.
Madame's Nightshirt
Mrs. Peperium
.
"Americans of all political persuasions are coming to the sad realization
that our First Lady -- a woman of undoubted talents who was a role
model for many in her generation -- is a congenital liar....Therefore, ask not "Why didn't she just come clean at the beginning?"
She had good reasons to lie; she is in the longtime habit of lying; and
she has never been called to account for lying herself or in suborning
lying in her aides and friends."
- William Safire, TheNYTimes, 1996
When I began my professional career, one of the best pieces of advice I was
ever given was beware of those less talented than you as they will use
any body to cover theirs.
In the case of Hillary Clinton with Benghazi, she used a 2 minute
youtube trailer of a movie that hadn't been released to cover up her
direct blame in the deaths of 4 Americans. She never read the cables the
Ambassador sent her -not even the one on August 16. The transcript of
her testimony via ABC NEWS:
"House
Republicans slammed Secretary of State Hillary Clinton today for her
lack of awareness of State Department cables warning of security threats
in Benghazi, Libya, prior to the Sept. 11 attack that killed four
Americans, including Amb. Chris Stevens.
"In the second congressional hearing of the day reviewing a report by
the Accountability Review Board on the State Department's security
failures, Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, asked Clinton this afternoon why
her office had not responded to a notification from Stevens about
potential dangers in Libya.
'Congressman, that cable did not come to my attention,' Clinton calmly told the House Foreign Affairs Committee hours after her Senate testimony this morning. 'I'm not aware of anyone within my office, within the secretary's office having seen that cable.'
She added that '1.43 million cables come to my office. They're all addressed to me.'
Not all cables that go to the State Department are addressed -literally- to Hillary
Clinton. All cables that leave the State Department are, however, signed from Hillary. In the old days, her saying this under oath would've been called a outright
lie and banter of perjury would be all over the Hill. But these
days we all understand it was a cynical toss off remark meant to
persuade the low information voter watching the evening news that all is
well. The ugly reality is neither Hillary nor one of 60 people in her
office read the August 16 cable from Ambassador Stevens telling them
they could not withstand an organized attack. Just last week we learned there is another cable
from the Ambassdor - sent on the day he died:
Just hours before he died in a terrorist attack at the U.S. compound in Benghazi, Ambassador Chris Stevens sent a cable to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton painting a chaotic, violent portrait of the eastern Libya city and warning that local militias were threatening to pull the security they afforded U.S. officials.
Militia leaders told U.S. officials just two days before the attack that they were angered by U.S. support of a particular candidate for Libyan prime minister and warned “they would not continue to guarantee security in Benghazi, a critical function they asserted they were currently providing,” Stevens wrote in the cable the morning of Sept. 11, 2012. He also cited several other episodes that raised questions about the reliability of local Libya security.
“Growing problems with security would discourage foreign investment and led to persistent economic stagnation in eastern Libya,” Stevens cautioned.
The Washington Guardian obtained a copy of the memo, a weekly summary of events in Libya dated just hours before a band of terrorists struck the unofficial U.S. consulate in Benghazi and a neaby annex building where the CIA operated, killing the ambassador and three other Americans.
You'd think once State was notified there was an attack on the
consulate Hillary might have thought to say 'let's look at all the
recent cables from Libya and see what this is about'. But according to
Hillary, that never happened. Unread cables remained unread as a 7-9
hour attack raged on at the consulate. Thanks to Jennifer Griffin of Fox
News we now know that two military drones were rerouted and sent over
the consulate in Benghazi during the attack:
Fox News has learned
that there were two military surveillance drones redirected to Benghazi
shortly after the attack on the consulate began. They were already in
the vicinity. The second surveillance craft was sent to relieve the
first drone, perhaps due to fuel issues. Both were capable of sending
real time visuals back to U.S. officials in Washington, D.C. Any U.S.
official or agency with the proper clearance, including the White House
Situation Room, State Department, CIA, Pentagon and others, could call
up that video in real time on their computers.
Yesterday and under oath, Hillary was asked about real time video -had she watched it with the President? :
Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.) said Deputy Assistant Secretary for Diplomatic Security Charlene Lamb “testified she had actually witnessed this, the attack, in real-time on a monitor.”
