Beating Up The State Department

"We wanted to send further reinforcements to Benghazi. People in Benghazi had been fighting all night. They were tired. They were exhausted. We wanted to make sure the airport was secure for their withdrawal."
Gregory Hicks, formerly U.S. deputy chief of mission/charge d'affairs, Libya

"We continue to believe that there was nothing this team could have done to assist during the second attack in Benghazi on September 11."
George Little, Pentagon spokesman

So Mr. Hicks testified before a U.S. House committee that he pleaded for troops to aid in the defence of the U.S. mission Benghazi, that he was very well aware that it was terrorists who were attacking the mission and its personnel, including ambassador Christopher Stevens. He had spoken with Ambassador Stevens, only to hear him say: "Greg, we're under attack".

"My jaw dropped and I was embarrassed", he said, when he heard Susan Rice, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations state on national television later that the attack was the unfortunate result of a spontaneous protest over the infamous video about the Prophet Muhammad that infuriated Muslims the world over. "The YouTube video was a non-event in Libya", he informed the commission.

He had pleaded for aid, but was informed that special forces troops eager to board a Libyan cargo plane to Benghazi were ordered not to respond during the September 11, 2012 attack. That would be the event where the consulate was fire-bombed and al-Qaeda-affiliated Libyan militias murdered four Americans, including Ambassador Stevens.

But that's all right, since the administration corrected the "talking points" used by Ms. Rice. They agreed after all, it was not an angry demonstration at all, but a planned and highly successful assault staged by terrorists. An assault that caused the contracted-out local agents paid to protect the mission, to simply melt away, leaving the consulate and its personnel vulnerable.

He had done his utmost, he explained, to get fighter jets to fly over Benghazi. Four U.S. special forces troops were ordered not to board a Libyan military transport plane flying to Benghazi from Tripoli post-attack. They had been ordered to remain in Tripoli, explained Pentagon spokesman Little because the Benghazi personnel had been evacuated.

Then the revelation of emails to coordinate a talking point response satisfactory to the White House, the Statement Department, the CIA and the FBI for a final version to be used by Susan Rice. Where the State Department was concerned to remove references to al-Qaeda and Ansar al-Sharia, suspected of having carried out the attack. Too inconvenient, by half.

A point raised by the State Department's Victoria Nuland who believed the CIA, which had over 20 people in Benghazi on the night of the attack, tried to absolve itself from utter lack of response where it was needed, at the expense of the State Department. Related to the CIA's repeated warning about the waning security situation in the city being ignored.

Her concern was that Congress was just waiting "to beat up the State Department for not paying attention to warnings, so why would we want to feed that either?"

The clear partisan component aside, Republicans intent on clarifying the Obama administration's disinterest in providing sufficient security for its diplomatic personnel when the situation clearly demanded it appears to be running with reality on the ground.

This administration does appear loathe to admit that al-Qaeda-linked jihadists prevailed, while the State Department erred on the side of disengagement.

How now, Brown Cow?