What did the President know and when did he know it?

[kgbsquirrel]

Benghazi Edition.


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/19/libya-attack-cia-discovery-us-consulate-killings_n_1984429.html?icid=maing-grid7|aim|dl1|sec1_lnk3%26pLid%3D222984

The CIA station chief in Libya reported to Washington within 24 hours of last month's deadly attack on the U.S. Consulate that there was evidence it was carried out by militants, not a spontaneous mob upset about an American-made video ridiculing Islam's Prophet Muhammad, U.S. officials have told The Associated Press.

It is unclear who, if anyone, saw the cable outside the CIA at that point and how high up in the agency the information went.

I know some people are going to scream opsec at me about this, but I really can't hold my tongue on this.  Regarding the following types of reports I am about to describe I can state that I worked with them directly, and originated (ie, wrote) several myself as both training and real world events while I was in the Navy.


I can say unequivocally that everyone at the top knew, and here's why: An event such as the killing of a U.S. Ambassador meets the requirements for a Critical Intelligence Report to be formed. This is known in intel parlance as a CRITIC. Initial CRITIC's are followed up with supplemental information as it comes in. If no additional information comes in, an addendum is appended every hour at the maximum stating such. This continues until the event concludes and the final follow-up is appended. The CIA digging up information pertaining to the origins of the attack would qualify as necessary CRITIC followup material and would be included in the running CRITIC report.

Now here's where it gets fun. CRITIC's by their nature have the highest priority rating of any report in the intel business. This is called Flash Override. The neat thing about this priority rating is it shoves every other message in the pipe aside and goes first, no matter what. The timeliness requirement for a flash override message (aka any and all CRITIC's) is 10 minutes. 10 minutes from the time it is sent to when it is in the hands of (drum roll please): The Director of National Intelligence, DIRNSA (Director National Security Agency), NSA (National Security Adviser to the President), and, ta-da, the President of the United States.

They knew, and they knew in less than 15 minutes after the CIA ground pounders knew.


ETA:

Congressional aides say they expect to get the documents by the end of this week to build a timeline of what the intelligence community knew and compare that to what the White House was telling the public about the attack.

Man, this is a hard one. Oh, wait. Pick any crypto weenie working at the NSA, all the way down to the lowliest enlisted person, have them walk their ass over to the classified terminal, or more accurately, just slide their sit-and-swivel 3 feet to the right because that terminal is an essential component to their job, log on to intelink, pull up the NSA's critic archive, select the one for the Benghazi attack and print that bastard off! Look at that, you now have a document that details everything the intel agencies knew, and in a nice concise timeline of critic followups. And all this would take literally less than 5 minutes. I'm not sure I can adequately express how much this whole thing is pissing me off right now with the obscenity filters in place.  

[Perd Hapley]

Candy Crowley's got this one. He reads slower.

[Frank Castle]

They knew, and they knew in less than 15 minutes after the CIA ground pounders knew.

Agree and well said,

I've seen CRITIC reports in Iraq and you are dead on!!

SGT B
US Army



   

[TommyGunn]

KGB, you don't have to be familiar with the inner workings of the system to realize that there are some sick political shenanigans afoot with the Benghazi attack.  It just makes sense that serious situations like this would get shoved through the pipe faster and go all the way up the ladder.
I'm pretty t'offed at this as well.  That it's happening .... and that it isn't a bigger scandal in the media than it is.  ONE OF OUR AMBASSADORS IS DEAD!!!! And he died horribly.
I wonder how tall headlines would be if the president during this had been a republican.

[Perd Hapley]

Well, Tommy, if he were a Republican, we'd see a lot of tall headlines about the president's "rush to war" with Lybia.

On a related note, I suddenly realized that something is missing. I don't recall hearing any of the usual noises from our betters in the media/government complex, counseling us not to go around killing anyone we see wearing a turban. That's odd. But I'm not hearing about a spree of Middle-Easterner lynchings, either.  