“At any time did you see the initial attack on a monitor with the president?” Rohrbacher asked.
“Congressman, there was no monitor, there was no real time. We got the surveillance videos some weeks later, that was the first time we saw any video of the attack,” Clinton said in testimony before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs. “There was a misunderstanding I think perhaps…she was talking to [diplomatic security] people trying to understand what was going on.”
Lamb was placed on administrative leave late last year, along with two other State Department officials. She told the House Oversight Committee
in October that “When the attack began, a diplomatic security agent
working in the Tactical Operations Center…alerted the annex U.S. quick
reaction security team stationed nearby…from that point on, I could
follow what was happening in almost real-time.”
We've been told the President went to bed 90 minutes after being
told the consulate was under attack. Hillary could've made her boss look
more on the ball and said 'We were watching that attack while it
happened' which is what every American would hope is the truth. But no,
that answer would've gone against the narrative of the attack being the
fault of the video. Real time video of the attack would have told them
immediately that there were no protestors, only terrorists at the
consulate. And Obama would've been caught in his lie which may have lost him the election as a result.
Hillary
has had 4 months to come up with a convincing set of facts as to why
she blamed a video instead of her deadly mismanagement of State which
resulted in the deaths Ambassador Stevens, Sean Smith, Tyrone Woods and
Glen Dougherty. She couldn't come up with a plausible one. So she stuck
to her disproved narrative and this is why she lost her cool, treating a
Senator as if he was her husband by screaming "What difference will it
make?" to his perfectly reasonable question of why was the video blamed?
It will make a lot of difference to know why the video was blamed.
Especially to the families of the 4 dead Americans. They would get what
Liberals love; closure. Her lie probably made a (considerable)
difference with the presidential election. And if she had done the manly
thing and accepted blame on September 12, 2012, then the President
would've fired her for incompetence. This would make a difference to the
taxpayers. They are already on the hook for her Senator's pension but
they wouldn't have to pay her State Department pension.
Hillary
Clinton fired the entire White House Travel Department for far less
mismanagement while at the same time alleging through the FBI they had
broken laws. All of the fired were all cleared of charges - one declared
fully innocent by a jury after 15-20 minutes of deliberating the case.
As far as the cable not coming to her attention, read closely how deadly of an error that was by Hillary. From October 31, 2012:
CATHERINE HERRIDGE: Well, the status of the cable is that I really believe, having read it, that it is the smoking gun warning here.
You've got this emergency meeting in Benghazi less than a month before
the attack. At that briefing, the people are told that there are 10 --
10 -- Islamist militias and al Qaeda groups in Benghazi.
The consulate cannot sustain a coordinated attack and that they need
extra help. And this information goes directly to the office of the
secretary of state, Hillary Clinton. So again, you're got the
culpability of the State Department. This is a very specific warning that they are in trouble, they need help and they see an attack on the horizon.
VAN SUSTEREN: All right, what's the date on this cable?
HERRIDGE: It's the 16th of August.
VAN
SUSTEREN: Is there any response or any indication that there's been any
direct response to that cable between the 16th of August and the 11th
of September?
HERRIDGE: I don't know what the classified traffic was between
the 16th and the 11th, but I asked the State Department today
specifically, given the warnings and how detailed they were and the
intelligence that al Qaeda and these militias were operating in
Benghazi, was any extra security considered or put in place in light of
the 9/11 anniversary? You're three weeks out. I think that's the
critical question.
And the State Department said to me today they wouldn't comment because
it's classified. And they are also waiting for the outcome of this
investigation.
VAN SUSTEREN: Who was the signatory to the cable?
HERRIDGE: Ambassador Stevens.
VAN
SUSTEREN: And you say that it was -- it went to the office of Secretary
of State Hillary Clinton. Was there any indication that it actually
went to her? I mean, I don't know what the office (INAUDIBLE) the office
could be -- as far as I know, could be 60 people down a chain of
command.
HERRIDGE: The copy to her, and then it routes (ph) out, in this case, probably, typically to diplomatic security, their Near East Asia desk and others. But it is specifically addressed to her office.
