Obama Made No Phone Calls On Night of Benghazi

[bonnie]

Ahh,as "Hilary" asked,What difference does it make/

BREAKING: Obama Made No Phone Calls On Night of Benghazi Attack, White House says

By Stephen Dinan

-

The Washington Times

Updated: 4:05 p.m. on Thursday, February 14, 2013

**FILE** A Libyan civilian watches one of Ansar al-Shariah Brigades' cars burn, after hundreds of civilians, military and police raided the Brigades base in Benghazi, Libya. The recent attack that killed the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans has sparked a backlash among frustrated Libyans against the heavily armed gunmen, including Islamic extremists, who run rampant in their cities. (Associated Press)

Obama punted to Panetta for U.S. response to Benghazi attack

President Obama didn’t make any phone calls the night of the Sept. 11 attacks on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, the White House said in a letter to Congress released Thursday.

“During the entire attack, the president of the United States never picked up the phone to put the weight of his office in the mix,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham, South Carolina Republican, who had held up Mr. Obama’s defense secretary nominee to force the information to be released.

SEE RELATED: Obama punted to Panetta for U.S. response to Benghazi attack

Mr. Graham said that if Mr. Obama had picked up the phone, at least two of the Americans killed in the attacks on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi might still be alive because he might have been able to push U.S. aid to get to the scene faster.

The White House has said Mr. Obama was kept up to date on the attack by his staff, though after being alerted to the attack in a pre-scheduled afternoon meeting he never spoke again with the defense secretary or the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Current Defense Secretary Leon Panetta told Congress last week that he knew immediately the attacks were a terrorist assault, though the White House downplayed that notion in the first five days after the attack.

Republican senators said they will still push for more information on who changed the talking points given to U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice, who went on the Sunday talk shows after the attacks and blamed protests against an anti-Islam video.

Mr. Graham said he will block the president’s nominee to head the CIA until he hears more details about what Mr. Obama was doing.

Sen. John McCain said the White House’s reticence in releasing information contrasts poorly with the flood of details the White House put out about the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, which has spawned two movies.

“We still don’t know what the president of the United States was doing the night of the attack and who he was talking to. We know who he wasn’t talking to,” Mr. McCain said.

Read more: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/feb/14/white-house-no-phone-calls-benghazi/#ixzz2KuYG5VmO

Follow us: @washtimes on Twitter

[Narcah]

Obama lied, people died.

[lazarus]

Obama lied, people died.

That doesn't even make sense.

[OzarkWoman]

Originally Posted By: Narcah

Obama lied, people died.

That doesn't even make sense.

Sure it does but it would only make sense to you if the name was Bush, as opposed to Obama. You have drunk far too much kool-aid friend.

[Ted Oplinger]

Originally Posted By: Narcah

Obama lied, people died.

That doesn't even make sense.

It didn't make sense when the Left was saying, "Bush lied, people died!", either. That didn't stop people from throwing that phrase around, did it?

Did you use it yourself? If you did - did you think it was "different" because Bush wasn't "the Left's president"?

Does it make you angry that it is being used against your president - who has declared by word and action he is the president of only those who support him?

About Benghazi - it is clear our government is covering up something huge. No one allows an ambassador and 2 former SEAL CIA agents strung out like that. In times past, it was a declaration of war to slay someone's ambassador - or even his consular attache personnel. It is also clear it was not about an obscure video that no one was viewing the day prior.

Our government - from Obama down - has lied about this event, and the media is complicit in the cover-up.

Blessings,

[phkrause]

It didn't make sense when the Left was saying, "Bush lied, people died!", either. That didn't stop people from throwing that phrase around, did it?

Did you use it yourself? If you did - did you think it was "different" because Bush wasn't "the Left's president"?

Does it make you angry that it is being used against your president - who has declared by word and action he is the president of only those who support him?

About Benghazi - it is clear our government is covering up something huge. No one allows an ambassador and 2 former SEAL CIA agents strung out like that. In times past, it was a declaration of war to slay someone's ambassador - or even his consular attache personnel. It is also clear it was not about an obscure video that no one was viewing the day prior.

Our government - from Obama down - has lied about this event, and the media is complicit in the cover-up.

Blessings,

Ted I agree 100% with your post. The problem I have with it though is the fact that lying by the government has been going on for all the years I've been old enough to remember, so its been a long time now.

[bonnie]

Ted I agree 100% with your post. The problem I have with it though is the fact that lying by the government has been going on for all the years I've been old enough to remember, so its been a long time now.

[lazarus]

Concerning Bush; there is now clear evidence that there were no weapons of mass destruction. Evidence was manipulated to get the US to got to war. Hundreds of thousands died.

So what did in the whole Bheghazi non-affair did Obama lie about? Please supply quotes and factual information the contradicts those words.

BTW: I don't have a president.

[bonnie]

Concerning Bush; there is now clear evidence that there were no weapons of mass destruction. Evidence was manipulated to get the US to got to war. Hundreds of thousands died.

