Utopia Talk / Politics / Benghazi hearing begins - Omama sweats

Hot Stick Member	Sun Sep 14 20:05:06 http://www...stions-on-us-diplomats-safety/ Benghazi panel begins hearings with questions on US diplomats' safety The select Benghazi Committee holds its first open hearing Wednesday, employing broad congressional powers to try to answer lingering questions ranging from what led to the fatal 2012 terror strikes on a U.S. outpost in Libya to what is being done to better protect U.S. diplomats worldwide. The hearing by the Republican-led House committee will focus on the extent to which the State Department has implemented post–attack recommendations made by the Accountability Review Board. The department created the five-member, independent board just weeks after the Sept. 11, 2012, attacks in which four Americans -- Ambassador Chris Stevens, information specialist Sean Smith and Navy SEALs Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty -- were killed. “There are still facts to learn about Benghazi and information that needs to be explained in greater detail to the American people,” Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., the committee chairman and a former federal prosecutor, said earlier this month. “And this committee will do just that.” In a December 2012 report, the board issued 29 recommendations to fix what it called “systemic” leadership and senior management failures that led to the “grossly” inadequate security at the U.S. outpost. Congressional Republicans were immediately critical of the report and its authors, saying they downplayed key decisions by top department officials, instead putting too much blame on their subordinates. Scheduled to testify Wednesday are Greg Starr, the department’s assistant secretary for Diplomatic Security, and Mark Sullivan and Todd Keil, members of the Independent Panel on Best Practices, created to review the accountability board’s efforts. Sullivan is the panel chairman and a former Secret Service director. Keil is a former Department of Homeland Security assistant secretary. The board was led by Ambassador Thomas Pickering and Adm. Michael Mullin, who have already testified before Congress and are expected to be called before the select committee. The fatal attacks, which the White House said in the immediate aftermath were sparked by an anti-Islamic video, have been the subject of roughly 12 congressional hearings. However, the House created the select committee in May 2014 with the expectation that its subpoena powers and other tools would bring forth new witnesses and resolve unanswered questions. The committee is expected to address several other key issues, including to what extend the U.S. attempted to stop the attacks and rescue U.S. personnel and whether the White House response, weeks before voters decided whether to re-elect President Obama, was politically motivated. U.S. Special Forces captured and arrested Libyan Ahmed Abu Khattala in June in connection with the attacks on the two U.S. facilities, and he is awaiting trial in the United States. The committee’s 12 members -- seven Republicans and five Democrats -- have been working since being appointed by hiring staff, gathering information and meeting with family members of the four men killed. House Democrats were reluctant at first to join the committee. They argued the issue has been full investigated and that further efforts are just politically-motivated attempts to keep Benghazi in Americans’ minds through the 2014 midterms and the 2016 presidential elections, in which Hillary Clinton, secretary of state at the time of the attacks, is the presumptive Democratic front-runner. “I do not believe a select committee is called for after eight reports, dozens of witness interviews and a review of more than 25,000 pages of documents,” Maryland Rep. Elijah Cummings, the top Democrat on the select committee, said this spring. But “I believe we need someone in that room to defend the truth.”
Hot Stick Member	Sun Sep 14 20:05:52 http://www...l-waiting-to-learn-real-story/ Benghazi anniversary: Two years later America still waiting to learn real story It was a searing moment in American history that showed us at our very best -- and, sadly, our worst. It was an event that will be remembered for the courageous heroism of some, and the feckless self-centeredness of others. September 11, 2014 marks the second anniversary of the deadly attacks on the American diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, that killed U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens, Foreign Service information management officer Sean Smith and two of their would-be rescuers, Glen Doherty and Tyrone S. Woods. Two years later, I still cannot get the words of Smith’s mother out of my mind. “Every time I see this on TV,” she told the House Oversight Committee, “I see these bloody fingerprints crawling down a wall of that Benghazi place and I ask everybody, ‘do those belong to my son?‘ and nobody has told me anything.” “It’s been pure hell living through all this and not getting any answers.” “I was told a few things,” she corrected herself, holding back tears. “They were all lies.” “Obama and Hillary and Panetta and Biden and [United Nations Ambassador] Susan [Rice] all came up to me at the casket ceremony and gave me a big hug, and every one of them said it was ‘the video,’ but even then, they knew it wasn’t,” she said. “They lied to me.” “I don’t count, the people of America don’t count,” she bemoaned, the frustration visible on her face. “The only thing that counts is themselves and their jobs. I want to know what happened to my son! Why can’t these people tell us this?” Two years later, like the rest of us in the nation, Patricia Smith is still waiting to learn the real story of what happened that night in the North African desert. A decorated Navy SEAL, Woods served multiple tours in Afghanistan, Iraq, the Middle East and Central America. A certified paramedic and registered nurse, he retired from the military in 2010 to care for his former comrades at the Naval Medical Center in San Diego before returning overseas -- this time protecting American diplomats in Central America and, fatefully, the Middle East. From details Congressional investigators pieced together, we know that Woods along with Doherty who rushed in from Tripoli with American reinforcements hours after the initial assault fought to protect those remaining at the compound. Immediately encountering heavy fire from extraordinarily well-equipped attackers, Doherty and Woods took up defensive positions on the roof of the compound, each only to be killed by separate mortar attacks. Flying shrapnel from the mortars also injured a 31-year old diplomatic special agent, David Ubben. The courage and selfless patriotism that was shown that night in Libya will forever stand in stark contrast to the 24 months of cowering, cover-ups and political posterior-covering half a world away in Washington. What is blazingly apparent in its aftermath is that the president and his team feared the truth: a resurgent Al Qaeda had waged a protracted and well-equipped assault on a poorly defended diplomatic outpost that had killed four Americans, including the first U.S. ambassador to die in the course of duty in more than 30 years. Had the real facts of the Benghazi assault become known at the time, it would have given lie to the administration’s false narrative of a decapitated al Qaeda and a pacified Libya. With eyes sharply focused on the Presidential election just weeks away, Obama, Hillary Clinton and their team began a campaign to dissemble. Those who died that night on our behalf deserved better from the government they served. Two years later, so do we.
Fred Felcher Member	Sun Sep 14 20:08:23 unreadable
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