Thread: ‘Very upset’: CIA sat on Benghazi investigation, US personnel fuming

‘Very upset’: CIA sat on Benghazi investigation, US personnel fuming

By Adam Housley
Published March 13, 2014oxNews.com


Sept. 11, 2012: A protester reacts as the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi is seen in flames.REUTERS


American personnel on the ground in Benghazi the night of the 2012 terror attack are outraged after learning that the CIA's inspector general never conducted an investigation into what happened -- despite two CIA workers being killed in the attack and despite at least two complaints being filed by CIA employees.

Former Ambassador Chris Stevens, another State official and two ex-Navy SEALs working for the CIA were killed in that attack.

Many in the agency were told, or were under the impression, that an investigation was in the works, but that is not the case.

One person close to the issue told Fox News: "They should be doing an investigation to see what the chief of base in Benghazi and station chief in Tripoli did that night. If they did, they'd find out there were some major mistakes."

This source claimed an investigation would likely uncover a lot of details the public does not know.

Asked why such a probe has not been launched, a CIA spokesman said: "CIA's Office of the Inspector General (OIG) always reviews carefully every matter that is brought to its attention, and takes appropriate action based on a variety of factors."

Still, at least two complaints were filed by CIA employees concerned about the attack, which began at the U.S. compound and eventually spread to the CIA annex one mile away. There is no question that CIA personnel saved a lot of lives; those on the ground that night continue to herald the heroism of the individuals who responded to try and help Stevens and others under attack.

Yet questions remain about the overall decision-making, possible destruction of evidence and warnings of an impending attack.

"There needs to be a CIA investigation ... there was a lot of things done wrong," one special operator said.

But a CIA spokesman said the OIG has already "explained fully" to the agency's congressional oversight committees "why it did not open an investigation into Benghazi-related issues."

"That decision was based on a determination that the concerns raised fell under the purview of the State Department's Accountability Review Board, and that a separate OIG action could unnecessarily disrupt the FBI's criminal investigation into the Benghazi attacks," the spokesman said.

The Accountability Review Board probe was ordered by the State Department, and the board reported its findings in December 2012.
But separate investigations haven't stopped the OIG from investigating issues before. Why they held back in this instance is a question starting to filter through the agents at the CIA. Fox News has been told some of the investigators initially assigned to review the Benghazi complaints are "very upset and very frustrated" that they were told to stop the process.

Some members of the Senate Intelligence Committee expressed some of these same concerns in their review of the Benghazi attacks. On page 15 of the Republican response on Jan. 15, it states: "... the committee has learned that the CIA Inspector General did not investigate complaints relating to the Benghazi attacks from CIA whistle blowers. Whether these complaints are ultimately substantiated or dismissed is irrelevant. On a matter of this magnitude involving the deaths of four Americans, the Inspector General has a singular obligation to take seriously and fully investigate any allegation of wrongdoing. His failure to do so raises significant questions that we believe the Committee must explore more fully."

Fox News has also learned that the Senate Committee was told by the CIA that the investigation did not take place because it would interfere with the State Department Accountability Review Board, which was conducted to "examine the facts and circumstances of the attacks." While that review contained major criticism aimed at State Department officials in Washington, it didn't directly mention the CIA.

"Since when does the CIA defer to State? The ARB is in a total different agency anyway," one special operator said.

Former U.S. United Nations spokesman Richard Grenell also is critical of the CIA actions. "It's puzzling that the Obama administration is so reluctant to do a real investigation of the facts surrounding the Benghazi attack," he said.

"The ARB conveniently never interviewed Hillary Clinton or her political team about what they knew in the lead up or how they reacted during the crisis. And now we learn that the CIA wasn't interested in conducting a real investigation either."

The frustration within the agency is building over the fact that many see the CIA inspector general as their last line of defense internally. While the internal complaints are classified, Fox News has learned that besides questioning the actions of the station chief and chief of base, the complaints also question dealings with the Libyan security forces -- and include questions about the reliance on a group of local volunteer militiamen called the February 17 Brigade for security and their likely participation in the attack.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014...sonnel-fuming/

BENGHAZI BOMBSHELL! AL-QAIDA VOWED TO KILL AMBASSADOR

Months before attack, U.S. had photos of 300 armed militants near outpost
GREG COROMBOS
03/13/2013

Months before the 2012 Benghazi attack that killed U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans, the U.S. State Department had at least three detailed intelligence reports warning of al-Qaida’s build-up in Benghazi and quoting a militant leader who vowed to kill the U.S. ambassador, according to a new book chronicling the heroism of Navy SEALs.

