Ted Cruz's questions about Benghazi and Bryan Preston's conclusions

So far Ted Cruz, the new Senator from Texas, is proving to be the hammer the Republicans have lacked trying to come to grips with the disinformation put out by the democrats on any subject, particularly Benghazi of late.  Cruz's succinct explication here of where things stand viz-a-viz Benghazi, which appeared before the hearing on May 8, is a helpful summary of the attack and its aftermath.  As he points out, there are many unanswered questions.

Benghazi Eight Months Later | National Review Online

We know that on September 14 and 15, 2012, the State Department altered the administration’s talking points on Benghazi to eliminate references to “Islamic extremists” and “al Qa’ida,” and instead substituted language about how the incident was a “spontaneously inspired . . . violent protest.”

We know that at Dover Air Force Base on September 14, 2012, when the coffins of the four dead Americans came home, Secretary Clinton attributed the attack to “an awful videotape we had nothing to do with.”

And, in the aftermath of the attacks, we know of no effort to mount a counterattack that would deter similar acts of terrorism in the future. In the intervening months, we have seen additional attacks on our personnel abroad, including the attempted suicide bombing of our embassy in Ankara, Turkey, and the brutal attack on the natural-gas facility in Algeria in which two Texans, Victor Lovelady and Frederick Buttaccio, lost their lives.

What we know today has come only as a result of sustained inquiry by Congress. Officials have been exceedingly reluctant to share information and have insisted that all relevant questions were asked and answered in the State Department Accountability Review Board (ARB) report completed in December 2012.

“What difference at this point does it make?” Secretary Clinton responded in January to questions about the nature of the Benghazi attack. “Let’s put this behind us,” Secretary of State John Kerry complained last month. Last week, White House spokesman Jay Carney dismissed press inquiries about the attack by saying, “Benghazi was a long time ago.”

But many more questions remain. Here are a dozen:

• Why was the State Department unwilling to provide the requested level of security to Benghazi?
• Were there really no military assets available to provide relief during the seven hours of the attacks? If so, why not? During the attacks, were any military assets ordered to stand down?
• If the secretary of defense thought there was “no question” this was a coordinated terrorist attack, why did Ambassador Susan Rice, Secretary Clinton, and President Obama all tell the American people that the cause was a “spontaneous demonstration” about an Internet video?
• Why did the State Department edit the intelligence talking points to delete the references to “Islamic extremists” and “al Qa’ida”?
• Why did the FBI release pictures of militants taken the day of the attack only eight months after the fact? Why not immediately, as proved so effective in the Boston bombing?
• Why have none of the survivors testified to Congress?
• Why is the administration apparently unaware of the whistle-blowers who have been attempting to tell their stories? Is it true that these career civil servants have been threatened with retaliation?
• Did President Obama sleep the night of September 11, 2012? Did Secretary Clinton?
• When was President Obama told about the murder of our ambassador? About the murder of all four Americans? What did he do in response?
• What role, if any, did the State Department’s own counterterrorism office play during the attacks and in their immediate aftermath?
• Why was Secretary Clinton not interviewed for the ARB report?
• And why, if all relevant questions were answered in the ARB report, has the State Department’s own inspector-general office opened a probe into the methods of that very report?

It is time for some answers. Let us hope that the House hearing this week will finally shed some light, and that the inquiry continues until the facts are fully understood.

Ambassador Stevens, Sean Smith, Glen Doherty, and Tyrone Woods deserve justice, and our brave men and women who continue to put their lives on the line every day in similar, dangerous situations deserve to know we are doing everything possible not only to protect them in the event of a terrorist attack, but also to deter these attacks from happening again. Better late than never.

— Senator Ted Cruz (R., Texas) serves on the Senate Armed Services Committee.

In addition to Cruz's questions, here is a number of conclusions the hearing produced:

The Big, News-Breaking Benghazi Hearings

Bryan Preston's assessment of the House Benghazi hearings is worth reading in its entirety, but he summarizes the big headlines quite well:

1. There were multiple stand-down orders, not just one. Special Operations forces were told, twice, by their chain of command not to board aircraft to Benghazi to rescue the Americans then under attack. The U.S. deputy diplomat, Greg Hicks, testified that the military commander, Lt. Col. Gibson, had his team ready to go twice. They were on the runway about to board a flight to Benghazi in the middle of the attack. They were ordered to stand down and remain in Tripoli to receive wounded who would be coming out of Benghazi. One of the orders came in the middle of the attack, the other came toward the end after Hicks' team had traveled from Tripoli to Benghazi. The fact that Hicks' team was able get to Benghazi before the end of the assault strongly suggests that the Special Operations team could have made a real difference.

At the same time, the State Department's commander on the scene, Hicks, ordered his personnel into Benghazi and went there himself. Hicks testified that Gibson never told him who issued the stand-down orders. He commented that Gibson told him that the military stand-down was a shock: "This is the first time in my career that a diplomat has more balls than someone in the military."

Hicks also testified that the US government never even requested military overflight to support the Americans in Benghazi. The US had an unarmed drone overhead and could have gotten permission to fly fighters over the scene, at least, but never asked.

