So it WAS Al Qaeda after all
 

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton suggested the deadly consulate attack in Libya involved the Al Qaeda affiliate in North Africa, going further than any other Obama administration official in acknowledging the assault was the work of hardened terrorists.

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Clinton was speaking Wednesday to foreign leaders gathered at a meeting convened by U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon to address the threat of extremism in the region.
“Now with a larger safe haven and increased freedom to maneuver, terrorists are seeking to extend their reach and their networks in multiple directions,” Clinton told the group, according to a New York Times report. “And they are working with other violent extremists to undermine the democratic transitions under way in North Africa, as we tragically saw in Benghazi.”
It wasn't the first time Clinton had referred to the attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, as a terrorist attack. But her reference to the group Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb was notable, especially as President Obama still has yet to publicly refer to the attack as terrorism.
Republicans have pounced on the administration's shifting explanation for the Sept. 11 attack, which left U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans dead. Administration officials initially described it as "spontaneous" violence, possibly related to protests against an anti-Islam film produced in the U.S., but the administration has gradually walked that explanation back while acknowledging the attack was an act of terror.
The White House said Wednesday that Obama, too, considers the deadly assault an act of terror. Press Secretary Jay Carney said it is "certainly the case that it is our view as an administration, and the president's view, that it was a terrorist attack."
Carney's comments came after Mitt Romney accused Obama of failing to "level with the American people" about the nature of the attack.
Obama has declined several chances to call the incident a terrorist attack. He said last week that extremists used an anti-Islam video as an excuse to assault U.S. interests, and in an interview this week on ABC's "The View," he would only say that it clearly "wasn't just a mob action."


Read more: Clinton suggests consulate attack was work of Al Qaeda affiliate | Fox News

Re: So it WAS Al Qaeda after all
 

This administration couldn't find it's ass with both hands and a map.

Re: So it WAS Al Qaeda after all
 

THEY KNEW!!!

US officials knew Libya attack was terrorism within 24 hours, sources confirm

U.S. intelligence officials knew within 24 hours of the assault on the U.S. Consulate in Libya that it was a terrorist attack and suspected Al Qaeda-tied elements were involved, sources told Fox News -- though it took the administration a week to acknowledge it.
The account sharply conflicts with claims on the Sunday after the attack by U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice that the administration believed the strike was a "spontaneous" event triggered by protests in Egypt over an anti-Islam film.
Two senior U.S. officials said that the Obama administration internally labeled the attack terrorism from the first day in order to unlock and mobilize certain resources to respond, and that officials were looking for one specific suspect. The officials said the intelligence community knew by Sept. 12 that the militant Ansar al-Shariah and Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb were likely behind the strike.
Further, an official said, "No one ... believed that the mortars, indirect and direct fire, and the RPGs were just the work of a mob -- no one."
Yet a congressional source told Fox News that CIA Director David Petraeus, during a briefing with members of the House Intelligence Committee three days after the attack, espoused the view that Benghazi was an out-of-control demonstration prompted by the YouTube video. According to the source, this was "shocking" to some members who were present and saw the same intelligence pointing toward a terrorist attack.


Read more: US officials knew Libya attack was terrorism within 24 hours, sources confirm | Fox News

This is a scandal of the first order for this administration. If this were handled in this manner by the previous administration, every left media in the known universe would be going bananas right about now! The really sad thing is that it comes through not as incompetence, as it is of course, but as a marginalization all of the facts solely for the political expediency of masking anything they can for the facilitation of Obummer's reelection. This is blowing up in Obummer's face, as it should. Where is the left media probatively asking the five W's they presumably learned in journalism school?

Re: So it WAS Al Qaeda after all
 

CNN: Obama Looked "Foolish" Yesterday While Secretary Clinton Met With World Leaders

Re: So it WAS Al Qaeda after all
 

Who's the bigger moron? Obama, or the "useful idiots" who continue to support his extremist policies?

Re: So it WAS Al Qaeda after all
 

"This has now turned into a very bipartisan concern," he said. "There has to be something that they're trying to hide or cover up. ... This is just not the norm. This is way out of the norm, what is happening in this case."
Democratic and Republican lawmakers on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, on which Corker sits, sent a letter to the State Department Thursday asking a string of new questions about security at U.S. diplomatic posts.
President Obama's aides have denied any attempt to cover things up. "No one either intentionally or unintentionally misled anyone involved in this," campaign adviser Robert Gibbs said on "Fox News Sunday." "No one wants to get to the bottom of this more than we do."


