The Benghazi Attack Dogs Obama and Clinton

While Washington is on vacation, new disclosures about the Benghazi attack on American diplomatic personnel last September are keeping very much alive a disastrous failure of security for US diolomats that the Obama administration is seeking to bury by calling it a "phony scandal." Fox News has reported that at least five CIA employees have been forced to sign new nondisclosure agreements aimed at discouraging them from leaking their stories to the media, even though they had signed such agreements prior to the attacks. CNN reports that some CIA operatives are being required to take frequent, even monthly polygraph tests in an effort to uncover who may be talking to the media or Congress about the attacks on the US Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, that took the life of US Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans. Former CIA operative and CNN analyst Robert Baer said it is highly unusual for agency employees to be polygraphed more often than every three or four years. CNN has reported that according to communications it has obtained, one insider states: "You have no idea the amount of pressure being brought to bear on anyone with knowledge of this operation." CNN is also reporting that dozens of Americans were in Benghazi on the night of the attacks and are "being intimidated into staying silent." According to CNN, a source told it the number was 35, with perhaps as many as seven wounded, but it is not clear how many Americans in the city were working for the CIA. Only losses suffered by the State Department have been reported to Congress. Some in Congress have speculated that US agencies in Benghazi were secretly helping to move missiles out of Libya through Turkey and into the hands of Syrian rebels. The State Department has claimed it was only helping the Libyan government destroy old or damaged weapons. If CNN's report is correct, the CIA is at minimum trying to hide its unauthorized weapons deliveries to Syria from Congress, something that CIA agents might otherwise want to reveal. Congress should press for information. Republican Representative Frank Wolf, whose district includes CIA headquarters in Langley, Va., is disturbed by the lack of information and the pressure to silence CIA operatives. "I think it is a form of cover-up," he said. He has gone to the floor of the House several times to ask for the establishment of a select committee to probe the Benghazi affair. In another action, Representative Steve Stockman, a Texas Republican, said on Thursday he plans to force a vote in Congress on creating an investigative body. And House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, a California Republican, has issued two subpoenas to the State Department for documents related to the deadly assault in Benghazi. He said he wants all documents the State Department gave to an independent review board headed by former diplomat Thomas Pickering and retired Admiral Mike Mullen, and all documents related to interviews conducted by the board. Fox News has also reported that some Congress members believe that while the government is making efforts to keep Benghazi personnel silent, not enough progress has been made in tracking down those responsible for the attacks. Although the US Justice Department has just filed sealed charges in New York against several people in the Benghazi affair, including Ahmed Abu Khattala, allegedly the Benghazi leader of Ansar al-Sharia, an Islamist militia group that advocates strict Sharia law, none of the officials would discuss the specific charges against Khattalah in the sealed complaint. But in a recent CNN interview, Khattalah acknowledged being at the Benghazi mission after the attack but denied any involvement. He also told CNN he had not been questioned by Libyan authorities or the FBI in the investigation and that no one from the US government has contacted him. US law enforcement officials said it was not unusual for the FBI to not interview defendants in a case while they collect other evidence. The investigation is led by agents from the FBI in New York and has included some members of the Washington field office, who have traveled to Libya to interview hundreds of witnesses, officials told CNN. ~~~~~ Dear readers, Republicans have accused the White House of not increasing security before the Benghazi attack, of botching the response to it and of misleading the public for political gain less than two months before the November 2012 presidential election. The Benghazi attacks involved scores of militants using rocket-propelled grenades and other weapons. Five days after the attacks, US Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice went on five Sunday morning talk shows, working from talking points that were heavily edited largely at the request of the State Department, and said the assaults began as a peaceful protest against an anti-Moslem film and that the protest was later "hijacked" by militants. The administration later acknowledged, however, that the attacks were the work of a possible terrorist group affiliated with al-Qaida and not a reaction to the video. Rice is now President Obama's national security adviser. Since the Benghazi attacks, the White House has come under steady attack from Republicans, particularly by Senators Lindsey Graham, John McCain, and Kelly Ayotte. The senators, members of the Armed Services Committee, have repeatedly said that the administration, the State Department, and other federal agencies barred those who worked in Benghazi from testifying before Congress. There is one person who could shed light on much of the Obama administration's actions during and after the Benghazi attack. Hillary Clinton. She must be subpoenaed and made to answer questions directly instead of allowing her to engage in the theatrical posturings that she used the last time she appeared before Congress in order to avoid answering truthfully or, in the alternative, put herself in danger of lying.