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Faraj al-Shibli did not lack for enemies, it would appear. The Libyan government held him for a time after the attack on the US consulate in Benghazi, at least long enough for the FBI to interrogate him. Two days ago, another militia grabbed him in the former Cyrenaica capital of Marj, a town just off the Mediterranean, 96 kilometers from Benghazi. Yesterday, locals found his body:
Faraj al-Shibli, who was suspected of involvement in the 2012 attack on the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, has been found dead, a Libyan source and locals in the town of Marj said.
Al-Shibli, whose name is also spelled Chalabi, was last seen being detained by a local militia in Marj two days ago, a Libyan source said.
It is unclear what happened to al-Shibli since then, but his body was found Monday in the eastern Libyan town of Marj.
Locals in Marj also confirmed that al-Shibli’s body was found Monday.
Shibli didn’t lack for friends, either. CNN reports that investigators have discovered links between Shibli and al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), which operates out of Yemen. That’s a different organization than al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, which has operated in North Africa for years, and which became one of the biggest winners from the US-NATO war against Moammar Qaddafi. The removal of Qaddafi left a huge vacuum for the Islamist terror networks, which took advantage of the failed Libyan state to recruit, mobilize, and attack. The link to AQAP undercuts the narrative that the Benghazi attack was just a target of convenience for local networks, if Shibli was part of it.
But there’s more, according to the initial CNN report. Shibli also had friends in Pakistan and the al-Qaeda network there. That’s the so-called “core” al-Qaeda, the group behind the 9/11 attacks as well as attacks on the USS Cole, the Khobar Towers bombing, and the bombings of our embassies in Tanzania and Kenya. If those contacts have been established and if they existed prior to Benghazi, then that puts an even more interesting twist on the fact that the Benghazi consulate got sacked on the anniversary of the original 9/11 attacks.
All of this raises an even more intriguing question: why didn’t the US get Shibli from the Libyans? The Libyans had him securely enough that the FBI had the opportunity to interrogate him. In fact, the Libyans arrested him on his return from Pakistan, which should have raised lots of eyebrows. Did the Libyans refuse to extradite him? Did we ask? Or did we somehow find another way to “bring justice” to a Benghazi mastermind?
Ahmed Abu Khattala, a suspect in the Benghazi attacks recently captured in Libya and transferred to American custody, is talking with American interrogators and offering “voluntary statements” which corroborate many of the details of that attack.
While Khattala has not incriminated himself in the attack which led to the deaths of four Americans, according to a report in The New York Times, he is providing investigators with a detailed accounting of events surrounding the 2012 attack on an American diplomatic outpost.
“On the night of Sept. 11, 2012, a group of at least 20 men armed with machine guns, handguns and rocket-propelled grenades gathered outside the United States Mission in Benghazi and “aggressively breached” it’s gate,” the Times reported based on an unsealed indictment filed by federal prosecutors with the Justice Department on Tuesday night.
The men went on to set fire to the United States mission. It was that fire that killed Mr. Stevens and a State Department employee. A little later, Mr. Abu Khattala “entered the compound and supervised the exploitation of materials from the scene by numerous men, many of whom were armed.”
The document reveals that Khattala traveled from the consulate to an outpost where militants were preparing a follow-up attack on a second American facility. “Fearing that the United States was going to retaliate after the attacks,” the Times report read, “he tried to obtain weapons in the following days.”
The court document indicates that the government has evidence of a coordinated conspiracy to attack an American facility. “The indictment might be viewed as a death knell for a theory that the attack resulted from a spontaneous protest against a U.S.-produced video,” the Washington Times reported.
Khattala is scheduled to appear on court on Wednesday.
The latest Fox pollmade headlines yesterday with its cornucopia of bad news for Barack Obama and his administration. His approval fell to 41/54, and the IRS did a lot worse than that, which Noah broke down in detail on Wednesday. The Hill noticed another data point that portends trouble for one of Obama’s pet projects — the effort to close the detention center at Guantanamo Bay. Not only do a majority want it to stay open, but almost two-thirds of all respondents think the latest captured terrorist belongs in the military-commission system and not federal court:
More than 6 in 10 people believe the captured Benghazi attack suspect is an enemy combatant who should be tried by military commission.
