Jack Kenny @ The New American:
References to al-Qaeda and to CIA warnings of terrorist threats in Benghazi in the months before the attack on the U.S. diplomatic facility there were deleted from the now famous “talking points” delivered to Congress and U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice, ABC News reported Friday.
The report cites 12 different versions of the talking points obtained by ABC, from the original CIA draft to the final version. Summaries of State Department e-mails, some of which were first published by Stephen Hayes in theWeekly Standard, show the documents “extensively edited,” the report said. White House e-mails show “extensive input” from the State Department, including requests that all references to Ansar al-Sharia be deleted, as well references to CIA warnings about terrorist threats in Benghazi in the months preceding the September 11 attack. According to the report, deleted portions included this paragraph:
The Agency has produced numerous pieces on the threat of extremists linked to al-Qa’ida in Benghazi and eastern Libya. These noted that, since April, there have been at least five other attacks against foreign interests in Benghazi by unidentified assailants, including the June attack against the British Ambassador’s convoy. We cannot rule out the individuals has (sic) previously surveilled the U.S. facilities, also contributing to the efficacy of the attacks.
State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland objected to that information being included, saying in an e-mail to the White House and intelligence officials that it “could be abused by members [of Congress] to beat up the State Department for not paying attention to warnings, so why would we want to feed that either?”
The talking points have been a source of controversy ever since Rice appeared on several Sunday morning talk shows five days after the heavily armed assault in Benghazi killed U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans. Rice described the events as growing out of a “spontaneous — not premeditated — response to what had transpired in Cairo,” where hours earlier an angry mob had stormed the U.S. embassy grounds and torn down the U.S. flag in a demonstration reportedly inspired by an American-made anti-Muslim video that had appeared on YouTube.
“We believe that folks in Benghazi, a small number of people came to the embassy to — or to the consulate, rather, to replicate the sort of challenge that was posed in Cairo,” Rice said in her September 16 appearance on ABC’s This Week. “And then as that unfolded, it seems to have been hijacked, let us say, by some individual clusters of extremists who came with heavier weapons…. And it then evolved from there.”
Rice’s description of the events as spontaneous and unpremeditated was roundly criticized by congressional Republicans, in the news media, and most recently by former deputy chief of mission in Libya Gregory Hicks, who told the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Wednesday that when he heard it, “I was stunned. My jaw dropped and I was embarrassed.” Hicks emphatically rejected the connection between the Cairo riot over the video and the attack in Benghazi.
Later Nuland worried about naming the terrorist groups because “we don’t want to prejudice the investigation.”
BUT…..State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said Friday that the department reviewed the talking points on Friday, Sept. 14, and raised two primary concerns.
“First, that the points went further in assigning responsibility than preliminary assessments suggested and there was concern about preserving the integrity of the investigation.
AND that’s exactly what happened.
After the new Libyan government (which KNEW it was a terrorist attack) heard our official talking points (about the video) they refused to let the FBI in for several days.
So, Obama wins re-election on a lie AND the investigation is set back, possibly forever.
But a video maker sits behind bars.