[bonnie]

Just a little......Much more is available if you are really interested.

A Libyan man stands next to a wall apparently stained with blood at the main entrance of the US consulate in Benghazi on September 13, 2012, following an attack on the building late on September 11 in which the US ambassador to Libya and three other US nationals were killed.

The carefully coordinated and heavily armed September 11th strike upon the American Consulate in Libya contradicted President Obama’s repeated narrative that, thanks to his tough policies and actions, al-Qaeda has been defeated. And although misrepresented by U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice as a “spontaneous outbreak” of violence provoked by a “hateful” movie denigrating Muslim prophet Muhammad, he and other high members of his administration knew full well and early on that this was patently untrue. Congressional testimony reveals that the White House had been informed on day one that al-Qaeda terrorists were responsible for the murders of U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans in Benghazi.

For more than a week after the Benghazi attack, the Obama administration which pledged to be the “most transparent administration in history”, continued to maintain a ruse that the outbreak of violence was nothing more than a spur-of-the-moment protest in response to the offensive video. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton repeated the fiction, and White House press spokesman Jay Carney told us all that there was “no evidence” that this was a “preplanned or premeditated attack.”

An October 2nd CNN report disagreed. It revealed that the administration repeatedly sent out talking points that contradicted top intelligence officials and sources for the network on the details of what caused the attack. It also said that: “CNN has learned tonight that the White House chose to leave out key intelligence from the attacks on Americans in Libya. There are three things U.S. intelligence has now confirmed to be true: the attacks were preplanned, terrorist attacks, and the work of Al-Qaeda- linked groups. None of these three points were in talking points distributed to congress and other government officials. U.S. intelligence knew of the al-Qaeda link within 24 hours of the attacks. And the now infamous comments by U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice that the attacks were not preplanned and not the work of terror came four days after that. This doesn’t add up.”

In addition to absolutely no evidence that the attack was connected to any objectionable video, information released in a letter from Representative Darrell Issa to Secretary of State Clinton shows that the situation in Libya had been deteriorating for months. It reads: “Based on information provided to the committee by individuals with direct knowledge of events in Libya, the attack that claimed the ambassador’s life was the latest in a long line of attacks on Western diplomats and officials in Libya in the months leading up to September 11, 2012.”

Those attacks began in April when two Libyans threw an improvised explosive device into the consulate compound. In June, postings on a pro-Gaddafi Facebook page encouraged Libyans to attack Ambassador Stevens during one of his early morning runs around Tripoli. And in the weeks leading up to September 11th, Libyan guards were being warned by their family members to quit their consulate jobs because of rumors about an impending attack. These are but a few of the escalating series of incidents. There were also carjackings, shoot-outs, and even a rocket-propelled grenade being shot at a convoy carrying the British ambassador.

It is now evident that al-Qaeda hit four, not just one, embassies last month, with none of the other three ever attributable to a video either. The Weekly Standard reports that in addition to the American Consulate in Libya, terrorists tied to the same group that attacked our homeland on 9/11 were also behind U.S. Embassy sieges in Egypt, Tunisia, and Yemen. All were timed around the 9/11 anniversary.

One of the most ironic and inexcusable aspects of the fatal Benghazi tragedy is that Ambassador Stevens, who after recognizing and communicating the special 9/11 security threat, was denied protection he requested. Yet remarkably, Vice President Joe Biden claimed during last Thursday’s debate that the administration was unaware of security requests. This seemingly contradicted evidence presented to the Congressional Oversight and Government Reform Committee just a day earlier. Biden said “We weren’t told they wanted more security, we did not know they wanted more security.” But if so, why wouldn’t the president, vice president and secretary of state have been be briefed?

During the debate, Representative Paul Ryan accused the Obama administration of having an “unraveling” foreign policy, pointing particularly to “the larger failures of the administration to be completely transparent about the terrorist attacks in Benghazi and the security situations leading up to the attacks.” He rhetorically asked Biden, “This was Libya…a country we knew had al-Qaeda cells. And we did not give our ambassador in Benghazi a marine detachment?”

The congressional committee was presented with a diplomatic cable sent by Stevens to the state department in Washington on August 2nd asking for an additional 11 security personnel to be added to the rotation of 24. Though the 11 were to replace temporary security staff, Stevens had made it clear that violence and terrorism were a threat amid a volatile political landscape. He wrote: “Due to the level of threat in regards to crime, political violence and terrorism, post feels this is an appropriate number of LES [locally employed staff] security personnel needed to further embassy diplomatic outreach missions. Violent security incidents continue to take place due to the lack of a coherent national Libyan security force and the strength of local militias and large numbers of armed groups.” He further emphasized that “Host national security support is lacking and cannot be depended on to provide a safe and secure environment.”

