Kerry Compares Governing Libya to Being a Massachusetts Senator

    Secretary of State John Kerry, in the United Kingdom for a meeting of the nations of the London 11, spoke to the press at the Foreign Commonwealth Office in London.  While the gathering was principally addressing the military conflict and humanitarian crisis in Syria, the secretary commented on the situation in Libya as well.  Kerry noted the need to bring security and stability to the country in the face of continuing violence and threats from various extremist elements:

We need to try to accelerate the effort to bring about stability and security and the governance that is necessary to provide the time and the space for Libyan authorities to be able to confront the threat from extremism and the challenges that their country faces of just providing governance to their people.

    Kerry then briefly described some steps the Libyan government would be encouraged to take to provide stability and peace for the Libyan people.  He noted the country is "rich in resources, rich in people with talent and capacity."  Kerry also referenced his own experience as a senator from Massachusetts as an example to the Libyans that he knows "something about what you can provide when you want to."

[W]e’re going to do all we can to help the Libyans in these next days to try to be able to gain control over their revenues and begin to forge the kind of coalition that can actually begin to build the offices of governance that are necessary. This is a small country – six and a half million people – smaller than the state that I represented in the Senate – privileged to represent for almost 29 years. I know something about what you can provide when you want to. Libya is a country rich in resources, rich in people with talent and capacity. And we hope that in the days ahead we’re going to be able to tap into that and find a way to help the Libyan people to move forward to have the kind of stability and peaceful governance that they aspire to.

    Kerry's remarks on Libya came on same day Rep. Darrell Issa issued a second subpoena for Kerry to appear before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on May 29 to testify about the terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya in 2012.  Kerry was scheduled to be out of the country on May 21, the date of the original subpoena.


Note: A version of this post first appeared at The Weekly Standard.

Playing Chess With Iran

    To hear Obama administration officials tell it, Iran got snookered at the bargaining table in Geneva.  The description of the deal worked out between the P5+1 and the world's largest supporter of terrorism is so one-sided, it's a wonder the foreign minister of Iran will be allowed back into his home country.  Two unnamed senior administration officials held a background conference call with reporters early Sunday morning after Secretary of State Kerry addressed the press about the deal.  Here are a few of their remarks:

• So these are very important concessions and the most significant progress that has been made in halting the progress of the uranium program in a decade...
• Along with those agreements come an unprecedented transparency and intrusive monitoring of the Iranian program...
• This is much more extensive monitoring than we have today, and it is a significant portion of this agreement...
• So, taken together, again, a halt of activities across the Iranian program, a rollback in certain important elements, and extensive and intrusive monitoring...
• First and most importantly, [Iranian sanctions] relief is limited, temporary, targeted, and reversible. It is designed so that the core of our sanctions, the sanctions that have had a tremendous bite -- the oil, banking and financial sanctions -- all remain in place. So in that very important respect, this deal is limited...
• Second, the relief that Iran gets under this agreement is insignificant economically...
• Iran is not back in business and anyone who makes the mistake of thinking so I think will be met with some serious consequences...
• The deal that was struck is very limited in terms of the additional business that Iran can engage in...
• So just looking at oil revenue alone, Iran will actually be worse off at the end of this six-month deal than it is today...

    And all of this while still explicitly acknowledging "Iran’s state sponsorship of terrorism, its destabilizing role in the Syrian conflict, and its abysmal human rights record[.]"  What is in this deal for Iran?  What motive does the regime that still publicly calls for Israel's destruction have?

The purpose of sanctions were not to just have sanctions in place. They were to change the calculus of the Iranian government. We began to see that with the election of a new President who ran on a mandate to achieve sanctions relief through a more moderate foreign policy towards the West. And we had an opportunity, the best opportunity we've had in five years, to test whether we could get an agreement through diplomacy.

    The situation calls to mind an amateur chess player who has just taken an important piece in a game with a grandmaster. "Did you see that?  I took his rook! He's in trouble now!" Meanwhile, the grandmaster is saying, "Wow... never saw that coming!" but a smile is visible behind his eyes as he envisions the endgame twelve moves in the future.  If Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria and Egypt are any indication, the Obama administration will once again be shaking its head and saying, "But things were going so well..." This time, however, the endgame could be the worst outcome yet: a nuclear Iran.

State Dept. Report Lists 6 Terror Attacks Last Year in Benghazi Before 9/11 Attack

    The State Department released its annual Country Reports on Terrorism 2012 survey on Thursday.  The section on the Middle East and North Africa includes a report on incidents in Libya.  All told, there were eleven terrorism-related incidents in Libya prior to the 9/11 attacks in Benghazi that took the life of Ambassador Christopher Stevens, Sean Smith, Glen Doherty, and Tyrone Woods.  Six of those eleven incidents took place in Benghazi:

• On May 22, assailants launched a rocket-propelled grenade at the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC)’s building in Benghazi. The violent Islamist extremist group Brigades of Captive Omar Abdul Rahman claimed responsibility for the attack. The ICRC evacuated Benghazi in mid-July. 

• On June 6, violent extremists attacked the U.S. facilities in Benghazi with an improvised explosive device (IED). The group claimed that the attack was in retaliation for the assassination of Abu-Yahya al-Libi, the second highest ranking leader of al-Qa’ida. 

• On June 11, a convoy carrying the British Ambassador to Libya was attacked in Benghazi. 

• In August, there was a series of attacks against security personnel and facilities, including the bombing of the Benghazi military intelligence offices on August 1...

• On August 10, Army General Hadiya al-Feitouri was assassinated in Benghazi. 

• On August 20, a car belonging to an Egyptian diplomat was blown up near his home in Benghazi. 

     The report then lists the most infamous attack as well:

• On September 11, terrorists attacked the U.S. facilities in Benghazi, which resulted in the death of Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three staff members.

    Also noted are five terrorism-related incidents in Benghazi following the 9/11 attacks.


Note: The article first appeared at The Weekly Standard.

U.S. Dedicates New $133M "Green" Embassy in Burundi

    Many Americans might be hard pressed to pick out Burundi on a map, but (as Daniel Halper noted at The Weekly Standard) the United States just dedicted a brand new "green" embassy complex in the city of Kigobe in the African nation.   The State Department press release calls the embassy complex "an important symbol of America’s commitment to an enduring friendship with the Republic of Burundi."  Two Washington D.C. architectural firms, Perkins + Will and Einhorn Yaffee Prescott, designed the buildings and Caddell Construction of Montgomery, Alabama did the construction.  A significant part of the announcement touts the green credentials of the new embassy compound, pictured below:

The new facility incorporates numerous sustainable features to reduce operating costs and conserve resources, most notably an extensive system of over 950 photovoltaic panels; a white “cool” roof and the use of architectural shading of the building to reduce solar heat gain and energy cooling costs; and on-site treatment of wastewater that is reused for irrigation. An estimated 95% of construction waste was diverted from landfills for reuse by the local community. The facility has been registered with the U.S. Green Building Council for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED®) certification.

