A failure in leadership where, arguably, people died that wouldn't have, had the failure not occurred.

What failure of leadership are you referring to?

So the "big scandal" is that Administration talking points after the attack involved some political spin? And this is shocking news to who, exactly? Honestly, these hearings are nothing more than a preemptive strike on Clinton for the 2016 presidential election. The genuine mistakes - insufficient funding and security, poor crisis communications, arguably slow response while the attack was underway, etc. - are being overshadowed by the Republican's partisan agenda here.

Things We Learned from the Benghazi Whistleblower Hearing

Posted By Bryan Preston On May 8, 2013 @ 2:58 pm In Politics | 59 Comments

The Republicans mishandled the Benghazi whistleblowers’ hearing. What should have been stretched across several days to give the nation time to digest it all, was instead packed into a single day filled with an overwhelming amount of information. The media’s attention span is not that long. The verdict in the Jodi Arias trial came along in the afternoon and blew Benghazi off the networks, most of which didn’t want to cover it at all. Even Fox joined the drive-by media, taking Benghazi off the air in favor of the irrelevant Arias trial. Following the announcement of the Arias verdict, charges were read in the Cleveland kidnapping case. Those were aired live as well, relegating Benghazi again.

Nevertheless, for those who slogged through the entire day of hearings and ignored local crime stories, new information was there to be learned.

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 U.S. government never even requested military overflight to support the Americans in Benghazi. The U.S. 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 U.S. 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 video, 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 U.S. Foreign Emergency Support 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 U.S. 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.

6. Democrats were uninterested in getting at most of the facts, but were very interested in destroying Mark Thompson. Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) set the tone for the Democrats’ angle on the hearings in his opening remarks. He used his opening to attack the committee chairman, Rep. Darrell Issa, and to pre-question the witnesses. Most of the Democrats who followed him failed to ask many questions of the witnesses. Instead, they delivered speeches or blamed budget cuts, an argument that has already been debunked by the State Department itself. One sadly hilarious moment came during Rep. William Clay’s questioning. The Missouri Democrat blamed the repeated denials to enhance security at Benghazi on budget cuts. Issa reminded him that the State Department has debunked that line, in the person of Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Charlene Lamb. She testified last fall that budget cuts had not impacted the decisions not to enhance security at Benghazi. Clay claimed not to remember Lamb’s testimony, then moved quickly to cite the ARB, which backed his side. His selective memory proved politically, if not factually, reliable.

Mark Thompson, member of the Foreign Emergency Support Team (FEST) testified that his section had been cut out of decision making during the attack. The Democrats consistently circled on him to try to get him to contradict himself or attack his boss, Daniel Benjamin, who has claimed FEST was included throughout the attack. They never really succeeded, and now Benjamin will be called to testify in a future hearing to clear up the dispute. The heads of the ARB, Ambassador Thomas Pickering and Admiral Michael Mullen, will now be called as well.

7. House hearings are a poor way to determine who did what and why during and after the attack. The Republicans, as I said, should have broken today’s hearing out across several days. When they did question the witnesses, they kept their speeches short and focused on getting answers. Their Democratic counterparts consistently gave speeches and raised red herrings. They were able to waste time and stall long enough for the Arias trial to push the hearing off the TV, and for energy to flag and boredom to set in. The Benghazi attack needs to be properly investigated by someone outside the political process and outside the Obama administration. State cannot be trusted; its own investigation failed even to interview Clinton. Defense may also have officers and political appointees to protect. A special prosecutor is in order and should be appointed.

Yep, and nothing will happen to anybody in the current administration, but the Pachyderms can guarantee a whole lot of resources needed elsewhere are squandered by their useless game.

The genuine mistakes - insufficient funding and security, poor crisis communications, arguably slow response while the attack was underway, etc. - are being overshadowed by the Republican's partisan agenda here.

Now you're just speculating wildly. You can't read Obama's mind, you're doing the exact same thing liberals do when they accuse Bush of lying about WMDs in order to start the Iraq War. Remember, he "really" started that war to boost his flagging approval rating and funnel business (oil and reconstruction contracts) to Haliburton, which Cheney used to be CEO of.

This isn't about budget cuts or any of the hogwash you're peddling RD.

The president of the united states, twice told the people who were in route to help and could have been on site to help, not to go.

Obama let Americans die and blamed it on a YouTube video because terrorists killing an American ambassador would have damaged his reelection chances.

Does that sink in? The president willingly let our citizens die and the president, Clinton and their departments knowingly invented a BS story to cover it up and placate the media.

This was all supposed to go away with the explanation of the YouTube video but it didn't.