Read more: Lawmakers 'suspicious' administration 'trying to hide' Libya attack details | Fox News

Re: So it WAS Al Qaeda after all
 

No threat assessment in Benghazi prior to ambassador's arrival

An intelligence source on the ground in Libya told Fox News that no threat assessment was conducted before U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and his team began "taking up residence" at the Benghazi compound -- describing the security lapses as a "total failure."
The claim comes more than two weeks after Stevens and three other Americans were killed in what is now being described officially as a terror attack possibly tied to Al Qaeda.
The source told Fox News that there was no real security equipment installed in the villas on the compound except for a few video cameras.
On a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the worst, the intelligence source said the security lapses were a 10 -- a "total failure" because Benghazi was known to be a major area for extremist activity.
There had been four attacks or attempted attacks on diplomatic and western targets leading up to the Sept. 11 strike on the U.S. Consulate.
Based on that information, a former regional security officer for diplomatic security told Fox News, the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi had to have been classified or assessed by the State Department as a "critical threat terrorism or civil unrest posting."
Fox News was told that State Department standards for diplomatic missions overseas dictate physical security standards for this classification. There are two sets -- classified and unclassified requirements. The unclassified standards include a 100-foot setback for the buildings from the exterior walls which should be three meters high, in addition to reinforced ballistic doors and windows which can withstand an hour of sustained assault.
Based on the video and photos, none appear present at the consulate.
The former regional security officer, who has worked in the Middle East, told Fox News that the standards are designed to give an ambassador, his or her team and diplomatic security that "golden hour" to burn classified dockets and call in military help for an emergency evacuation.
The mounting questions regarding security at the compound prompted all members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Thursday to write to the State Department asking for additional details about security at U.S. diplomatic posts and for a fuller explanation of the attacks on U.S. compounds in Libya, Egypt and Yemen.
Lawmakers have raised concern about the administration's changing story. Officials initially described the attack as a "spontaneous" assault triggered by protests in Cairo over an anti-Islam film. They later described the attack as terrorism. And sources told Fox News on Thursday that intelligence officials knew it was a terror attack within 24 hours -- prompting additional questions from lawmakers about why they were told otherwise during briefings on Capitol Hill.


Read more: No threat assessment in Benghazi prior to ambassador's arrival, source says | Fox News

Re: So it WAS Al Qaeda after all
 

In a briefing to Capitol Hill staffers delivered the day after the deadly Sept. 11 attack in Benghazi, a top aide to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the killings appeared to be the result of a terrorist attack.
Under Secretary of State for Management Patrick F. Kennedy -- who exercises responsibility for all department personnel, facilities, and operations, and who is one of the department's most respected civil servants, having served in his position under both the George W. Bush and Obama administrations -- delivered the assessment in an unclassified, half-hour conference call with staff aides to House and Senate lawmakers from relevant committees, and leadership offices, on the evening of Sept. 12. Capitol Hill sources described the call to Fox News.
That a State Department official of Kennedy's rank -- one with direct oversight of the installations and people targeted in Benghazi -- reached so swiftly the conclusion that the attacks were premeditated and coordinated stands in stark contrast to the opposing narrative pressed at that time, and for several days afterward, by other top officials at State, the White House, and the intelligence agencies.
Four days after Kennedy's conference call, for example, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice appeared on five Sunday morning talk shows to insist that the attacks were neither coordinated nor premeditated, but were rather the result of a spontaneous mob action, inspired by an anti-Muslim video on the Internet, that spun out of control.
Rice has since told lawmakers that her comments reflected "the intelligence community's best, current assessment as of the date of my television appearances," and a spokesman to the Director of National Intelligence, James R. Clapper, has said in a statement that the intelligence community "revised our initial assessment to ... (conclude) that it was a deliberate and organized terrorist attack carried out by extremists."
According to participants on the Kennedy call, the under secretary noted he is not a "security expert," but then focused on the presence of light and heavy weapons outside the U.S. consulate and annex in Benghazi where U.S. Ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens and three other Americans had been killed the night before.


Read more: Clinton aide swiftly briefed lawmakers on 'coordinated' Libya strike, despite Rice claims | Fox News