No Sherlock. We knew that day one.
US Libyan embassy attack: What's the real story?
Intelligence sources tell Fox News they are convinced the deadly attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, was directly tied to Al Qaeda -- with a former Guantanamo detainee involved.
That revelation comes on the same day a top Obama administration official called last week's deadly assault a "terrorist attack" -- the first time the attack has been described that way by the administration after claims it had been a "spontaneous" act.
"Yes, they were killed in the course of a terrorist attack on our embassy," Matt Olsen, director of the National Counterterrorism Center, said during a Senate hearing Wednesday.
Olsen echoed administration colleagues in saying U.S. officials have no specific intelligence about "significant advanced planning or coordination" for the attack.
However, his statement goes beyond White House Press Secretary Jay Carney and Susan Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, saying the Sept. 11 attack on the consulate was spontaneous. He is the first top administration official to call the strike an act of terrorism.
Sufyan Ben Qumu is thought to have been involved and even may have led the attack, Fox News' intelligence sources said. Qumu, a Libyan, was released from the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in 2007 and transferred into Libyan custody on the condition he be kept in jail. He was released by the Qaddafi regime as part of its reconciliation effort with Islamists in 2008.
His Guantanamo files also show he has ties to the financiers behind the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. The declassified files also point to ties with the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, a known Al Qaeda affiliate.
Olson, repeating Wednesday that the FBI is handling the Benghazi investigation, also acknowledged the attack could lead back to Al Qaeda and its affiliates.
"We are looking at indications that individuals involved in the attack may have had connections to Al Qaeda or Al Qaeda's affiliates, in particular Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb," he said at the Senate Homeland Security Committee hearing.
Still, Olsen said "the facts that we have now indicate that this was an opportunistic attack on our embassy, the attack began and evolved and escalated over several hours," Olson said.
Carney said hours earlier that there still is "no evidence of a preplanned or pre-meditated attack," which occurred on the 11th anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks.
"I made that clear last week, Ambassador Rice made that clear Sunday," Carney said at the daily White House press briefing.
Rice appeared on "Fox News Sunday" and four other morning talk shows to say the attack in Benghazi, Libya, that killed U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans was "spontaneous" and sparked by an early protest that day outside the U.S. Embassy in Cairo, Egypt, over an anti-Islamic video.
"It was a reaction to a video that had nothing to do with the United States," Rice told Fox News. "The best information and the best assessment we have today is that this was not a pre-planned, pre-meditated attack. What happened initially was that it was a spontaneous reaction to what had just transpired in Cairo."
However, that account clashed with claims by the Libyan president that the attack was in fact premeditated. Other sources, including an intelligence source in Libya who spoke to Fox News, have echoed those claims. The intelligence source even said that, contrary to the suggestion by the Obama administration, there was no major protest in Benghazi before the deadly attack which killed four Americans. A U.S. official did not dispute the claim.
In the face of these conflicting accounts, Carney on Tuesday deferred to the ongoing investigation and opened the door to the possibility of other explanations.
Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, called Wednesday for an independent review of the attack.
"A State Department Accountability Review Board to look into the Benghazi attack is not sufficient," Collins said. "Given the loss of the lives of four Americans who were serving their country and the serious questions that have been raised about the security at our Consulate in Benghazi, it is imperative that a non-political, no-holds-barred examination be conducted."
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012...#ixzz26ygWPN00
Love the 'sources said' game by Faux NewsIntelligence sources tell Fox News they are convinced the deadly attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, was directly tied to Al Qaeda -- with a former Guantanamo detainee involved.
probably the same 'intelligence sources' that said Saddam was building a nuclear weapon and was an immenent threat...
Sources say oil desolves in water
Sources say obama is a commie
Sources say the dems made a deal with the devil to win the 2012 elections..
anyone who thought that it wasn't a terrorist attack in the first place has serious mental deficiencies.
Every media outlet in the free world needs to have running cartoon strips of Allah and Muhammed getting it in the ass by a Jewish Peter North.
Whether it was premeditated or not it was a terror attack....so they can label it anything they want...what wing-nuts like CC want to do is blame Obama because he wasn't peronally there to stop these attackes
Just as Bush got the blame for 9/11. It comes with being in charge.
Well, the difference being that with the Able Danger evidence we know Bush knew more about the 911 attacks than he admitted to the 911 commission..
Didn't the WH say it was a terrorist attack the day after it happend?
CC gets his news from Fox News.
dunno. the first statement I recall from the WH was that it wasn't. Libya claims they warned us; the WH denied it.
At any rate, the ers s ed the safe house in Benghazi -- on September 11 -- with the ambassador there, and killed him. Close on the heels of a targeted assassination of an AQ higher up.
Coincidence?
Why do Americans insist on placing buildings with American flags in other countries and then when they get attacked?
Do you see the KKK with a recruiting office in the middle of Harlem?
Without going back and reviewing what everyone in the Govt was saying.. didn't the administration preface their comments with the infromation they had at the moment? I would assume the red teamers would not want our govt to release statements before they actually knew what happened..right?
Is that correct? Or is this one of those Obama derangement episodes?
I would also assume that policemen don't decide what happened at a crime scene before they investigate? Much less a crime scene they hadn't been to yet.. am I missing something?
So I guess the red teamers want the US govt to run off and start throwing around accusations before all of the intel is available... ooookkkkk
Although they prefaced their statements it was foolish for the administration to claim it was because of the video... they should have just said we don't have enough information to make any claim... red teamerrs would have whined no matter what so they didn't have anythng to lose by saying we don't know yet..
Last edited by George Gervin's Afro; 09-20-2012 at 07:38 AM.
No
They were still pushing the view that it was a "spontaneous demonstration" over the film on the Sunday talk shows.
No, actually you didn't know.
Better:
You strongly suspected that, but had no personal first-hand knowledge of the event.
"knowing" and arriving at a reasonable estimation of probability are two seperate things.
FWIW.
"They" were likely being diplomatically cir spect about an event where solid evidence was still being gathered.
You and Bull Mountain would criticize the administration no matter what they did, so your criticism rings rather hollow.
And you would defend them as well, even when the defense defies all logic.
and if there's one thing we all know, it's that human events unfold in history in the most rigorously logical manner, with clear, indisputable chains of causation . . .
No, actually I wouldn't.
(shrugs)
I just prefer waiting until more solid evidence is available before making judgments, and don't entirely fault people for somehow not having a 100% grasp on fast moving situations.
Personally I am more than a little confused why it makes any difference, what it was called, as long as the administration was working to catch those responsible.
Can you tell me why, in your words, it is so important to say the "right" thing here? What is the difference?
Most people call intentionally saying something that you know isn't true a lie.
SIX DAYS after the Ambassador was killed the White House was STILL saying publicly that it was just a random spontaneous act of violence protesting that stupid movie.
If you don't think it was a lie and you think they really believed that then you would have to believe that they are also monumentally incompetent.
How have you excluded the possibility that there are diplomatic or other considerations that might have effected the administrations pronouncements?
Are lies or phrasing important to diplomats?
Oh, they were absolutely trying to cover their ass, Especially after the Libyan government went public and told the world they had warned the US State Department that there was bad being planned for 9/11.
How have you excluded the possibility that there are diplomatic or other considerations that might have effected the administrations pronouncements?
That is a very conclusive statement of fact.
Can you show me evidence of this fact?
(edit)
The fact in this case being to state that the motive in this case was to simply cover up incompetance, and no other factors were involved, by implication.
Watch out, at this rate of denial and blind defense of team blue you may actually turn blue.
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