[ArfinGreebly]

Ambassador dead?

That's not optimal.

[Monkeyleg]

kgbsquirrel, can I copy that post to post on Facebook, if for no other reason than to get to my Obama-supporting SIL?

[Scout26]

I'm also hearing things that the WH was in real time communication with the Ambassador as the attack was happening. 

And as someone pointed elsewhere it's approx. a 1 hour flight time for F-16's at Aviano to Benghazi.  While one minute is a helluva long time when someone is lobbing mortar rounds at you, knowing that the Cavalry is on it's way makes enduring that a little easier.  (The attack lasted over 4 hours, wonder how they know how long it lasted?)

If there were any reporters worth their chops, this would make Watergate look like a panty raid at an all-girls school. 

And Americans died because of a massive failure at the WH.  Completely unacceptable. It's criminal. 

[kgbsquirrel]

kgbsquirrel, can I copy that post to post on Facebook, if for no other reason than to get to my Obama-supporting SIL?

Yes you may.

[roo_ster]

Yeah, but still not near as significant as a hotel break in.

[Monkeyleg]

Thank you, kgbsquirrel.

[longeyes]

BHO is content to play the Whack-a-Mole game with drones, but that's just camouflage for his support for Pan-Islamism across the MENA. 

[Strings]

KGB: I'd like to post it too. I can think of a few people it would torque off...

[kgbsquirrel]

By all means, twist those tails.

[MillCreek]

http://seattletimes.com/html/politics/2019492493_libyatimeline.html

Interesting article on the whys and wherefores of the changing assessment of the Libya consulate attack.

[Monkeyleg]

Interesting article on the whys and wherefores of the changing assessment of the Libya consulate attack.

I'd read a few days ago that the intelligence community was going to be "modifying" their story about the timeline, to better coincide with the administration's explanations. Would this article be one of the new, improved stories?

Here's the real issues, though. First, we have an embassy in a country that is emerging from an overthrow of its government, a condition that doesn't usually lend itself to stability. When the ambassador requested additional security, his request was declined. I haven't read a credible reason for the declined request, but there's a whole host of reasons why he could have been turned down. One would simply be negligence on the part of whoever received the request initially. Another, and more ominous reason, would be the same reason that Bill Clinton denied General Garrison his request for AC-130's and armored vehicles in Mogadishu in 1993, which was "appearances". If the reason for declining Ambassador Stevens request was the latter, and it became a news story, Obama wouldn't get 40% of the vote in November.

Even if the reason for declining additional security is valid, the response to the attack is not. As kgbsquirrel has already noted, planes could have been scrambled from Italy and been there in an hour to scare protestors/Al-Queda.

Beyond that, though, there's the question of why President Obama, Susan Rice, Jay Carney and other administration officials kept insisting that this was a protest in response to a 2 year-old Youtube video. Spontaneous demonstrations usually don't involve RPG's and machine guns. Obama and others kept attributing the assaults on our embassies across the Middle East to this video even after State Department and intelligence agency officials had said that the attacks were al-Queda, and not spontaneous demonstrations.

It's nearly impossible to attribute the actions of this administration to anything but pre-election political CYA, and that is the scandal. As Newt Gingrich said over the weekend, President Obama's taking offense at Mitt Romney's question about all of this during the debate was itself offensive. Romney asked a legitimate question about an important incident. For all of Obama's bluster in his answer, he never answered the question. Maybe he'll be forced to answer tonight.

[agricola]

Beyond that, though, there's the question of why President Obama, Susan Rice, Jay Carney and other administration officials kept insisting that this was a protest in response to a 2 year-old Youtube video. Spontaneous demonstrations usually don't involve RPG's and machine guns. Obama and others kept attributing the assaults on our embassies across the Middle East to this video even after State Department and intelligence agency officials had said that the attacks were al-Queda, and not spontaneous demonstrations.