    While the U.S. has had diplomatic relations with the country for 40 years, the CIA Factbook entry for Burundi spells out its troubled past and challenged for the future:

Burundi's first democratically elected president was assassinated in October 1993 after only 100 days in office, triggering widespread ethnic violence between Hutu and Tutsi factions. More than 200,000 Burundians perished during the conflict that spanned almost a dozen years. Hundreds of thousands of Burundians were internally displaced or became refugees in neighboring countries. An internationally brokered power-sharing agreement between the Tutsi-dominated government and the Hutu rebels in 2003 paved the way for a transition process that led to an integrated defense force, established a new constitution in 2005, and elected a majority Hutu government in 2005. The government of President Pierre NKURUNZIZA, who was reelected in 2010, continues to face many political and economic challenges.

    Although the embassy complex was just dedicated this week, the new location actually opened for business in October 2012.  The ambassador to Burundi is Dawn M. Liberi, a career member of the Senior Foreign Service, who was nominated for the position in July 2012 and confirmed by the Senate in October.  Most recently, Ms. Liberi had functioned as the Senior Assistance Coordinator at U.S. Embassy in Tripoli, Libya in 2012.

The Danger of America's Endless "National Emergencies"

    On March 12, the White House issued a press release that began with what have become rather familiar words: "Continuation of the National Emergency with Respect to..."  In this case, it is Iran, an emergency first declared on March 15, 1995, when President Bill Clinton imposed sanctions on Iran in response to concern over the regime's nuclear ambitions. This is not to be confused with the state of emergency with respect to Iran declared by President Jimmy Carter in 1979 during the Iranian hostage crisis. The hostages were released in 1980, but 33 years later, President Obama continues to renew the national emergency declaration just as Presidents George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George H.W. Bush and Ronald Reagan did year after year.

    These continuations are the product of the 1976 National Emergencies Act, which, ironically, was intended in part to prevent such declarations from being open-ended.  Per the Act, if not terminated by Congress or the President, National Emergency declarations automatically expire after a year unless the president issues a continuance, and these continuances have become a matter of course.

   In the past year, President Obama has signed continuations of National Emergency declarations for Zimbabwe, Cuba, Libya, Ivory Coast, the Middle East Peace Process, Sudan, Weapons of Mass Destruction, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Lebanon, Significant Transnational Criminal Organizations, the Former Liberian Regime of Charles Taylor, the Western Balkans, the Risk of Nuclear Proliferation Created by the Accumulation of Weapons-Usable Fissile Material in the Territory of the Russian Federation, Belarus, Iraq, Syria, Somalia, and Iran (2); nineteen in all.  Nineteen concurrent "national emergencies."  Most Americans, and perhaps most politicians, would be hard pressed to explain the circumstances surrounding one-third of these emergencies, let alone all nineteen.  The mere existence of some of these declarations would doubtless be a surprise to many.

    The nature of most national emergency declarations is not a sweeping omnipotence granted to the Commander in Chief. The National Emergencies Act requires the president to specify the provisions in the law upon which his actions under each declaration are authorized.  Many of the current declarations involve only economic measures and sanctions that are being imposed in a targeted and limited context.  But presidents seem loath to yield back even these limited powers granted by the declarations.  So the "emergencies" go on... and on.

    The world is surely a dangerous place, and responsible governance requires not only vigilance, but the ability to exercise a variety of powers.  But perhaps nothing illustrates the problem with the perpetual "emergency" as well as the following.  Last year, President Obama extended the National Emergency with respect to terrorism that President Bush signed after the devastating attacks on America by al-Qaeda on September 11, 2001.  In his notice to Congress, President Obama wrote:

CONTINUATION OF THE NATIONAL EMERGENCY WITH RESPECT TO PERSONS WHO COMMIT, THREATEN TO COMMIT, OR SUPPORT TERRORISM

On September 23, 2001, by Executive Order 13224, the President declared a national emergency with respect to persons who commit, threaten to commit, or support terrorism, pursuant to the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (50 U.S.C. 1701-1706).  The President took this action to deal with the unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States constituted by the grave acts of terrorism and threats of terrorism committed by foreign terrorists, including the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, in New York and Pennsylvania and against the Pentagon, and the continuing and immediate threat of further attacks against United States nationals or the United States.  Because the actions of these persons who commit, threaten to commit, or support terrorism continue to pose an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States... I am continuing for 1 year the national emergency[.]

    The date the president signed and issued this notice warning of the "immediate threat of further attacks"?  September 11, 2012, the very day of the attack on the consulate in Benghazi, Libya.  While the ink was still drying on the words "continuing and immediate threat of further attacks against United States nationals" and "an unusual and extraordinary threat," the assault was underway.  Because the readiness that a "national emergency" implies was just a facade (at least in Benghazi,) the United States was caught flatfooted, unable to adequately respond in time.  Four Americans were killed and the consulate was burned.

    We will never stop every attack. The enemies of the United States are legion and seemingly tireless.  Yet the principle at work here is at least as old as Aesop and the boy watching the sheep.  When everything is an emergency, nothing is. While these declarations are not false alarms, neither do they reflect the imminence and urgency normally associated with a true emergency.  Rather, they tend to obscure actual immediate threats.  Therefore, as nineteen echoes of "national emergency!" rang in the air, the wolf struck in Benghazi.  Unless our leaders learn to resist the profligate invocation of "emergency," the wolves simply have to wait until overuse once again breeds complacency before they strike.  But then, the emergency will be all too real.

State Department White Paper on Libya: "Civil War, State Collapse," and "Security Vacuum"

    On Thursday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gave a speech entitled "U.S. and Europe: A Revitalized Global Partnership" at the Brookings Institution  in Washington, D.C.  As is obvious from the title, the focus of the speech was the relationship of the United States and Europe, but to make her case, Mrs. Clinton chose to highlight several issues, including the military action in Libya to topple Qadhafi:

Next week, I will make my 38th visit to Europe as Secretary... Today, I’d like to discuss briefly how these efforts have helped the United States and Europe meet a number of key security challenges: the war in Afghanistan, the crisis in Libya, Iran’s nuclear program, and strengthening our strategic defenses.

    While the degree of success of all four of these challenges is up for debate, the recent events in Benghazi have drawn special attention to the Libya intervention.  Secretary Clinton mentioned Libya several times later in her speech:

When the Libyan people demanded their freedom and Qadhafi threatened to hunt down the people of Benghazi like rats, we responded. And we all shared the burden. Early on, the United States knocked out Libya’s integrated air defenses, and later we provided other crucial assets...
We can all also agree that we are better off working together on this issue [Israel and Palestine], just as on the others that I have mentioned. Imagine what the world would look like if we did not. A Libyan dictator, left to his own devices, slaughtering his own people. A safe haven for terrorists in Afghanistan. Iran leveraging its oil supply to underwrite a nuclear weapons program. That is not a world in which Americans or Europeans or anyone else would be better off.

    Mrs. Clinton comes off as rather pleased with how the Libya missions was carried out and seems somewhat sanguine about post-Qadhafi Libya.  But just a day before Mrs. Clinton's speech, a report issued by her State Department's Overseas Security Advisory Council (OSAC) is less than optimistic about Libya's prospects in the wake of Qadhafi's ouster.  The full report is only available to OSAC subscribers, but the summary sounds dire enough:

OSAC Annual Briefing 2012 White Paper: Security and State Collapse: Libya and Syria
11/28/2012
Over the past two years, both the Middle East and North Africa have experienced enormous political change. In Tunisia, Egypt, and Yemen, mass uprisings led to the fall or resignation of autocratic regimes; in Libya, a civil war brought down decades of dictatorship under Colonel Muammar al-Qaddafi. In Syria, a mass uprising turned civil war, has the repressive regime of Bashar al-Assad fighting for survival. Despite significant changes throughout the region, the deterioration into civil war, state collapse, and subsequent emergence of security vacuums in Libya and Syria raises the question as to whether the two countries will experience similar turmoil during the post-conflict period.