American diplomats in Benghazi made even more urgent pleas for beefed up security than previously thought, and officials also refused to consider at least five military scenarios that could have saved the lives of two Americans in the terrorist attacks.

In “Eyes on Target: Inside Stories from the Brotherhood of the U.S. Navy SEALs,” authors Richard Miniter and Scott McEwen point to newly discovered government reports showing Ambassador Chris Stevens and his colleagues desperately requesting additional security and better personnel than the suspect Libyans already on the job. Those intelligence reports came in addition to multiple requests for additional security.

“We discovered three intelligence reports that circulated in the months before the attack. Each of those reports show intelligence agencies warning the State Department (and) warning the Defense Department there’s an al-Qaida build-up in Benghazi. One of those reports included photographs of more than 300 al-Qaida operatives in Martyr’s Square. That’s downtown Benghazi. That’s less than a mile from the diplomatic outpost where the ambassador died,” Miniter said.

“In those photographs in the intelligence report, they show them waving guns. There’s a quote mentioned in this intelligence report in which the leader of al-Qaida in Benghazi said if the U.S. doesn’t leave they were going to kill the U.S. ambassador. You can’t get any clearer than that,” he said.

“Somewhere in the bowels of the State Department there’s a bureaucrat who has got the three intelligence reports, and on the other part of his desk he’s got the three or four security requests from the ambassador begging for more security guards. After reading those intelligence reports and seeing those pictures, he stamped each one of those denied, denied, denied.”

The attack in Benghazi came just weeks before the 2012 presidential election and while President Obama’s campaign portrayed al-Qaida as effectively dismantled and the ouster of Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi as a major victory, wouldn’t a quiet increase in security be a less risky decision than leaving a diplomatic post vulnerable to attack?
Miniter said it was a political calculation.

They were concerned that if somehow the American public were to learn that there was additional security for the ambassador or the diplomatic staff in Benghazi, it would take away the two winning arguments that they thought they had on foreign policy,” Miniter said. “So if they admitted that there was a massive al-Qaida build-up in Libya, that crosses off their two foreign policy successes and undermines the president’s case for re-election. So as crassly political as it was, that appears to be the motivation, according to the Benghazi eyewitnesses. These are participants in the tragedy that we interviewed.”

While Ambassador Stevens and diplomat Sean Smith were killed within the first 40 minutes of the initial attack, Navy SEALs Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty fought on for another seven hours. While the Obama administration contends any military response would have taken 20 hours to mobilize and reach the fighting, “Eyes on Target” offers five different different response scenarios that Miniter and McEwen say would have ended the fighting much sooner and most likely saved the lives of both Woods and Doherty.

The options ranged from Air Force fighters from Aviano Air Base to Navy fighters in Gaeta, both located in Italy to a drone strike and even a cruise missiles launched from the Mediterranean Sea. Miniter said the mere presence of fighter jets would have ended the crisis.

“The scenario that seems the best is simply dispatching F-16 Fighters from Italy and having them fly over Benghazi. The loud jet roar overhead would be enough to scatter the attackers. They certainly know that when facing the U.S. Air Force or U.S. Navy in the sky, death comes from above. With more than a hundred attackers, mortars, rocket attacks they would know that they were targets. Without firing a shot, they could have been driven off. That’s the kind of thing that President Obama, who doesn’t like combat, would tend to favor,” he said.

Told through the eyes of current and former Navy SEALs, “Eyes on Target” is an inside account of some of the most harrowing missions in American history – including the mission to kill Osama bin Laden and the mission that wasn’t, the deadly attack on the U.S. diplomatic outpost in Benghazi.

In addition to denying permission for Doherty to go to Benghazi and any other sort of military intervention, “Eyes on Target” details the Obama administration’s paralysis in making any decisions on response to the attack. After an early evening briefing from Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, Obama was out of contact the rest of the night. So should he bear any blame for failing to launch military action, or does the responsibility lie with Panetta?

“While Americans were fighting and dying in Benghazi, the president was unreachable. According to congressional testimony, Panetta’s last conversation with the president was before 6:30 p.m. Washington time. Remember, Glen Doherty and Ty Woods, the two SEALs who fought to save the Americans, wouldn’t die for almost another seven hours. In that period, the president disappeared. He refused to take calls,” Miniter said.

Eighteen months later, the Benghazi investigation essentially falls along party lines, with Democrats saying there is no scandal and Republicans accusing the administration of leaving Americans on the field of battle and concocting a story around a spontaneous demonstration spurred by an Internet video to deflect from the many security warnings.

Will the final story on Benghazi simply be a matter of political opinion? Miniter doesn’t think so.