Two former U.S. security chiefs in Libya who testified before the committee also reported that they had found it impossible to get the message across back home that security was a critical problem. Andrew Wood, former head of a U.S. military team in Libya, told the committee that “…the security in Benghazi was a struggle and remained a struggle throughout my time there”. He added that the head of U.S. security in the region had pushed for more people “…but was never able to attain the numbers he felt comfortable with.”

Page 1 2 Next Page »

[lazarus]

Concerning Bush; there is now clear evidence that there were no weapons of mass destruction. Evidence was manipulated to get the US to got to war. Hundreds of thousands died.

Quote:

This is a very old,tired story.

How can it be tired and old when thousands of Americans died.

Quote:

Who are you claiming manipulated the evidence.

I don't claim it. Lawrence Wilkerson, a retired Army Colonel, aide to Colin Powell said it was manipulated by Dick Cheney and his team.

[lazarus]

This will help

http://www.factcheck.org/2012/10/benghazi-timeline/

[bonnie]

How can it be tired and old when thousands of Americans died.

[Ted Oplinger]

Concerning Bush; there is now clear evidence that there were no weapons of mass destruction. Evidence was manipulated to get the US to got to war. Hundreds of thousands died.

So what did in the whole Bheghazi non-affair did Obama lie about? Please supply quotes and factual information the contradicts those words.

BTW: I don't have a president.

Ummm..Laz...you might want to go check some of the speeches given in Congress in the late 1990's. I know, that's ancient history to you. But in those archives are speeches given by Ted Kennedy, Bill Clinton, and other Democrat heavyweights...all claiming Saddam had WMD's...all echoing the same evidence that President Bush would use to go into Iraq. Not that you'd actually believe it, though - it was all probably disinformation planted by Bush/Cheney to manipulate the WHOLE WORLD!

Are you telling us that Bush - as Governor of Texas - purposefully supplied false intelligence to not only the Democrats, but to every nation across the globe, so he could get the chance to "even the score for Daddy"?

Are you telling me Bush- as Governor of Texas - manipulated the Democrats to purposefully championed false intelligence, then to throw the 2000 election, so he could a) execute his nefarious plan to blow up the World Trade Center Towers, then blame it on hapless Muslims, then c) use the supplied false intelligence Bush crafted (as Governor of Texas) of WMD's to go into Iraq?

Or...even BETTER!! It was the EVIL Cheney plotting all this...slowly laying the groundwork to manipulate and deceive not just those "poor, fair-minded Democrats", but THE WHOLE WORLD...long before Bush even thought about running for President.

I hope not, Laz - but that is precisely the drivel people are expected to swallow to believe and repeat the "Bush lied, people died" stupidity.

When you can supply factual speeches and evidence of top Democrats pointing to globally-accepted intelligence Iraq did NOT have WMD's during the late '90's and early in Bush's presidency in the days leading up to 9/11...

When you can show me all the vote roll calls of the Democrats abstaining from or voting against the Congressional authorization to wage war due to aforementioned intelligence, globally accepted...

....I will entertain your cogent thoughts on the Iraq war. It might even set up an intelligent dialogue about the illegal foray into Libya over the last year, culminating in what happened in Benghazi...but I'm not holding my breath, Laz.

Until then, Laz, you are simply baah-ing like the rest of the low-information, sound-byte driven sheeple running around stupidly chanting, ''Bush lied, people died!" just to score cheap, foolish, politically-polarized points. With your statement about Bush and WMD's, you have just declared your apparent willingness to simply wag your jaws and repeat whatever your Dear Leaders wish you to say....to think precisely what they want you to think. You want to be seen as knowledgeable, intelligent....but your propensity for Democrat sound-bytes blows that right out of the water.

In truth, your Party was just as much convinced of the fact of WMD's as was Bush. They were just as willing to vote to authorize Bush's actions as their Republican colleagues. When they weren't found, the whole world was as surprised as Bush was. But that didn't stop your Party and their Media lap dog allies from quickly spinning the lie instead of working together with the Republicans to find out where those weapons went, did it?

No wonder our enemies around the world are laughing at the US...

And now you want the fair treatment for Obama and the Democrats - who never gave Bush a fair shake after 9/11, though they were just as complicit in the whole state of affairs?

Laz, your Party (and its Media lap dog allies) went out of their way to wage political war by manipulating people to think the Democrats and the whole world knew all along there were no WMD's, but ol' Bush just went in anyway to avenge Daddy. In hamstringing a sitting Commander-in-Chief during wartime, in such an abhorrent display of betrayal and treachery, you expect to be believed when you say your Party is to be given the benefit of the doubt with Libya?

In the light of you apparent complete denial of facts and universal agreement on globally accepted intelligence on Iraq's WMD's in the DECADE leading up to the invasion, and your apparent penchant for believing products of manipulation to be the truth - I find your request for facts and quotes on Your President Obama's current sad state of affairs in Libya to be...less than genuine, laughable, at best.

It is rather unfortunate I must be so stern in reply - but I have little respect or tolerance for the "Bush lied, people died" stupidity, and little tolerance for those who continue to peddle that garbage as truth.

Blessings,