    In her speech, Mrs. Clinton failed to mention the Benghazi attack on the US Consulate which killed four Americans or any of the other signs of "deterioration" in Libya cited in the OSAC summary.  Arguably, it is this "accentuate the positive" approach that led to the State Department and the Obama administration being unprepared for the Benghazi attack in the first place.  Ironically, it was a 9/6/12 memo issued by the OSAC, the same organization now sounding this alarm, that was one of the most explicit State Department pronouncements downplaying the threat of the type of terrorist attack that took place in Benghazi on 9/11/12.

    U.S. interventions in the past few decades have had mixed results (Greneda, Bosnia, Iraq, Libya) and have often been political footballs depending on which party occupied the White House at the time.  Recent events in Egypt have demonstrated the risks of cheering and/or assisting the removal of the-devil-we-know in favor of not-the-devil-we-know.  Now that the events in Benghazi have led to a diminished U.S. presence in Libya, it remains to be seen if Qadhafi's removal will indeed, in the long run, have left that country "better off."  Mrs. Clinton's legacy as Secretary of State may well depend to some extent on the eventual answer.

President Obama, Libya, and the Situation Room

    The release of two photos of President Obama in the Situation Room of the White House during Hurricane Sandy and the aftermath generated renewed speculation about what took place in the Situation Room during the attack on the US Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, on September 11, 2012.  Today, Bill Kristol of the Weekly Standard speculated, or at least raised questions, about what was known that night, what was communicated to the president and by whom, and what was the president's response:

[Secretary of State Leon] Panetta's statement [that "you don't deploy forces into harm's way without knowing what's going on"] only makes sense if there were those in the military or elsewhere who considered or urged deploying forces into harm's way, and that those individuals were overruled because of the lack of real-time information...
What did President Obama do that evening (apart from spending an hour on the phone with Prime Minister Netanyahu)? What did he know, and what did he decide, and what was the basis for his decisions?

    In an eerie coincidence, as the September 11, 2012, attack in Benghazi was still raging, Vanity Fair posted the following article summary promoting a profile of the president that would appear in the upcoming October issue of the magazine.  The summary focused on a parallel situation from more than a year before: President Obama in the White House Situation Room making a life and death decision about an escalating crisis in Libya.

Obama ‘Went Off Road Map’ in Libya   Michael Lewis’s new profile of Barack Obama in the October  issue of Vanity Fair provides a rare insider look at how the president makes his decisions. The main focus of the profile are the days leading up to his secure of a U.N. resolution to take “all necessary measures” to protect Libyan civilians, and then “use American airpower to destroy Qadaffi’s army.” A source who was in the Situation Room when the decision was being made tells Lewis that Obama “went off the road map,” summarily shooting the two options given to him by the Pentagon: Establish a no-fly zone, which advisers admitted would not end the massacre, or do nothing at all. On why he balked at the idea of not intervening: “That’s not who we are.”
Read it at Vanity Fair    September 11, 2012 10:45 PM

Photo: Mustafa El-Shridi/Reuters

    If Michael Lewis's telling of the March 2011 Situation Room incident is accurate, the president overrode his military advisors and went off the map to send US armed forces into Libya to rescue innocent Libyan civilians.  Once the facts come out about that fateful evening of the 11th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, how ironic it will be if it turns out the president once again overrode his advisors, but this time choosing not to send assistance to our own ambassador and those trying to protect him.  What would that say about "who we are"?

Revealed: The White House Benghazi Situation Room Photo

    Today, the White House released a couple of photos of the president and his aides monitoring Hurricane Sandy and relief efforts from the White House situation room.  Here is one of them:

     This release has resulted in a fair amount of speculation as to why no such photo exists of the president monitoring the unfolding events in Benghazi, Libya, on September 11 of this year.  The criticism has been harsh due to President Obama's trip to Nevada the following day, September 12, for a campaign fundraiser.  Now, for the first time, Speak With Authority can reveal a photo (provided by a Unnamed Senior Official) from the situation room that night that sheds light on the president's response.

    White House Press Secretary Jay Carney is quoted as saying the video just appeared "spontaneously" on the screen.


Update: Just to be perfectly clear, the photo is a parody, as is the Carney "quote".  But the president really did go ahead with his Las Vegas fund raising trip on September 12.

State Department on 9/12: Protests in Benghazi? You Mean Cairo?

    Over the past five weeks, there has been growing controversy and speculation over what Obama administration officials knew about the attacks in Benghazi, Libya, and when they knew it.  A particularly sore point of contention is the role or lack thereof that Cairo-style protests or demonstrations might have played in the attacks.  The answers have ranged from Susan Rice's assertion on Meet the Press (and other Sunday shows) that the attacks were a direct response to the anti-Muslim Youtube movie trailer...

“This is a response to a hateful and offensive video that was widely disseminated throughout the Arab and Muslim world.”

...to flat denials that there even were any protests, as Eli Lake of the Daily Beast reported on October 12:

[F]our diplomatic-security officers who were at the Benghazi compound and who initially responded to the attack... told State Department investigators in formal briefings that there was no spontaneous protest the night of the attack.

    Conflicting reports continue to filter out.  Just last Friday, the L.A Times reported:

 "There isn't any intelligence that the attackers pre-planned their assault days or weeks in advance." Most of the evidence so far suggests that "the attackers launched their assault opportunistically after they learned about the violence at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo" earlier that day, the official said.

    With a multitude of parties involved bearing varying degrees of responsibility or even possible culpability and many agendas to boot, the truth will be slow to come out and likely will be denied by some even if and when it does.  But at the risk of sounding like I have discovered something that all the professional journalists and amateur bloggers have overlooked or forgotten, I believe I have discovered something that the professional journalists and amateur bloggers have overlooked or forgotten.  On September 12, 2012, the day after the attacks, the State Department conducted a telephone conference call with reporters to try to provide information based on what was known at the time.  Josh Rogin of Foreign Policy was one of the reporters on the call, and he wrote a story that day based on the information given by the unnamed officials.  During the conference call, Rogin asked a question about possible protests, and reported the response as follows:

The briefing left several questions about the Tuesday attack unanswered. The officials wouldn't speculate about the identity of the attackers or whether the Benghazi attack was connected to an earlier protest at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo during which protesters breached the compound walls.
"It was clearly a complex attack," the official said. "It's too early to speak to who they were and if they might have been otherwise affiliated outside of Libya."

 * * * 

The officials could not say whether the attackers were part of the protests outside the embassy walls.
"We frankly don't have a full picture of what may have been going on outside of the compound walls before the firing began," the official said.

    However, the way the unnamed official responds to the question about the protests (see transcript of the conference call) is quite revealing [emphasis mine]:

QUESTION: Thank you very much. First, just one point of clarification. Can you tell us what time in the timeline that [the body of] Ambassador Stevens was delivered to you at the airport? But the larger question is, you didn’t talk at all about the protests. You started your timeline with that the firing began. Can you talk about the timeline of when the protests started, how that fit in with it, and your sense of whether or not the protestors and the assailants were the same?

