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Courtesy of Mother Jones
The House Select Intelligence Committee—controlled by Republicans—has been investigating the Benghazi attacks in minute detail for two years. With the midterm elections safely past, they issued their findings. Their exoneration of the White House was sweeping and nearly absolute. So sweeping that I want to quote directly from the report's summary, rather than paraphrasing it. Here it is:
“The Committee first concludes that the CIA ensured sufficient security for CIA facilities in Benghazi....Appropriate U.S. personnel made reasonable tactical decisions that night, and the Committee found no evidence that there was either a stand down order or a denial of available air support....
Second, the Committee finds that there was no intelligence failure prior to the attacks. In the months prior, the IC provided intelligence about previous attacks and the increased threat environment in Benghazi, but the IC did not have specific, tactical warning of the September 11 attacks.
Fourth, the Committee concludes that after the attacks, the early intelligence assessments and the Administration's initial public narrative on the causes and motivations for the attacks were not fully accurate....There was no protest. The CIA only changed its initial assessment about a protest on September 24, 2012, when closed caption television footage became available on September 18, 2012 (two days after Ambassador Susan Rice spoke)....
Fifth, the Committee finds that the process used to generate the talking points HPSCI asked for—and which were used for Ambassador Rice's public appearances—was flawed....
Finally, the Committee found no evidence that any officer was intimidated, wrongly forced to sign a nondisclosure agreement or otherwise kept from speaking to Congress, or polygraphed because of their presence in Benghazi. The Committee also found no evidence that the CIA conducted unauthorized activities in Benghazi and no evidence that the IC shipped arms to Syria.”
It's hard to exaggerate just how remarkable this document is. It's not that the committee found nothing to criticize. They did. The State Department facility in Benghazi had inadequate security.
Some of the early intelligence after the attacks was inaccurate. The
CIA should have given more weight to eyewitnesses on the ground.
But those are routine after-action critiques, ones that were fully acknowledged by the very first investigations.
But those are routine after-action critiques, ones that were fully acknowledged by the very first investigations.
Beyond that, every single conspiracy
theory—without exception—was conclusively debunked. There was no stand down
order. The tactical response was both reasonable and effective under the
circumstances. The CIA was not shipping arms from Libya to Syria. Both CIA and
State received all military support that was available.
The talking points after the attack
were fashioned by the intelligence community, not the White House. Susan Rice
followed these talking points in her Sunday show appearances, and where she was
wrong, it was only because the intelligence community had made incorrect
assessments.
Nobody was punitively reassigned or
polygraphed or otherwise intimidated to prevent them from testifying to
Congress.
Okay does anybody else feel that this should be national news on ALL cable and network news outlets? Including Fox?
And not only that I feel that the Republicans should also apologize to President Obama and Hillary Clinton for essentially accusing them of allowing Americans to die and treason.
Of course that would never happen. But it should.
So I guess the Republicans will now simply shift their focus to attacking Obamacare again and suing the President for doing his job.
Different shit, same bunch of assholes.
Okay does anybody else feel that this should be national news on ALL cable and network news outlets? Including Fox?
And not only that I feel that the Republicans should also apologize to President Obama and Hillary Clinton for essentially accusing them of allowing Americans to die and treason.
Of course that would never happen. But it should.
So I guess the Republicans will now simply shift their focus to attacking Obamacare again and suing the President for doing his job.
Different shit, same bunch of assholes.