2. Ambassador Stevens' reason for going to Benghazi has been cleared up. Hicks testified that Ambassador Stevens traveled to Benghazi to fulfill one of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's wishes. Despite the fact that security was worsening in Benghazi for months leading up to the 9-11 attack, Clinton wanted to make the post there permanent. Her State Department had denied repeated requests from the US team in Libya to upgrade security there, but she wanted to use the permanent post as a symbol of goodwill. Stevens was committed to that goal and told Clinton he would "make it happen." He was in Benghazi on 9-11 furthering Clinton's goal. She had denied requests to beef up security at Benghazi and then blamed his death on a YouTube movie. Hicks' testimony raises the question of Clinton's competence and grasp on reality, strongly suggesting that she put political perceptions ahead of the facts on the ground in Benghazi.

3. Clinton was briefed at 2 am on the night of the attack, was never told that a movie had anything to do with the attack by those on the ground in Libya, yet blamed the movie anyway. Hicks also testified that he was shocked when Ambassador Susan Rice blamed a YouTube movie for inspiring the 9-11 attack. He testified that he had briefed Secretary Clinton directly via phone at 2 a.m. and told her that Benghazi was a terrorist attack. He never mentioned a YouTube, which he never once believed had anything to do with the attack. But Clinton shocked him by blaming the movie on Sept 12. She would blame it, again, while standing before the coffins of the slain Americans, on Sept. 14. During the attack, Clinton told Hicks that no help would be on the way to relieve the Americans under sustained assault.

4. Whistleblowers were intimidated into silence. Hicks testified to a pattern of behavior that leads to the reasonable conclusion that many officials within the State Department wanted him to remain silent after the Benghazi attack. He said that on the night of the attack he was personally commended both by Secretary Clinton and President Barack Obama. But he later questioned why Ambassador Rice blamed the YouTube movie, and from that point on his superior, Acting Assistant Secretary for Near Eastern Affairs Beth Jones, questioned his "management style" and told him directly that no one in State should want him on their team in the field again. He was eventually demoted to a desk job after having been deputy to Ambassador Stevens, and remains in that post. Hick also testified that the Accountability Review Board, convened by Clinton last fall allegedly to determine the facts of the attack, never had stenographers in the room during his tw0-hour interview. Nordstrom concurred. Thompson was not even allowed to testify to the ARB despite having direct knowledge of the attacks due to his position on the US Foreign Emergency Response Team. Thompson testified that the FEST was designed to go from zero to wheels up very quickly but was not deployed at all. He wanted to tell his story to the ARB, but was not allowed to. Hicks also testified that for the first time in his career, the State Department assigned a lawyer/minder to attend witness interviews with the ARB. He also testified that Jones told him not to be personally interviewed by Rep. Jason Chaffetz, the Republican House member who was investigating the attack on behalf of the House Government Oversight and Reform Committee. It all adds up to a pattern of witness control and intimidation.

5. "The YouTube movie was a non-event in Libya." Hicks directly testified that the YouTube movie, for which a man remains in jail, was not in any way relevant to the attack in Benghazi. Why Obama, Clinton, Rice et al blamed that movie for the attack remains an unanswered question. Hicks said that no American on the ground in Libya that night believed the movie was to blame. He also testified that there was no protest prior to the attack. When the attack began, he was in Tripoli. He texted Stevens, who was in Benghazi, to advise him of the riot in Cairo at the US embassy. In that riot, jihadists had stormed the walls and replaced the American flag with the black flag of Islam. Stevens had not been aware of the Cairo situation at all, but shortly after Hicks texted him about it, Stevens called and told Hicks that the Benghazi consulate was under attack. He never mentioned a protest.

Hicks also testified that blaming the movie had strongly adverse real-world effects. According to him, it humiliated Libya's president, who had correctly stated that Benghazi was a terrorist attack. Blaming the movie, Hicks said, did "immeasurable damage" to our relations with Libya and delayed the FBI investigation. On Sept. 12, Ambassador Susan Rice told the first of her many untruths, claiming in an email that the FBI investigation into the attack was already underway. It would not actually get underway for 17 days after the attack, by which time the scene of the attack had been compromised and contaminated.

We still do not know who decided to change the original CIA talking points and blame the movie, but the finger is pointing directly at Hillary Clinton. She was briefed by Hicks during the attack, the movie was never mentioned, but in her first public statement on September 12, she blamed the movie. Her subordinate, Ambassador Susan Rice, also blamed the movie the following weekend. The fact that Obama himself blamed the movie repeatedly, though, strongly suggests that he took part in the decision as well.

Daveed Gartenstein Ross of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies:  "I defended the administration during the election from some attacks I saw as unfair. Well, today's testimony deeply disturbed me. It is impossible at this point to argue that only the Republicans are 'playing politics' with Benghazi. 1) Claims the witnesses' cooperation in investigation was impeded. 2) Claims the Rice talking points hurt relations with Libya.  3) Explanation of why the Rice talking point[s] were obviously implausible to those on the scene."

The Mains