 * * *

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE: ...With regard to the protests – I assume you’re not talking about protests in Cairo, are you? You’re talking about protests in Benghazi?... We frankly don’t have a full picture of what may have been going on outside of the compound walls before the firing began. So I really just don’t have any specifics on that at the moment. I apologize.

    It is clear from the official's response that the Cairo protests were the only protests of which the State Department was aware.  Even though Rogin's question was clearly in the context of Benghazi, the official felt the need to clarify that Rogin was not referring to the Cairo protests.  Indeed, the overall content and tone of the call was such that another reporter, Justin Fishel with Fox News, asked the following later in the call:

QUESTION: ...Do you believe that this attack was in any way related to the incident in Cairo? You suggested this attack in Benghazi was more complex; so is it safe to rule out that this was a reaction to the inflammatory internet video?

 * * *

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL ONE: ...With regard to whether there is any connection between this internet activity and this extremist attack in Benghazi, frankly, we just don’t know. We’re not going to know until we have a chance to investigate. And I’m sorry that it is frustrating for you that so many of our answers are “We don’t know,” but they are truthful in that.

    Keep in mind this question was asked before all the controversy erupted about the attacks being pre-planned versus a spontaneous reaction to the video, so likely it was asked sincerely based on the preceding information in the call and not with a gotcha agenda.

    As I wrote last week, it seems to stretch credulity that, given the violence of the protests in Cairo, the State Department would not have been in touch with other installations in the region to monitor possible copycat situations.  And based on this conference calls, the early information suggested that no such copycat protest had happened in Benghazi.  Only in the days and weeks that following came the increasing drumbeat from the administration about spontaneous protests in Benghazi, a drumbeat that increasingly seems to have been political in nature with little basis in reality.

Benghazi and the Phantom Demonstration

US Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, pre-9/11/12

    Ever since the attack on the US Consulate and Benghazi which resulted in the death of Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three others, questions have swirled around what the State Department and our intelligence agencies knew and when they knew it.   These questions extend back to what was known about the conditions in Libya beforehand and what was done to strengthen (or not) security in Libya.  Even more contentious have been the questions about what role, if any, the "Innocence of Muslims" movie trailer played in the Benghazi incident.

    The consensus on that latter question is settling around "none."  A background briefing given to reporters last week by two unnamed Senior State Department Officials (transcript here) revealed that no evidence of a demonstration or protest before the Benghazi attack is visible on the security camera video recently recovered from the shattered compound.  Nor have any of the surviving personnel from the attack reported any such demonstration or even unusual activity outside the consulate that evening before an explosion and gunfire split the silence.  From all appearances now, the attack seems to have been planned and unrelated to the film.

    But the question remains: why would the diplomats and staff in Benghazi have been so unprepared that night, given the anniversary date and given what was taking place at that very time right next door in Egypt?  The State Department's OSAC division put out the following warning on 9/11 before the "spontaneous" Cairo protests had even begun:

Emergency Message for U.S. Citizens: Cairo (Egypt), Demonstrations
Riots/Civil Unrest
Near East > Egypt > Cairo
9/11/2012
Several different groups are calling for demonstrations in both downtown and Garden City this afternoon to protest a range of issues. These groups may gather in front of the U.S. Embassy, or Egyptian government buildings such as the People’s Assembly and Ministry of Interior, beginning in the early afternoon and continuing into the evening.  It is unclear if large numbers will take to the streets, but clashes may occur should two opposing groups come into contact with one another. Large gatherings and non-essential travel in and around Downtown and Garden City should be avoided this afternoon.
 U.S. citizens should avoid areas where large gatherings may occur.  Even demonstrations or events intended to be peaceful can turn confrontational and possibly escalate into violence.  U.S. citizens in Egypt are urged to monitor local news reports and to plan their activities accordingly.

    The State Department in Washington was well aware of the situation in Cairo as the transcript of the Daily Press Briefing for 9/11/12 shows.  This is a rather lengthy excerpt, but I believe it helps illustrate the State Department's mindset at the time [emphasis mine.]

QUESTION: I’d like to talk about Cairo. Apparently, there’s a developing issue at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo. There are about a thousand protestors outside the walls trying to attack the Embassy, U.S. guards at the Embassy firing into the air, and there are some photos on Twitter with the al-Qaida flag being possibly waved at the U.S. Embassy. I don’t know what that’s about, but can you tell us about the situation there right now?
MS. NULAND: We did have reports just before I came down here that we had a protest outside our Embassy in Cairo. We had some people breach the wall, take the flag down, replace it – what I heard was that it was replaced with a --
QUESTION: With an al-Qaida flag, I believe.
MS. NULAND: With a black flag, a plain black flag, but I may not be correct in that. We are obviously working with Egyptian security to try to restore order at the Embassy and to work with them to try to get the situation under control.
QUESTION: I mean – but just in general, I mean, is the situation of what’s happening with the public there – obviously, you’ve been trying to work with the Muslim Brotherhood regardless of what religion or anything like that, but – and it does seem as if there is a growing anti-American sentiment in Cairo, and as evident as our – on our trip with Secretary Clinton. And I’m just wondering how concerning these continued protests are.
MS. NULAND: Well, there have been, as you say, these – there were some protests when the Secretary was there. They’ve had these protests. But I would hasten – I would urge you not to draw too many conclusions because we’ve also had some very positive developments in our relationship with Egypt.
As you know, Deputy Secretary Nides was there earlier this week, over the weekend, with some hundred businesspeople from the United States, working with Egyptian counterparts in big business, medium, small to try to support the renewal of the Egyptian economy, to cut new deals. And that was a very, very successful conference that was very much appreciated by the Egyptian business community. We’re also working with Egyptian civil society and with the government on a broader package of support going forward.
So obviously, one of the things about the new Egypt is that protest is possible. Obviously we all want to see peaceful protest, which is not what happened outside the U.S. mission, so we’re trying to restore calm now. But I think the bigger picture is one of the United States supporting Egypt’s democratic transition and the Egyptian Government very much welcoming and working with us on the support that we have to offer.
QUESTION: Well, why do you think, though, that that message isn’t getting out? I mean, do you think that you – that the Embassy and this Department need to do more efforts at public diplomacy? I mean, certainly it’s true that you have kind of outreached the Muslim Brotherhood; you are doing a lot with the business community, with the debt, helping them with other financial institutions. So why do you think that that message isn’t getting through?
MS. NULAND: Well, I think we can always do more. The Egyptians can always do more. But I think the message is getting through, as more and more partners across Egypt want to work with us. It’s rarely the case that you please all of the people all the time in any country, and we certainly respect the right of peaceful protest, as long as it’s peaceful.
Please.
QUESTION: Do you think that Egypt’s becoming increasingly hostile towards the United States?
MS. NULAND: I haven’t seen the polling data in the recent period, Said, but I don’t have any reason to think that this is a dangerous trend, if that’s what you’re asking.
QUESTION: This breaching of the wall is a serious thing.
MS. NULAND: No, of course.
QUESTION: I mean, remember when, let’s say, they did that to the Israeli Embassy. It was an initiative from this building, I believe, that called the Egyptians and urged them to defuse the situation, and they did. So what do you do in this case?
MS. NULAND: Well, obviously, in this case, we’re working with the Egyptian security forces to restore order. It sounds like – and I don’t have full details – that this came up pretty quickly, relatively modest group of people, but caught probably us and the Egyptian security outside the Embassy by some surprise.
QUESTION: This was a thousand people. I don’t really think that’s necessarily modest, do you?
MS. NULAND: Well, as compared to some of the things that we’ve seen.
QUESTION: Were there any injuries, do you know?
MS. NULAND: Not that I know of, but we’ll have to see how it develops.

