained by CNN, one insider writes, "You don't jeopardize yourself, you jeopardize your family as well."

Another says, "You have no idea the amount of pressure being brought to bear on anyone with knowledge of this operation."

"Agency employees typically are polygraphed every three to four years. Never more than that," said former CIA operative and CNN analyst Robert Baer.

In other words, the rate of the kind of polygraphs alleged by sources is rare.

"If somebody is being polygraphed every month, or every two months it's called an issue polygraph, and that means that the polygraph division suspects something, or they're looking for something, or they're on a fishing expedition. But it's absolutely not routine at all to be polygraphed monthly, or bi-monthly," said Baer.

CIA spokesman Dean Boyd asserted in a statement that the agency has been open with Congress.

"The CIA has worked closely with its oversight committees to provide them with an extraordinary amount of information related to the attack on U.S. facilities in Benghazi," the statement said.

"CIA employees are always free to speak to Congress if they want," the statement continued. "The CIA enabled all officers involved in Benghazi the opportunity to meet with Congress. We are not aware of any CIA employee who has experienced retaliation, including any non-routine security procedures, or who has been prevented from sharing a concern with Congress about the Benghazi incident."

Among the many secrets still yet to be told about the Benghazi mission, is just how many Americans were there the night of the attack.

A source now tells CNN that number was 35, with as many as seven wounded, some seriously.

While it is still not known how many of them were CIA, a source tells CNN that 21 Americans were working in the building known as the annex, believed to be run by the agency.

The lack of information and pressure to silence CIA operatives is disturbing to U.S. Rep. Frank Wolf, whose district includes CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia.

"I think it is a form of a cover-up, and I think it's an attempt to push it under the rug, and I think the American people are feeling the same way," said the Republican.

"We should have the people who were on the scene come in, testify under oath, do it publicly, and lay it out. And there really isn't any national security issue involved with regards to that," he said.

Wolf has repeatedly gone to the House floor, asking for a select committee to be set-up, a Watergate-style probe involving several intelligence committee investigators assigned to get to the bottom of the failures that took place in Benghazi, and find out just what the State Department and CIA were doing there.
More than 150 fellow Republican members of Congress have signed his request, and just this week eight Republicans sent a letter to the new head of the FBI, James Comey, asking that he brief Congress within 30 days.

Read: White House releases 100 pages of Benghazi e-mails

In the aftermath of the attack, Wolf said he was contacted by people closely tied with CIA operatives and contractors who wanted to talk.

Then suddenly, there was silence.

"Initially they were not afraid to come forward. They wanted the opportunity, and they wanted to be subpoenaed, because if you're subpoenaed, it sort of protects you, you're forced to come before Congress. Now that's all changed," said Wolf.

Lawmakers also want to about know the weapons in Libya, and what happened to them.

Speculation on Capitol Hill has included the possibility the U.S. agencies operating in Benghazi were secretly helping to move surface-to-air missiles out of Libya, through Turkey, and into the hands of Syrian rebels.

It is clear that two U.S. agencies were operating in Benghazi, one was the State Department, and the other was the CIA.

The State Department told CNN in an e-mail that it was only helping the new Libyan government destroy weapons deemed "damaged, aged or too unsafe retain," and that it was not involved in any transfer of weapons to other countries.
But the State Department also clearly told CNN, they "can't speak for any other agencies."

The CIA would not comment on whether it was involved in the transfer of any weapons.

http://thelead.blogs.cnn.com/2013/08...nghazi-attack/

CNN Bombshell: CIA Personnel in Benghazi Silenced with Threats to Their Families by Obama Regime

• Kyle Becker
• On August 1, 2013

CNN has released yet another bombshell in the ongoing Benghazi scandal, and it is sure to shock those who haven’t been paying attention. Prepare for a window into the “transparent” Obama administration.

According to CNN’s Jake Tapper, the Obama administration is threatening CIA operatives who were on the ground during the deadly terrorist attack in Benghazi to keep them silent:

CNN has learned the CIA is involved in what one source calls an unprecedented attempt to keep the spy agency’s Benghazi secrets from ever leaking out.

Since January, some CIA operatives involved in the agency’s missions in Libya, have been subjected to frequent, even monthly polygraph examinations, according to a source with deep inside knowledge of the agency’s workings.

The goal of the questioning, according to sources, is to find out if anyone is talking to the media or Congress.

It is being described as pure intimidation, with the threat that any unauthorized CIA employee who leaks information could face the end of his or her career.

In exclusive communications obtained by CNN, one insider writes, “You don’t jeopardize yourself, you jeopardize your family as well.”

This should quell all naysaying that Benghazi is a “phony scandal” and “there is no cover-up.” Possible links to the Benghazi story that the Obama administration might want to cover-up are the arms shipments to al Qaeda-affiliated terrorists in the February 17th Martyr’s Brigade and potential weapons smuggling to al Qaeda-connected rebels in Syria through the Turkish consul.

