Benghazi Whistler-Blowers: 'It Matters'

 

IBDEditorials.com

The Scandal In Libya: Testimony by the Benghazi whistle-blowers presents clear evidence of shameful political manipulation of the truth seven weeks before an election and a willingness to let four Americans die to maintain a campaign narrative.

What difference at this point does the truth about Benghazi make? In an emotional opening statement at Wednesday's hearing of the House Oversight Committee, Eric Nordstrom, a regional security officer of the U.S. Mission to Libya from September 2011 to July 2012, answered that question with voice cracking and a simple declarative sentence:

"It matters to the friends and family of Ambassador Stevens, Sean Smith, Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods, who were murdered on September 11th, 2012."

The truth about Benghazi, as Wednesday's testimony by Nordstrom, Mark Thompson and Gregory Hicks proved, is that the administration, President Obama and former Secretary of State Clinton were aware in the first hour that it was a terrorist attack, knew it was no spontaneous protest caused by a video, refused to send what help they could and then deliberately lied about it.

Mark Thompson, a former Marine and official with the State Department's Counterterrorism Bureau, who said he was not interviewed by the department's Accountability Review Board, testified that he was rebuffed by the White House when he asked for a Foreign Emergency Support Team (FEST) that's been activated in past threats to diplomats. This is a unit made of special operations personnel, diplomatic security, intelligence and other officers.

Hicks, U.S. deputy chief of mission in Libya on that fateful night, who also was near tears at times, recounted how a Special Forces team, including one member hobbling with a cast on his leg and a heavy machine gun on his shoulder, was ready to deploy on a Libyan C-130 to Benghazi, only to be forbidden from doing so by U.S. Special Operations Command South Africa.

Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, ranking minority member of the oversight committee, responded with the Democratic canard that others have claimed military assets could not have been deployed in time.

Yet in the first hours of the attack, no one knew how long the attack would last. As Hicks pointed out, we were ready to go with what we had and the rescue was told to stand down. We didn't even try.

We know that Doherty and Smith died in the last hours of the attack. At least two rescue teams were ready to deploy but were ordered to stand down as Commander-In-Chief Obama went to bed in preparation for a fundraising trip to Las Vegas the next day.

Hicks told of what were possibly Stevens' last words in a phone call in which the ambassador said: "Greg, we're under attack." Hicks forwarded that information to the State Department and said that, despite U.N. Amb. Susan Rice's repeated claims the Sunday after the attack that the video was the impetus, Stevens never mentioned a demonstration before his death.

"I was stunned," Hicks said of Rice's comments. "My jaw dropped, and I was embarrassed." He said Rice never talked to him before those appearances even though, after Stevens' death, he became the highest-ranking diplomat in Libya who was there during the Benghazi attack.

At one point, Republican Rep. Trey Gowdy of South Carolina read an excerpt from an email that Beth Jones, acting assistant secretary for Near Eastern affairs at the State Department, sent and copied Hicks.

"I spoke to the Libyan ambassador and emphasized the importance of Libyan leaders continuing to make strong statements," the email read, adding that the email was sent on Sept. 12, the day after Benghazi and several days before Rice's television appearances.

"When he said his government suspected that former Gadhafi regime elements carried out the attacks, I told him that the group that conducted the attacks, Ansar al Shariah, is affiliated with Islamic terrorists."

Nordstrom, in written testimony, detailed that the Benghazi consulate was one of the rare locations with high and critical threats in all categories at the time, failing to meet the minimal standards for diplomatic facilities established by the Overseas Security Policy Board and the Secure Embassy Construction and Counterterrorism Act of 1999.

In response to a question, Nordstrom confirmed that the only person who has the authority to waive security standards and approve occupancy with such high threat levels is the secretary of state. It cannot be delegated to anybody else in the State Department.

Nordstrom has previously said the department not only refused his requests for greater security prior to the attack, but actually reduced the number of Diplomatic Security Service (DSS) agents assigned to foreign service officers based in Libya. Security was left to one DSS agent, four armed members of the 17th of February Martyrs Brigade and unarmed Libyan contractors employed by the British-based Blue Mountain Group.

In sum, the administration clearly knew Benghazi was a terrorist attack, refused to send help and then conspired to lie about it to the American people.

In countries like Japan and Britain, the dishonor and shame would be so great as to cause the governments to fall. This administration has no shame or honor.