    Obvious Ms. Nuland, while sharing known details of the Cairo situation, was at pains to look at the bright side and downplay the seriousness: "some people"/"modest group of people" was apparently a mob of 1,000 or so; "I don’t have any reason to think that this is a dangerous trend", when what began as a protest led to the breach of a wall at the embassy, the US flag being burned and replaced with a black (al-Qaeda?) flag, and warning gunshots fired into the air; and reporters were urged not to "draw too many conclusions" and look at the "bigger picture" of the Egyptian government "welcoming and working" with the United States.

    Does this explain why the State Department (apparently) did not contact the Embassy in Tripoli, Libya, and the Consulate in Benghazi to find out if any protests were developing there?  If 1,000 people rioting in Cairo modest "as compared to some of the things that we’ve seen," shouldn't State have been in touch with every diplomatic post in the Middle East to find out if the unrest was spreading, especially in Egypt's immediate neighbors?  And if such a copycat protest was beginning to bubble up in Benghazi, wouldn't the security staff there have been emailing/calling Tripoli and Washington to alert someone?  I have not seen any reports suggesting any of these things happened.

    Despite UN Ambassador Susan Rice's assertion on Meet the Press on September 16th that...

What happened in Benghazi was in fact initially a spontaneous reaction to what had just transpired hours before in Cairo, almost a copycat of the demonstrations against our facility in Cairo, prompted by the video[.]

...in fact the two incidents at the time as well as in retrospect appear quite dissimilar.  A recent story by Reuters may shed some light on why the administration was at pains to conflate the two events:

 In the months before the deadly attack in Benghazi, Libya, U.S. and allied intelligence agencies warned the White House and State Department repeatedly that the region was becoming an increasingly dangerous vortex for jihadist groups loosely linked or sympathetic to al Qaeda, according to U.S. officials.
Despite those warnings, and bold public displays by Islamist militants around Benghazi, embassies in the region were advised to project a sense of calm and normalcy in the run-up to the anniversary of the September 11 attacks in the United States.

    Tragically, four U.S. citizens paid the ultimate price for what may have been political considerations. Congress must now cut through the fog and get to the truth.

State Department: Two Days After Benghazi, "Leaning Forward" on "Gender Mainstreaming"

    Egypt and Libya are the two most significant countries in Africa where U.S. foreign policy is currently focused.  In the aftermath of the riots at US Embassy in Cairo, Egypt, and the attacks on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, the State Department was scrambling to put together a sequence of events for the two incidents, deal with the fallout from the "apology" tweets and press release from the Embassy in Cairo, cope with the death of an ambassador and three other consulate personnel, determine the cause of the demonstrations and attacks, and handle the protests against the US that were spreading across the region.

    However, in the midst of the storm, the regularly scheduled business of the State Department continued, including participation in the Africa Center for Strategic Studies/AFRICOM Conference in Washington, D.C.  Patricia Haslach, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations at the State Department spoke at a luncheon at the conference on September 13, 2012, two days after the Benghazi attacks.  Here's how the State Department reported her remarks:

    The transcript of Ms. Haslach's remarks detail some laudable goals and worthy causes.  I will leave a full discussion of the merits of these efforts to others.  But "Gender Mainstreaming in the African Armed Forces" in a part of the world where women are often treated as less than second class, increasingly less than human as strict Islamists gain more power (e.g., Egypt and the Muslim Brotherhood,) is more suggestive of Western-style political correctness than addressing the primary needs and rights of women and girls in those societies as they exist today.  In any case, the timing was hardly appropriate.  The following is an excerpt from Ms. Haslach's remarks:

Reflecting this nation’s commitment to [UN Security Council Resolution] 1325, in December 2011 President Obama signed an executive order launching the first-ever U.S. National Action Plan on Women, Peace, and Security. This plan provides a comprehensive roadmap for accelerating and institutionalizing efforts across the federal government to advance women’s participation in making and keeping peace. The goal is as simple as it is profound: to empower half the world’s population as equal partners in preventing conflict and building peace in countries threatened and affected by war, violence, and insecurity. 

Achieving this goal is critical to our national and global security. The prospects for preventing deadly conflicts and forging sustainable peace will be much brighter when women become equal partners in all aspects of peace-building and conflict prevention—when their lives are protected, their experiences considered, and their voices heard. 

After the President issued the executive order, Ambassador Susan E. Rice, U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations, said, “The fact that women have represented fewer than three percent of mediators and eight percent of negotiators to major peace processes since 1992 demonstrates that world leaders wage peace far too often with hands tied behind their backs.”

     As far as goals that are "critical to our national and global security," "gender mainstreaming" should be considerably down the list when the security of our diplomatic facilities worldwide has been called into question.  In view of the events of September 11th, perhaps the State Department would have been wise to take a rain check on this conference luncheon, or at least picked a more germane topic to address.  In any event, countries such as the United States may have the luxury of debating "women in combat" and Don't Ask, Don't Tell in the military.  But "gender mainstreaming"?  Too often in Africa, women (and men) are just trying to survive.

"I Take Responsibility"

    Hillary Clinton may have (inadvertently?) undercut her boss as President Obama heads into the foreign policy themed debate tonight with Mitt Romney.  The Chicago Tribune reports that the Secretary of State declared in a CNN interview while in Peru, "I take responsibility" for what happened in Benghazi, Libya, on September 11, 2012:

"I'm in charge of the State Department's 60,000-plus people all over the world," Clinton said.
"The president and the vice president wouldn't be knowledgeable about specific decisions that are made by security professionals. They're the ones who weigh all of the threats and the risks and the needs and make a considered decision."

    Mrs. Clinton's words stand in sharp contrast to the words of Vice President Biden in last week's debate with Paul Ryan:

In Thursday night's vice presidential debate, Vice President Joe Biden insisted that "we weren't told they wanted more security" at the ill-fated U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, where U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens died.

    The president already suffers from a reputation for blame-shifting that from an analysis of his words as recorded on the White House website seems well earned.  The last time the words "I take responsibility" appear on the website is July 6, 2011, in the transcript of the president's Twitter Town Hall.  By contrast, during that same time period, the phrase "got us into this mess in the first place" appears 86 times, referring almost exclusively to the previous administration.  Even when the president speaks of "fault," it is often in the context of placing the word in the mouths of his critics, as in "They say the economy is bad and it's Obama's fault."

    At a time when the country is taking foreign policy hits and continuing suffer economically, voters will be looking for strong leadership to guide the United States through these next four years.  Barack Obama has not done himself or his campaign any favors by allowing his Secretary of State to look more presidential by comparison.

Note:  As I went to post this, I noticed that Ed Morrissey at HotAir hit on the same topic this morning.

