12-19-2012, 05:02 PM
Today, three top State Department officials resigned under pressure.
The independent review panel's report on the Benghazi consulate killings was submitted yesterday and will be presented in public hearings on Capitol Hill tomorrow (Hillary Clinton won't testify due to doctor's orders resulting from her recent concussion). I'm surprised by just how poorly the State Department was reviewed by the independent panel on this incident.
The board determined that there had been no immediate, specific tactical warning of a potential attack on the 11th anniversary of Sept. 11, 2001. But the report said there had been several worrisome incidents before to the attack that should have set off warning bells.
It did confirm, though, that contrary to initial accounts, there was no protest outside the facility.
In the immediate aftermath of the attack, administration officials linked the attack to the spreading protests that had begun in Cairo earlier that day over an American-made, anti-Islamic film. Those comments came after evidence already pointed to a distinct militant attack in Benghazi.
U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice appeared on numerous TV talk shows the Sunday after the attack and used the administration talking points linking it to the film. An ensuing brouhaha in the heat of the presidential campaign eventually led her to withdraw her name from consideration to replace Clinton as secretary of state in President Barack Obama's second term.
Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., emerging from the Senate briefing on the report, kept up the congressional criticism of Rice. "Now we all know she had knowledge. She knew what the truth was. It was a cover-up," he said.
Many more details and full story here:
http://start.new.toshiba.com/news/read.p...011&page=3
Mrs. Clinton has signed off on the report and confirmed that the panel's recommendations designed to prevent another such occurrence are already being implemented.
Looks like big changes for the State Department with Obama losing three top executives now and Mrs. Clinton at the start of his next term.
The independent review panel's report on the Benghazi consulate killings was submitted yesterday and will be presented in public hearings on Capitol Hill tomorrow (Hillary Clinton won't testify due to doctor's orders resulting from her recent concussion). I'm surprised by just how poorly the State Department was reviewed by the independent panel on this incident.
The board determined that there had been no immediate, specific tactical warning of a potential attack on the 11th anniversary of Sept. 11, 2001. But the report said there had been several worrisome incidents before to the attack that should have set off warning bells.
It did confirm, though, that contrary to initial accounts, there was no protest outside the facility.
In the immediate aftermath of the attack, administration officials linked the attack to the spreading protests that had begun in Cairo earlier that day over an American-made, anti-Islamic film. Those comments came after evidence already pointed to a distinct militant attack in Benghazi.
U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice appeared on numerous TV talk shows the Sunday after the attack and used the administration talking points linking it to the film. An ensuing brouhaha in the heat of the presidential campaign eventually led her to withdraw her name from consideration to replace Clinton as secretary of state in President Barack Obama's second term.
Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., emerging from the Senate briefing on the report, kept up the congressional criticism of Rice. "Now we all know she had knowledge. She knew what the truth was. It was a cover-up," he said.
Many more details and full story here:
http://start.new.toshiba.com/news/read.p...011&page=3
Mrs. Clinton has signed off on the report and confirmed that the panel's recommendations designed to prevent another such occurrence are already being implemented.
Looks like big changes for the State Department with Obama losing three top executives now and Mrs. Clinton at the start of his next term.