The CIA operatives’ story is similar to that given by the number two diplomat in Benghazi, Libya — Gregory Hicks. Under oath, Hicks testified that he was told by the State Department not to discuss Benghazi with House Republicans and then was demoted when he did.

http://www.ijreview.com/2013/08/7006...-obama-regime/

QUESTIONS SURROUND U.S. GUNRUNNING TO SYRIAN REBELS




by KERRY PICKET
17 Jun 2013


The CIA is gearing up to send weapons to rebel groups in Syria through Turkey and Jordan, the Washington Post reported on Friday. This is an expanded program over the effort during the past year to maintain supply routes into the war torn country for nonlethal material, U.S. officials told the Post.

But U.S. officials involved in the planning of the new policy of increased military support announced by the Obama administration Thursday said that the CIA has developed a clearer understanding of the composition of rebel forces, which have begun to coalesce in recent months. Within the past year, the CIA also created a new office at its headquarters in Langley to oversee its expanding operational role in Syria.

“We have relationships today in Syria that we didn’t have six months ago,” Benjamin J. Rhodes, Obama’s deputy national security adviser, said during a White House briefing Friday. The United States is capable of delivering material “not only into the country,” Rhodes said, but “into the right hands.”

The confidence conveyed by Rhodes’s statement is in contrast to the concerns expressed by U.S. intelligence officials last year that the CIA and other U.S. spy agencies were still struggling to gain a firm understanding of opposition elements — a factor cited at the time as a reason the Obama administration was unwilling to consider providing arms.

Although the Obama administration policy is touted as new, in January, Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) asked then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton during her testimony on Capitol on the terrorist attack on the consulate in Benghazi if the CIA was involved in a gun-running operation through Turkey.

“Is the U.S. involved in any procuring of weapons, transfer of weapons, buying, selling, transferring weapons to Turkey?” he asked.

Senator Clinton responded, “To Turkey? I will have to take that question for the record. Nobody has ever raised that with me.”

“It’s been in news reports that ships have been leaving from Libya and that they may have weapons and what I’d like to know is the annex that was close by, were they involved with procuring, buying, selling, obtaining weapons and were any of these weapons being transferred to other countries, any countries, Turkey included?” the Kentucky Republican asked Clinton.

“Well, Senator, you’ll have to direct that question to the agency that ran the annex and I will see what information is available,” Clinton said.

“You’re saying you don’t know,” Paul clarified.

“I do not know. I don’t have any information on that,” Clinton answered.

Additionally, questions regarding Congress’ knowledge of any U.S.
gunrunning going to the Syrian rebels prior the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi remain. Only members of the House and Senate’s “Super 8” (consisting of both parties’ leaders in both chambers, along with House and Senate Select Intelligence committee chairs and ranking members) would be required to be briefed on such an operation. Any information they receive from these briefings are classified.

On January 24, House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) told talk radio host Laura Ingraham in response to Paul's remarks on gunrunning, “I’m somewhat familiar with the chatter about this and the fact that these arms were moving towards Turkey, but most what I know about this came from a classified source and I really can’t elaborate on it.”

However, Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and Senator Saxby Chambliss (R-GA), Ranking Member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, claim to have been unaware of any gunrunning going through Turkey.

“I’m not familiar with that,” Chambliss told Breitbart News in February when asked if he could respond to Paul’s assertions.

Feinstein told Breitbart News she never knew about the gun running allegations.

House Select Intelligence Committee Chair Mike Rogers (R-MI) was confident that there was no gun running “in any shape or form” that happened in Libya.

"I get to see all of that stuff. I have seen nothing that would allow me to conclude that the U.S. government was in any way, shape, or form involved in gun running in Libya. I looked at it all."

"If it’s there I have not seen it. I think I would have found it," he said. "I think there were some other things that were happening and people got confused, but the United States government was not running guns (from the annex)."

Ranking member of the House Intel Committee Rep. Dutch Ruppersberg (D-MD) agreed with Feinstein and Chambliss, telling Breitbart News in May, "I’ve heard nothing about it. I don’t know. We don’t get to that minutia sometimes--the Gang of 8." He explained, "We get the most sensitive information, that even our own committees can’t [get.]"

Ruppersberg added, “The checks and balances is [the White House] give us information--very sensitive information--the check and balance issue, but they don’t have to tell us everything or we’d be sitting having Gang of Eight breifings all day long. That’s the answer. I don’t know,” said Ruppersberg.

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Peace/2...key-and-Jordan

GOP Rep: Obama WH Is Hiding Benghazi Survivors AND CHANGING THEIR NAMES (Video)

Posted by Jim Hoft on Thursday, August 1, 2013, 9:40 PM

Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC) was on with Greta Van Susteren tonight to discuss the Obama scandals.

This came after Jake Tapper at CNN broke the news today that there were “dozens” of CIA operatives on the ground in Benghazi on 9-11 when the consulate came under attack and the agency is going to great lengths to make sure whatever it was doing, remains a secret.
Gowdy told Greta the Obama Administration is hiding the survivors, dispersing them around the country, AND changing their names.

“Including changing names, creating aliases. Stop and think what things are most calculated to get at the truth? Talk to people with first-hand knowledge. What creates the appearance and perhaps the reality of a cover-up? Not letting us talk with people who have the most amount of information, dispersing them around the country and changing their names.”

And, at the same time Obama is hiding the survivors around the country he’s calling Benghazi a ‘phony’ scandal.

Via Greta Van Susteren:



This sounds a bit like criminal behavior, huh?
http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2013...r-names-video/