New Benghazi Photos of US Consulate

    The House Oversight Committee has released some new photos of the US Consulate in Benghazi.  I have reproduced the first five here.  The remaining three are at the link but are more graphic and disturbing in nature, so I chose not to include them.  The first appears to be pre-attack, showing the pristine grounds of the compound looking towards the front gate.  The others are obviously post-attack.

The Politicization of Benghazi

    Congressional hearings were held this week to attempt to get to the bottom of the terror attacks in Benghazi, Libya, on September 11, 2012.  One of the challenges was determining the level of alertness and preparedness at the State Department and other agencies charged with the security of our national interests and citizens at home and abroad.  The answer to that question might provide clues also about the curious response of many in the Obama administration who after the attack clung to the spontaneous protest of a terrible anti-Muslim movie that turned violent explanation in the face of clear and mounting evidence to the contrary.

    I have already written extensively about one report that the State Department issued on 9/6/12 via the Overseas Security Advisory Council.  While the OSAC's function is limited within the State Department, the reports they issue, to be credible and reliable, must be based on the best intelligence available to the State Department as a whole, and consequently must reflect the attitudes and priorities of the Department and its leadership.  The summary of the report which initially appeared in a publicly available menu of reports but subsequently on 9/14/12 was placed behind the subscriber wall reads as follows [emphasis mine]:

Terrorism and Important Dates
Global
9/6/2012
OSAC currently has no credible information to suggest that al-Qa'ida or any other terrorist group is plotting any kind of attack overseas to coincide with the upcoming anniversary of September 11. However, constituents often have concerns around important dates, holidays, and major events, Often times, these concerns are the result of increased media attention to the issue, rather than credible evidence of a terrorist plot.

    This position of the State Department, that often concerns are the result of media attention to anniversary dates, stands in stark contrast to their position in 2011 as the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks approached.  This warning was issued last year on 9/2/11 [emphasis mine]:

Travel Alert
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Bureau of Consular Affairs
9-11 Anniversary
September 02, 2011
As we mark the 10th Anniversary of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the Department of State informs U.S. citizens traveling and residing abroad of the continued threat posed by al-Qa’ida and its affiliates.  While we have not identified any specific threats from al-Qa’ida affiliates and allies to attack the United States or our interests on the 9/11 anniversary, U.S. citizens should be aware that al-Qa’ida affiliates and allies have demonstrated the intent and capability to carry out attacks against the United States and our interests around the world.  In the past, terrorist organizations have on occasion planned their attacks to coincide with significant dates on the calendar.  This Worldwide Travel Alert supplements the July 26, 2011, Worldwide Caution, and expires on January 2, 2012.

    In contrast, no travel warnings were issued by the State Department in advance of the 9/11 anniversary that related the warning to the anniversary.  In fact, at a press conference on August 29, 2012, a State Department spokesperson went to some lengths to dispel the notion that a recently issued Pakistan travel warning was in any way related to the upcoming anniversary of 9/11:

MS. NULAND: Well, first of all, Goyal, you are correct that we recently updated our Travel Warning for Pakistan. We do this on a routine basis as events happen on the ground. The latest update, which I think was yesterday or the day before, includes information about some of the attacks that we’ve seen, including the April explosion in Lahore and the suicide attack in Karachi. So it’s just appropriate that we would keep that up-to-date based on events...
QUESTION: And as far as this Travel Warning is concerned, Madam, is this in connection with the, one, 9/11 coming up? ...
MS. NULAND: It doesn’t have anything to do with September 11th. It just has to do with regular updating based on information on the ground, as I stated.

    The bottom line is that the State Department had little to no concern about the 9/11 anniversary.  A search  for "9/11 threat" and "9/11 warning" on the State Department website in the month run-up to September 11th this year yields very few results, and most of those have nothing to do with the anniversary.  The sole exception was the transcript of the press conference I excerpted above, and that was actually to disavow a 9/11 anniversary warning.  Coincidentally, one of the other documents these searches found was not a warning, but rather an IRC Alert Newsletter from the U.S. Embassy in Pakistan that highlighted an article in the Mediterranean Quarterly, Spring 2012 issue entitled "AL QAEDA’S POST–9/11 ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE AND STRATEGY: The Role of Islamist Regional Affiliates".  The article is summarized in part as follows:

"The political transformations under way in the Arab world and the killing of Osama bin Laden raise serious questions about al Qaeda‘s long-term viability. The secular-liberal Arab Spring protest movement appears to be winning the war of ideas over al Qaeda‘s violent religious fundamentalism. Civil disobedience campaigns in Tunisia and Egypt succeeded in forcing regime change in ways that a decade of al Qaeda terror attacks failed to accomplish. While it is too soon to write al Qaeda‘s obituary, its erosion came well before the death of its historic leader...”

    Given the pre-9/11/12 optimism at the State Department and the ambivalence towards the upcoming 9/11 anniversary, the administration's response to the events of that day had to be prepared quickly.  Eli Lake at the Daily Beast and Jake Tapper of ABC News among others have reported on various internal documents, assessments, and talking points that were prepared and used by various government agencies in the days and weeks following the attacks.  Whatever those documents actually said, much of the talk during that time from government officials, up to and including the president, was about the movie, the anti-Muslim trailer on YouTube that apparently provoked the protest at the US Embassy in Cairo, Egypt, on the same day as the Benghazi attack.  But what information did the State Department have in the hours following the attacks that would have led to this initial conclusion?  One of the first responses came from the OSAC who had issued the report on 9/6 that I referenced at the beginning of this post.  It is dated 9/11/12, the same day as the incident and begins as follows:

Emergency Message for U.S. Citizens: Tripoli (Libya) Attack on Consulate in Benghazi
Riots/Civil Unrest
Near East > Libya > Tripoli
9/11/2012
Please be advised that the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi was attacked this evening.  We strongly encourage all American citizens to take appropriate precautions as the security situation in Libya is volatile.  Review your personal safety plans, remain aware of your surroundings, including local events, and monitor local news stations for updates.  Maintain a high level of vigilance and take appropriate steps to enhance your personal security.
The U.S. Embassy in Tripoli will be closed Wednesday, September 12, 2012.

    Almost the entire report (a repeat of the warning on the website of the Libyan embassy in Tripoli) sounds like a standard report that would be issued in many emergency situations including phone numbers and websites to get additional information, as well as warnings to be extremely careful.  But the first line says that "the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi was attacked this evening."  There is no mention of a protest, a demonstration, and certainly nothing about a movie.

    The second report was issued the next day by the OSAC.  The entire report is available here.  There is analysis and further information following the paragraphs I have reproduced below, but what follows are the facts as they were being reported at the time.  Note that the official symbol of the State Department/OSAC heads the page (pictured here on left.)  Also note the disclaimer at the bottom of the page says: "The contents of this (U) presentation in no way represent the policies, views, or attitudes of the United States Department of State, or the United States Government, except as otherwise noted (e.g., travel advisories, public statements). The presentation was compiled from various open sources and (U) embassy reporting."  While it may be true that the following "in no way represent the policies, views, or attitudes of the United States Department of State," it nonetheless does represent what the State Department knew, or at least what it was willing to make public, about the events in Benghazi on 9/11/12.

