06-29-2016, 05:06 AM
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Join Date: Apr 2007
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House Republicans' Report Sheds New Light on Benghazi Attack
Quote:
One section of the report seems to allege that U.S. officials fundamentally misunderstood who their allies were at the time.
The Republican majority's report found that 35 Americans were saved not by a "quasi-governmental militia" as previous reports concluded, or even a group the U.S. saw as allies. Instead, the report determines that the Americans were saved by the "Libyan Military Intelligence," a group composed of military officers under the Moammar Khaddafy regime, the Libyan dictator who the U.S. helped topple just one year earlier.
The February 17 Martyr Brigade, "recommended by the Libyan Government and contractually obligated to provide security to the Mission Compound," had fled, the report found. "In other words, some of the very individuals the United States helped remove from power during the Libyan revolution were the only Libyans that came to the assistance of the United States on the night of the Benghazi attacks," the report states.
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In an interview with the Committee, Patrick Kennedy, the under secretary or Management at State, described the department's sensitivity as wanting to "make sure that the steps we were taking would enhance the security of our personnel, not potentially diminish the security of our personnel."
According to one commander, the report states, as forces prepared to deploy, "during the course of three hours, he and his Marines changed in and out of their uniforms four times."
Further, several witnesses told the committee that despite Panetta's orders, the operating plan was not to insert any asset into Benghazi. "Their understanding was that the assets needed to be sent to Tripoli to augment security at the Embassy, and that the State Department was working to move the State Department personnel from Benghazi to Tripoli."
Republicans on the committee were critical of high-level officials in Washington for mistakenly thinking that the attacks were over and the crisis had passed by the time the emergency video conference convened, which the report alleges contributed to the confusion.
The report also finds that then-Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral James Winnefeld, did not participate in the secure call because "he had left to return to his residence to host a dinner party for foreign dignitaries." He received one update during the dinner on the attacks.
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Clinton, for her part, has repeatedly denounced the committee's purpose.
"There have been seven investigations led mostly by Republicans in the Congress and they were non-partisan and they reached conclusions that, first of all, I and nobody did anything wrong but there were changes we could make," Clinton said during a TODAY town hall on Oct. 5, 2015. "This committee was set up, as they have admitted, for the purpose of making a partisan political issue out of the deaths of four Americans. I would have never done that."
The Clinton campaign continued to attack the committee's credibility Tuesday ? calling it "a partisan sham since its start."
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House Republicans''' Report Sheds New Light on Benghazi Attack - NBC News |
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