“Ultimately, I think this is going to be a turning point in the country’s assessment of the president,” he said. “The media are supposed to be referees, but instead they’re on the field being players. Too many of the media are simply playing to the White House’s agenda. Really, they should be watchdogs, not lapdogs.”

Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2014/03/benghazi-...R35DHqwd0dg.99

'Smoking gun' Benghazi email prompts renewed push for select committee

Published May 01, 2014FoxNews.com



Video at the Page Link:

A Republican lawmaker is renewing his push for a select committee to investigate the Benghazi terror attack following the release of emails tying a White House aide to former U.N. ambassador Susan Rice's controversial Sunday show statements about the attack.
Rep. Frank Wolf, R-Va., sent a letter to House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, calling for a select committee to be established to conduct an investigation, interview Obama administration officials and hold public hearings on the probe.
"It is now abundantly clear that senior White House staff were directly involved in coordinating the messaging in response to the Benghazi attacks and were actively working to tie the reason to the infamous Internet video," Wolf wrote Wednesday.
New emails indicate a White House adviser helped prep Rice for her Sunday show appearances and pushed the explanation linking the attack to an anti-Islamic film -- and now, the White House is facing credibility questions after having downplayed their role in Rice's "talking points."
Wolf argues in the letter that the new evidence underscores the need for a select committee with subpoena power and the authority to read classified documents. Boehner has previously stated he opposes the creation of a select committee.
"While we cannot control how this administration pursues, or fails to pursue, those terrorists responsible for the deaths of four Americans, we can ensure that the American people learn the truth about what happened and which officials should be held accountable," Wolf wrote.
In January, three family members of victims of the Sept. 11, 2012 attack wrote to Boehner demanding that a select committee be established to probe the attack. So far, Boehner has only authorized House committees to investigate the matter.
During a heated briefing with reporters Wednesday afternoon, Press Secretary Jay Carney repeatedly tried to claim that the so-called "prep call" with Rice -- as it was described in one email -- was not about Benghazi. The prep session, he said, was just about the demonstrations elsewhere in the Muslim world that week.
"It is not about Benghazi -- it is about the protests around the Muslim world," Carney claimed.
The White House has said all along that Rice relied on the best available intelligence, from the intelligence community, when she discussed the Benghazi attack.
But the documents obtained and released by conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch, as part of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, included a Sept. 14, 2012, email from White House aide Ben Rhodes, an assistant to the president and deputy national security adviser for strategic communications.
The Rhodes email, with the subject line: "RE: PREP Call with Susan: Saturday at 4:00 pm ET," was sent to a dozen members of the administration's inner circle, including key members of the White House communications team such as Carney.
In the email, Rhodes specifically draws attention to the anti-Islam Internet video, without distinguishing whether the Benghazi attack was different from protests elsewhere.
The email lists the following two goals, among others:
"To underscore that these protests are rooted in an Internet video, and not a broader failure of policy."
"To reinforce the President and Administration's strength and steadiness in dealing with difficult challenges."
Republican critics, who have long claimed the administration's narrative was politically motivated, pointed to that email as a "smoking gun."
But Carney insisted that the Rhodes email was distinct from the intelligence community talking points in that it referred to preparing Rice for questions about the protests elsewhere.
"They were about the general situation in the Muslim world," Carney said, going so far as to read headlines from stories at the time that highlighted those protests -- underscoring that they were a big news story at the time.
He declined to answer directly when asked if the White House would correct the record regarding statements downplaying its role in the talking points. He did acknowledge what was evident from the Rhodes email -- that "the White House had a role in that document, obviously."
Boehner issued a statement Wednesday night saying, “Four Americans lost their lives in Benghazi, and this White House has gone to extraordinary lengths to mislead, obstruct, and obscure what actually took place.
During the week of the Benghazi attack, protests had broken out by U.S. embassies in several countries in Africa and the Middle East, including intense demonstrations in Cairo. But by the time of Rice's Sunday show appearances, the death of a U.S. ambassador and three other Americans in Benghazi was the dominant story -- Carney faced skepticism in the briefing room in claiming that the Rhodes email was not referring, at least in large part, to that.
Further, the document sent to Judicial Watch was released in response to a request for records pertaining to Benghazi.
And the same memo was sent to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, likewise, following a subpoena seeking Benghazi documents.
"If this is not a smoking gun, proving beyond any doubt, the story told by the administration about Benghazi was politically motivated and fabricated, nothing will ever prove that," Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said.

Fox News' Catherine Herridge contributed to this report.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014...e-on-benghazi/