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Thursday, May 9, 2013

Two Hours After Learning of Benghazi Attacks, White House Tweets About "A Safer World"

    The congressional hearings on Benghazi this week have once again refocused attention on the events of September 11, 2012.  On that day, news of the attack on the Benghazi Consulate reached the White House Situation Room at 4:05 PM Eastern Time (ET).  CBS News prepared a timeline of the events and the actions of administration officials:
10:05 p.m. (4:05 p.m. ET): An alert from the State Department Operations Center is issued to ... the White House Situation Room... "US Diplomatic Mission in Benghazi Under Attack" -- "approximately 20 armed people fired shots; explosions have been heard as well... 
Around 10:30 p.m. (4:30 p.m. ET): Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and his top military adviser learn of the incident... 
11 p.m. (5 p.m. ET): ...White House National Security Advisor Tom Donilon tells President Obama of the attack and the fire at the main villa... 
Midnight (6 p.m. ET) ... Over the next two hours, Sec. Panetta holds a series of meetings and issues several orders...
    Missing from the timeline is this, at 6:02 p.m. ET:
    In retrospect, the timing for this message could hardly have been worse.  And along with President Obama's fund raising trip to Las Vegas the following day, it does little to dispel the notion that the White House did not take the events in Benghazi as seriously as it should have.

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