In defence of the administration, there are many little mobs running around Libya now that do have RPGs and machine guns and they do like to kick things off - there were attacks earlier that week by these mobs against Sufi sites in Benghazi, and attacks by groups against Western targets earlier in the year.  There are also quite a lot of differences between the classic Islamic terror attack and what happened in Benghazi (and indeed, what happened afterwards - certainly I cannot think of that many occasions where locals have demonstrated in favour of the US after an attack, and then gone after the militias themselves).

Where the adminstration has goofed is that they let the personnel stay there, relatively unprotected, despite everything that had been happening in Benghazi and the wider region. 

[zxcvbob]

When the ambassador requested additional security, his request was declined. I haven't read a credible reason for the declined request, but there's a whole host of reasons why he could have been turned down.

Republican budget cuts.  It's the only possible answer. 

[Monkeyleg]

In defence of the administration, there are many little mobs running around Libya now that do have RPGs and machine guns and they do like to kick things off - there were attacks earlier that week by these mobs against Sufi sites in Benghazi, and attacks by groups against Western targets earlier in the year.  There are also quite a lot of differences between the classic Islamic terror attack and what happened in Benghazi (and indeed, what happened afterwards - certainly I cannot think of that many occasions where locals have demonstrated in favour of the US after an attack, and then gone after the militias themselves).

Where the adminstration has goofed is that they let the personnel stay there, relatively unprotected, despite everything that had been happening in Benghazi and the wider region. 

Maybe you're right. But it insults my limited intelligence to have Obama blaming a Youtube video for nearly two weeks. It's Youtube's fault. It's Bush's fault. It's everybody's fault but Obama's.

[Scout26]

And Ms. Lamb from the State Department testified that there's a video of the attack (taken of the realtime feed that was being watched by ) somewhere floating around the State Department.

I find it hard to believe that Obama, Hillary, et al, could watch the killing of Bin-Laden in realtime, yet, were shocked, SHOCKED I TELL YOU, to find out that Al-Qaeda was using crew served weapons on our consulate and ambassador and it took two weeks to figure out what happened.  (although our Egyptian embassy and the head of Libya called it a terrorist attack the next day. 

[RoadKingLarry]

What do you reckon the ambassador did to annoy Obama?

[Chester32141]

I've seen stated in several reputable sources that Ambassador Stevens was homosexual.  If this was the case perhaps stationing him in a muslim country wasn't the best choice.  The fact that the video cover story was prepared by the next day would lead me to believe that the violence was not unanticipated.

What do you reckon the ambassador did to annoy Obama?

Perhaps his repeatedly asking for security and putting in writing the fact that he feared for his life and the safety of his staff was running the risk of making Obama's ME policy look ineffective ... There is no question he was hung out to dry by Hillary and Obama w/ a prepared cover story ... I doubt we'll ever know why.

[Kingcreek]

Delete

[MechAg94]

Wasn't there also a story that a number of people were removed from that consulate and flown out of the country who were supposedly CIA personnel using the site? 

[French G.]

I'm also hearing things that the WH was in real time communication with the Ambassador as the attack was happening. 

And as someone pointed elsewhere it's approx. a 1 hour flight time for F-16's at Aviano to Benghazi.  While one minute is a helluva long time when someone is lobbing mortar rounds at you, knowing that the Cavalry is on it's way makes enduring that a little easier.  (The attack lasted over 4 hours, wonder how they know how long it lasted?)

If there were any reporters worth their chops, this would make Watergate look like a panty raid at an all-girls school. 

And Americans died because of a massive failure at the WH.  Completely unacceptable. It's criminal. 

And that right there throws a monkeywrench into the whole deal regardless of the arguments about prior security. Hillary can fall on her sword as much as she likes but there is no way the white house wouldn't know about a consular office under siege and the SecState cannot authorize an airstrike on a foreign country. So, who can....?

It only has to be done correctly once. Find an embassy under siege, drop in the FAST company with extra ammo, draw a circle around the place with an AC-130. You think people leave us alone for awhile?