ThinkProgress Reverses on Benghazi Whistleblower

The liberal blog ThinkProgress suddenly reversed its stance on Benghazi whistleblower Gregory Hicks, the State Department’s former deputy chief of mission in Libya, citing unnamed State officials in an attempt to sully Hicks’ testimony before a House committee on Wednesday.

The allegations came less than 48 hours after the website touted Hicks’ testimony as supporting the administration’s position on key aspects of its alleged cover-up following attacks on the Benghazi consulate in September.

Hicks “debunk[ed] right-wing Benghazi conspiracy theories” in his testimony before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, wrote blogger Hayes Brown on Wednesday.

By Friday, Brown was calling into question Hicks’ credibility, sourcing indictments of his management style to anonymous “staffers based in Libya.”

“I’ve effectively been demoted from deputy chief of mission to desk officer,” Hicks told the committee.

He attributed the apparent retribution to his skepticism of State’s official explanation for the attacks—specifically that they began as a spontaneous protest and evolved into a military-style assault—and his cooperation with a congressional investigation.

One of Brown’s unnamed sources said Hicks was “the worst manager I’ve ever seen in the Foreign Service.” Another criticized “his management capacity or lack thereof.

Hicks is a decorated 22-year foreign service veteran with an exemplary service record, according to Foreign Policy magazine:

Hicks has a distinguished record of service in six overseas assignments in Bahrain, Afghanistan, Libya, Yemen, Syria, and Gambia. He has received six Meritorious Service Increases, three individual Meritorious Honor Awards, and four individual Superior Honor Awards.

If you already have insurance, this law's future implementation and past implementation have no effect on you.

Again, what part of treason is acceptable just because Obama did it? He issued an illegal stand down order that resulted in the deaths of American citizens; he lied to the American public about it; and his White House was responsible for trying to cover it up.

Nixon was Impeached and Convicted for less.

We still have both of you wanting George W. Bush investigated for and prosecuted for war crimes.

Barack Obama commits his second deliberate and demonstrable act of treason, and you're cutting and pasting MediaMatters.org talking points and trying to deflect. Our last President was bad; you told everyone yours would change the world. Our less President did irreversible harm to this nation; you voted twice for a guy who has a demonstrated, documented, and deliberate disregard for the Constitution of the United States.

This isn't "conservatives" being annoyed with a Democrat President. We're Americans appalled at the complete lunacy of supporting Obama. He hasn't delivered on any of his major promises; he's actively incarcerating and punishing Whistle Blowers; he's denied more Freedom of Information Act requests than the last 4 Presidents combined. He's used the State's Secrets defense more than Bush, despite campaigning on removing that protection.

You're not saving face by continuing to be a supporter, you're demonstrating why Americans HATE progressives and have for almost 150 years. And you're not informed enough or invested enough to think about the intentional, but unadvertised results of our legislative track.

Obama signed the Monsanto Bill into law, which will eliminate the vast majority of organic, heirloom, and boutique produce and live stock in this country by adding untold millions of compliance regulation into food production. It also has rules on seed banks and cultivars available for non-commercial use. There hasn't been a word on these forums about that.

We won't talk about what happened to the 400 patients in the clinical trials for Epogen's generic replacement that got the General Biologics provisions ripped out of the PPACA. They all died by the way.

We won't talk about him lying about the impact of the PPACA:Except to a man, every one of us had our health insurance options cut and reduced because of the Cadillac Policy Tax. More importantly, a large number of us are currently dealing with the professional and administrative fallout on benefit extensions and a blanket umbrella change; compliance was a 20% total operating cost increase for Kaffis's employer (a extracted from a local newspaper running a story on Kaffis's workplace). It's been 17% increase for my employer (that's 34 million dollars for my employer). In fact, many universities and colleges are currently having to re-evaluate how they fund graduate students and support staff/admin/faculty development.

The part of the PPACA that affects us all that no one is talking about takes effect for the 2013 Filing Year: Tuition Assistance and Remission, including the GI Bill, of any variety will have to be considered as part of your in year gross income; adjustments made after traditional AGI Calculations. Such funds will be subject to uncollected payroll and FICA taxes. That has almost nothing to do with healthcare, too; but it was snuck into that bill as an Amendment and Rider after it was passed through reconciliation; because, you know, signing into law a bill that couldn't pass the Senate was somehow Constitutional, Mr. President.

No, we won't talk about any of that ...

Answer one question for me: why are you defending deliberate Presidential actions that resulted in preventable deaths from a known and immediate threat?

Just admit it: you picked the wrong man; you backed, sold, and continue to support the categorically worst choice in the last election cycle. You should have supported Hillary; you would have prevented so many problems.

Yep, and nothing will happen to anybody in the current administration, but the Pachyderms can guarantee a whole lot of resources needed elsewhere are squandered by their useless game.