Obama-Clinton Benghazi narrative rebutted by Defense Department report

[Geee]

Washington Times:

At the very time President Obama, then-Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and other top leaders were blaming spontaneous protests for the deadly Benghazi attack, the Defense Department broadly circulated a detailed intelligence report that said an al Qaeda-linked group planned the assault 10 days beforehand.

 

Its goal was to kill as many Americans as possible.

 

The Defense Intelligence Agency report is contained in a trove of previously classified documents that the government watchdog group Judicial Watch forced the Obama administration to release under court order.

 

 

On another terrorism development that has wide implications today, one DIA report in August 2012 predicted the rise of the Islamic State, which was then emerging in Syria. It now controls wide sections of eastern Syria and northern and western Iraq, and is committing mass slaughter of Christians, Kurds and Muslims of rival sects or clans.

 

Mr. Obama downplayed the Islamic State as the “JV” in January 2014 when the terrorist army made its first incursions into western Iraq.

[Valin]

Surprise: State Department labeled Benghazi ‘terrorism event’ within hours
Guy Benson
May 27, 2015

This isn’t a “bombshell revelation” per se, because multiple strands of evidence have pointed to this truth for some time. For starters, then-CIA director David Petraeus told CNN that the US government knew the Benghazi massacre was a terrorist act “almost immediately,” and a State Department email sent the morning after the attack accurately pinned the blame on Ansar al-Sharia. Documents obtained by Judicial Watch last week revealed that both State and Defense quickly identified the deadly raid as the work of terrorists, citing evidence that the ambush was retaliation for the killing of a high-ranking jihadist and had been carefully planned for days. And here’s Judicial Watch’s latest:

(Snip)

Another interesting tidbit:

Another State Department document lists 18 Embassy and other State Department sites in the Middle East, Africa, and UK, all but one of which are listed as being targeted by “protests.” Benghazi is the only city that has no listing of “protests,” and lists instead the situation as “Attack on US Consulate.” The document is undated but seems to have been created a few days after the Benghazi attack.

(Snip)

 

I tend to fall into the camp that the “real” scandal of Benghazi isn’t so much the cynical, political cover-up, but rather the woefully inadequate security that allowed the slaughter to take place in the first place — in spite of repeated warnings and glaring warning signs. The administration’s catastrophically failed Libya policy should also receive more attention than it does, especially given Sec. Clinton’s explicitly-stated “ownership/stewardship” of that trainwreck. That being said, how can you not be disgusted by this?

 

[Valin]