VAN SUSTEREN: How did you get to see it?
HERRIDGE: It came to me through confidential sources.
VAN
SUSTEREN: And why -- I mean, it sounds to me that things are starting
to break down because we're starting to get, you know, information from
-- from different sources. Both you and Jennifer Griffin are getting it.
Is there sort of a brewing dissatisfaction in how this administration
is disseminating or not disseminating information?
HERRIDGE: I can't speak for why these sources come forward, but I believe, based on this cable, that
the point that was being made that they wanted made publicly, not just
in a classified setting, is that the warning that came from Benghazi was
very specific.
It said, We cannot withstand an attack. The militias are
everywhere. Al Qaeda is here. This was known to the U.S. intelligence
community, as well, and that they really could not see a situation where
the security was going to turn around. They said it was trending
negatively.
This comes three weeks, three-and-a-half weeks before the attack. I
can't think of anything that would be more specific than if these groups
had emailed the State Department and said, Here's the time, here's the
place and here's the method of the attack, because the cable names the
two groups, al Qaeda and Ansar al Sharia, that we believe were
responsible for this assault.
VAN SUSTEREN: How long is this cable? I mean, is it a page, two pages?
HERRIDGE: It's a little over a page.
VAN SUSTEREN: So it's quite detailed.
HERRIDGE: It's very detailed. There can be no doubt that this is really a cry for help from the people on the ground.
They also talk at length that they think the 17th February Brigade --
this is the Libyan militia that's supposed to be friendly to the United
States that's really tasked with being the police force in Benghazi, has
been infiltrated by our enemies.
It says the 17th February Brigade is not sharing information with the
Americans anymore. So that's us. And we had information right after the
attack that this brigade just kind of melted away during the attack.
They were nowhere to be found.
VAN SUSTEREN: What would be the reason or is there any reason supplied as to why that cable wasn't acted on?
Is there any -- is there any sort of -- I mean, did the person you
spoke to -- does anybody have any idea? Did it get lost in the shuffle
or there was a diplomatic or political reason? Or is there any reason it
wasn't acted on?
HERRIDGE: Well, someone has said to me, looking at this whole story, don't see a conspiracy when you can just see incompetency.
I think we sometimes know that things move very slowly in Washington,
D.C. So I think that's -- I think that's one element.
But if you couple this with the fact that we were coming up to the 9/11
anniversary and you couple this with the statements that a videotape was
somehow responsible, what you see is that that is completely undercut.
This cable says the militias and al Qaeda are here. We essentially think
that we are next.
So to take this attack and to suggest for such a long period of time
that it was a video, when you have this classified cable in the
intelligence? It just doesn't match up!
VAN SUSTEREN: What is your -- why do you think that we're not getting
much information out of the administration? Is it in part because it's
the CIA or is it a situation where they're trying to cover mistakes?
HERRIDGE:
I believe they're trying to have a real investigation. I believe that
we are also in the middle of something called an election, in the final
days. And
what I see is a growing body of evidence that the State Department has
culpability for the death of the ambassador and those three Americans.
The warnings were specific. They were direct. They named
the enemy. And they said that this consulate needed more support. And
it also indicated in the cable that the consulate should probably move
long-term into the annex. We now know that's the CIA facility in
Benghazi.
VAN
SUSTEREN: Catherine, thank you. And obviously, very disturbing. And you
know, working in Washington, we all know people who are at the State
Department and how hard they work and they want to take such good care
of their people. So you know, it's -- there's no...
HERRIDGE:
I think it's important that the people who lost their lives have
themselves honored with the facts, and I think we're starting to get the
facts.
VAN SUSTEREN: Without any doubt. I'm in agreement with you on that. It's
-- you know, the facts need to -- as -- we need to get the facts.
Catherine, thank you.
We'll see if Catherine Herridge has sources who will go on record saying
that Hillary did in fact read the cable. And then we shall see what
difference it makes...if any.
.
My dear Mrs. P, please update your blog with other news as well - especially given the recent events in the Church, and the latest news on the British Royal Family (Wills is turning out to be a lazy whinger).
Posted by: Jacobite | February 16, 2013 at 01:16 PM