September 12, 2012

On September 11, the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi was attacked by armed militants, some wielding rocket propelled grenades (RPGs) and assault rifles, at approximately 3:50 p.m. The assault breached the consulate and resulted in the death of U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three U.S. officials. Several more personnel were reportedly wounded in the attack that left the consulate burned and ransacked.

 Background According to preliminary open source reporting, approximately 20 armed militants gathered outside the U.S. Consulate on September 11, possibly in protest to the anti-Islam film “Innocence of Muslims.”. Following a series of warning shots from security guards attempting to disperse the crowds, American and Libyan security forces were overpowered. The armed mob was able to penetrate the consulate, resulting in the death of Ambassador Stevens, Information Management Officer Sean Smith, and two security personnel. Libyan doctors who treated Ambassador Stevens reported the cause of death was severe asphyxiation from smoke inhalation. Witness reports describe the use of RPGs, homemade bombs and grenades being thrown inside the consulate, sparking several fires.
Hours before the attack on the Benghazi consulate, demonstrators gathered outside the U.S. Embassy in Cairo to protest the controversial anti-Islam film the “Innocence of Muslims.” Demonstrators scaled the walls of the Embassy, tore down and burnt an American flag, and attempted to raise an Islamic banner with the words, “There is no God but God, and Mohammad is his messenger."

    Note that there is no actual evidence of a protest or demonstration in Benghazi as there was in Cairo.  While the movie is mentioned, it is pure speculation.  There were no banners in the Benghazi report, and as far as I have read, no widespread reports of "armed militants" in Cairo at the Embassy.  Also, unlike the huge gathering in Cairo, the "crowd" at Benghazi consisted of "approximately 20 armed militants" who were apparently greeted fairly quickly with warning shots from inside the compound, indicating that those inside immediately sensed extreme danger.  During the Cairo protests, the staff sent out the now infamous tweet and press release condemning those who would "hurt the religious feelings of Muslims," a reference to the anti-Muslim movie.  But in Benghazi, the staff was quickly preparing for a fight for their lives, which for four of them turned into a fight to the death.

     So why did the administration react as it did?  In September 2011, Osama bin Laden's death was only months old and tensions were still high.  But as the year passed and the election drew closer, the White House built its foreign policy credentials on the end the war in Iraq and "winding down the war in Afghanistan", Osama bin Laden's death, al-Qaida's decline, and the successful ouster of Gaddafi in Libya.  Both the situation in Iraq and Afghanistan were already showing signs of deterioration, and now in a single day, 9/11/12, the remaining three legs of the foreign policy stool were shaken.  Around the Arab world, protesters were reportedly shouting “Obama! Obama! We are all Osama!” and the US Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, was brutally attacked with overwhelming force, presumably with al-Qaida's involvement.  The foreign policy of the Obama administration was crashing down around it in a single day.

    Then, three days after the attacks, on 9/14/12, the OSAC withdrew the 9/6/12 report behind its subscriber wall and Jay Carney mentioned the "video" twelve times at a press conference, saying at least three times,"unrest around the region has been in response to this video."  Carney went on to say, "We do not, at this moment, have information to suggest or to tell you that would indicate that any of this unrest was preplanned."  UN Ambassador Susan Rice repeatedly cited in the video in later interviews and the president and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton brought it up more than once when discussing the Benghazi attacks.  Recently revelations have proved that there was no demonstration or protest at the US Consulate in Benghazi, only an outright and determined attack.  A more realistic look at the evidence would have made this the natural conclusion to draw in the aftermath rather than defaulting to "the video."

    The US Weather Service may have to visit the scene of a weather disaster to officially designate a "tornado," but those who have lived through them can look at flattened buildings and cars in trees and be quite certain what happened.  The Obama administration refused to acknowledge the evidence before its eyes in a political attempt to salvage a foreign policy, and possibly and election, that was quickly slipping away.

Source: State Dept. OSAC Report is Behind Subscriber Wall

    Since September 12, 2012, the day after the attack on the US Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, I have been following the story of a report issued by the Overseas Security Advisory Council (OSAC), part of the Bureau of Diplomatic Security under the U.S. Department of State.  The report was originally issued on 9/6/12, five days before the attack, and a summary of the report appeared on the OSAC website in a menu of available reports as follows (entitled "Terrorism and Important Dates"):

    However, on September 14, three days after the attack and two days after my original post, that item disappeared from the menu of available reports and remains missing through the present.  From the beginning, I have allowed the possibility that the report was simply placed behind the subscriber wall on the site.  Certain reports are only available to "constituents". (The OSAC site says "OSAC constituency is available to any American-owned, not-for-profit organization, or any enterprise incorporated in the U.S. (parent company, not subsidiaries or divisions) doing business overseas.")  I did, however, think this was unlikely as summaries of other reports available only to subscribers remained in the site menus (for instance, one entitled "Narco-roadblocks in Colima and Jalisco" from 8/31/12; go back to 8/31 in the menu, and the summary is still listed; but to view the full report requires logging in.)  In my comparison of present menus with Google-cached versions of the same menus from earlier dates, I could not find a single report that was once listed that was subsequently removed as the report in question.

    Despite all this, I received confirmation today from an OSAC website subscriber that the Terrorism and Important Dates report is still available behind the subscriber wall via the original link address.  Although I admit my inner-conspiracy-theorist was somewhat disappointed at the news, it helps bring the remaining issues into focus:

• Why was the State Department downplaying the possibility of a 9/11 anniversary attack overseas and implying fears of such attacks were media creations?  (From original summary [emphasis mine]: "Often times, these concerns are the result of increased media attention to the issue, rather than credible evidence of a terrorist plot.")
• Why was the summary and link removed from the list of available reports on Friday, September 14th, three days after the attack, and placed behind the subscriber wall?  And who at the State Dept. removed the report or instructed that it be done?
• Is the tone of the memo indicative of a wide-spread attitude in the Obama administration that would explain the reluctance of administration officials to label the Benghazi incident a "terrorist attack" until days after many independent observers had already reached that conclusion?

    As of today, my inquires to the State Department/OSAC remain unanswered.

It's Come to This: "Benghazi-gate"

    Fox Nation has picked up (via Gateway Pundit) on my reporting of the disappearance of the pre-9/11 anniversary State Department report from the website of its OSAC division.  This morning, Gateway Pundit noted that Rush Limbaugh mentioned the story on his show yesterday.  From the transcript at Rush's website:

 And, by the way, this was a truth that revealed reckless incompetence in planning for the security and safety the people that work for him. The State Department -- you know this -- five days before put a notice up on one of their websites that there was no credible information of any threat. Yeah, 9/11's coming up, but they don't have any credible information.
That has now been scrubbed. The Gateway Pundit is reporting that that warning... Well, it was not a warning. That little memo from the State Department to employees that work there has been scrubbed from their site. You can't go find the posting on the State Department website that told everybody over there that there was no problem. They've taken it down. The most transparent regime in history, they promised? So this campaign of deceit was deployed, was put out there because Obama has a reelection campaign.

    As I have noted (in an attempt to be cautious and give the benefit of the doubt, if any remains) the exact fate of the report is still in question, but at the very least it has been removed from the publicly accessible portion of the website where it was visible from its posing on 9/6 through 9/14 when it disappeared.

    The only quibble I have with Rush's characterization is when he refers to the "memo from the State Department to employees that work there."  The report was actually issued by the Overseas Security Advisory Council (OSAC), part of the Bureau of Diplomatic Security under the U.S. Department of State.  Technically it was not a report to "employees that work" at the State Department, but rather to "American private sector interests worldwide".  But given that Christopher Stevens, according to President Obama's speech to the United Nations this week, had "travelled to Benghazi to review plans to establish a new cultural center and modernize a hospital," this OSAC report seems particularly relevant.

Missing State Department Report: "Terrorist groups are predisposed to conduct the attack first and justify the reasoning subsequently."

    More information is surfacing that contradicts the Obama administration's claims that the attack on the US consulate in Benghazi, Libya on 9/11 was a spontaneous reaction to the trailer for an anti-Muhammad movie that was posted to YouTube in July.  US Ambassador Susan Rice, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, White House spokesman Jay Carney, and the president himself have all suggested the movie was the catalyst and that there is no evidence the Libya attack was pre-planned.  However, CBS is now reporting (via the Weekly Standard) that unlike Cairo, there was no movie protest in Liyba at the consulate the night of the attack:

CBS reports this morning that witnesses are saying "that there was never an anti-American protest outside of the consulate [in Benghazi, Libya]. Instead, they say, it came under planned attack. That is in direct contradiction to the administration's account of the incident."

    During the past week, I have posted several stories about a State Department memo issued on 9/6/12 by the OSAC division downplaying the possibility of a 9/11 anniversary attack.  The memo subsequently disappeared from the OSAC website after the attacks.  I found and posted a cached version of the website showing the report listed prior to its removal on 9/14.

    However, it turns out I was only re-printing the opening paragraph of the report.  I subsequently realized the full report was much longer and was reproduced on the day it was issued (in full, as far as I can tell) on this website for Crisis Counseling International, an organization that apparently subscribes to the OSAC full-access website. (I had linked to this site in an earlier post, but did not fully recognize the entire post was part of the OSAC report.)  I have since discovered that much of the report was reproduced from a July 2011 OSAC newsletter (available here in PDF format.)  Here is the relevant portion of the extended report:

Terrorism and Holidays/Anniversary DatesHistorically, al-Qa’ida and other transnational terrorist groups have not conducted successful attacks on major U.S. holidays and anniversary dates. One possible explanation for this lack of activity is due to the increase in security on major dates because of a perceived vulnerability. A terrorist group that has spent a significant amount of time monitoring a potential target, training operatives, and acquiring the weapons necessary for a major attack would be less likely to attack when security is at a heightened level. 

Terrorist groups are predisposed to conduct the attack first and justify the reasoning subsequently. 

     That last line stands in sharp contrast to the week-long insistence by the Obama administration that what was clearly a well-coordinated attack by a large group or groups with serious firepower was just a spontaneous response to a movie.  As the report above says, "Terrorist groups are predisposed to conduct the attack first and justify the reasoning subsequently." The question now becomes, if, again as the report above states, a "terrorist group that has spent a significant amount of time monitoring a potential target, training operatives, and acquiring the weapons necessary for a major attack would be less likely to attack when security is at a heightened level," then why was this group able to conclude that security at the US consulate on a 9/11 anniversary in a very volatile country was not "heightened"?  Had the state department indeed grown complacent as I suggested here?

    Reports today indicate the administration has realized its movie-based explanation was crumbling.  The president made this explicit in an interview today:

President Barack Obama said that protests over a video that ridicules the Prophet Muhammad were used as a pretext for a planned strike against Americans.
“What we do know is that the natural protests that arose because of the outrage over the video were used as an excuse by extremists to see if they can also directly harm U.S. interests.  Well, we do not know yet.  And so we are going to continue to investigate this,” Obama said.

 Now the administration will have to fully explain its apparent lack of readiness for the 9/11 events in Libya.

A Possible Motive for Scrubbing the State Department Memo

    A recent CNN report could shed some light on the motive for the removal of the State Department's Overseas Security Advisory Council report issued on 9/6/12, before the 9/11 anniversary attacks in Egypt and Libya.  As I reported on Wednesday, September 12, the memo read as follows:

Terrorism and Important Dates
Global
9/6/2012
OSAC currently has no credible information to suggest that al-Qa'ida or any other terrorist group is plotting any kind of attack overseas to coincide with the upcoming anniversary of September 11. However, constituents often have concerns around important dates, holidays, and major events, Often times, these concerns are the result of increased media attention to the issue, rather than credible evidence of a terrorist plot.

 In my previous post, I wrote:

The phrasing of the last sentence of the memo ("these concerns are the result of increased media attention to the issue, rather than credible evidence" [emphasis mine]) could have even inspired complacency with its rather glib assessment of the potential threat.

Besides the obvious reasons, why would someone at the OSAC think it was worthwhile to make the memo disappear?  A clue is in the stated mission and objectives of the U.S. State Department’s Overseas Security Advisory Council on its website [emphasis added]:

Mission
The U.S. State Department’s Overseas Security Advisory Council (Council) is established to promote security cooperation between American private sector interests worldwide (Private Sector) and the U.S. Department of State.
The objectives of the Council as outlined in its Charter are:
A. To establish continuing liaison and to provide for operational security cooperation between State Department security functions and the Private Sector.
B. To provide for regular and timely interchange of information between the Private Sector and the State Department concerning developments in the overseas security environment.
C. To recommend methods and provide material for coordinating security, innovation, planning and implementation of security programs.
D. To identify methods to mitigate risks to American private sector interests worldwide.

In other words, this division of the State Department, the OSAC, is specifically focused on the Private Sector and overseas security.  Now, back to that CNN report I referenced above [emphasis added]:

Benghazi, Libya (CNN) -- Three days before the deadly assault on the United States consulate in Libya, a local security official says he met with American diplomats in the city and warned them about deteriorating security.
Jamal Mabrouk, a member of the February 17th Brigade, told CNN that he and a battalion commander had a meeting about the economy and security.
He said they told the diplomats that the security situation wasn't good for international business.
"The situation is frightening, it scares us," Mabrouk said they told the U.S. officials. He did not say how they responded.
Mabrouk said it was not the first time he has warned foreigners about the worsening security situation in the face of the growing presence of armed jihadist groups in the Benghazi area.

    As I've said before, there is as of yet no credible evidence that there was "credible evidence" of a terrorist plot planned for 9/11/12.  But for an agency charged with providing "regular and timely interchange of information between the Private Sector and the State Department concerning developments in the overseas security environment," this memo is embarrassing at best.  Could an image-conscious staffer at OSAC acting on impulse have deleted it?  Or at least have placed it behind the subscriber wall?  Or have been instructed to do so by a higher up?

    Certainly if someone at the OSAC deliberately erased the memo from the website, it was a ham-handed effort to paper over it.  At least one organization had already posted the report on its website on 9/6/12, the day it was issued.  The "memory hole" in the age of the internet just isn't that deep.  Until the State Department responds with an explanation about the fate of the report, the operational assumption will be that someone at OSAC thought that the memory hole just might be deep enough.

Update:  As long as I'm speculating, an even more conspiratorial thought would be that if the State Department is attempting to purge embarrassing memos from the notoriously permanent internet, perhaps the FBI should be stocking up on rubber gloves (for digging through State Department dumpsters for paper-shredder-trash-bags) and Scotch tape for reassembling documents.  Never hurts to be prepared.