According to a Fox News poll released Wednesday night, 63 percent want Ahmed Abu Khattala tried by military tribunal, and 29 percent believe he is a criminal who should be tried through the U.S. court system. Another 9 percent do not know.
Earlier this month, the U.S. military and FBI captured Abu Khattala, a “key figure” involved in the 2012 terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya, that killed U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans. He is the first suspect captured by the United States since the attack nearly two years ago.
Khattala is expected to face trial in the U.S. District Court of the District of Columbia and is faced with three criminal charges. He is currently being transferred to the states on the USS New York.
Interestingly, the majority that wants to keep Gitmo open for these kind of military commissions is smaller, at 52%, with 36% wanting it closed. That’s down from May, when the answer to the question looked almost identical to this month’s Khattala question, 63/28 in favor of keeping it open. Other than a brief flip when Obama took office in January 2009 of 45/47, the series has maintained around a 3:2 – 2:1 ratio in favor of continued operation, with solid majorities.
Usually, that disconnect between Obama and the electorate hasn’t influenced their perception of his focus on fighting terrorism, although Fox hasn’t asked that question in years. In 2010, the last time Fox polled on that question, Obama had solid majorities that credited him with as much seriousness in fighting terrorism as George W. Bush. That’s flipped in this poll to 42/52 in this poll despite the capture of Abu Khattala. That may reflect the very long period of time it took to capture Khattala, who lived openly in Libya and granted numerous media interviews, or perhaps a reaction to the ISIS sweep in Iraq and the appearance of US impotence in the face of it.
Khattala is heading for a federal court in Washington DC instead of a military commission despite the unpopularity of that move, and he’s on his way to the US in Navy custody aboard the USS New York. The New York Times reports that questions are already being raised about the wisdom of this decision:
But the decision to bring him to the nation’s capital has raised questions about the logistics of holding a trial here and the experience of prosecutors to bring such a case.
Nearly all the high-profile terrorists tried in federal court since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks have been tried in New York or Alexandria, Va., across the Potomac River from Washington. The New York courthouse is connected directly to jails where the defendants are typically held, making it far easier to transport them for court appearances.
The Washington courthouse is not connected to a jail, so every time Mr. Abu Khattala has to appear in court the government will have to move him with armed guards in armored vehicles.
The streets of Washington are often filled with the motorcades of American politicians and foreign leaders. But the daily transportation of such a suspect could create the risk of an attack or sabotage, security experts said.
“On a road there is the potential for an ambush or some sort of scheme where someone could be freed,” said Raymond W. Kelly, the former New York police commissioner, who is now president of Cushman & Wakefield’s Risk Management Services division. “Common sense is that you try and cut down that risk if at all possible.”
The Times notes that the trial of the 9/11 plotters was originally supposed to take place in New York in part because of those superior security arrangements, but got canceled due to “other reasons.” But among those “other reasons” was the security of New York City during a trial of the 9/11 plotters, as well as outrage that these unlawful combatants would gain all of the same rights and privileges of American citizens in the civil court system.
Another question about the venue has to do with the lack of experience the US Attorney’s office in Washington DC has in prosecuting terrorist charges in federal court. The administration defended that in part by noting just how much experience they have in pursuing leak cases … which is a frequent criticism of this administration by clean-government activists, and in some cases the media when reporters have been targeted in court filings.
Small wonder that Americans would prefer to leave these proceedings to the military, which is the more appropriate authority during a war on terrorist networks. Now, if Washington would quit interfering with those commissions, perhaps we could get somewhere.
Update: Fox News’ Adam Housley reports that intelligence sources are less than impressed with the Khattala capture:
According to multiple sources on the ground, including some with direct knowledge of the operations to identify and hunt the Benghazi suspects, intelligence that could have been acted upon at times has been ignored or put on hold. Further, they say, the recent capture of Ahmed Abu Khattala — now on a ship bound for the U.S., expected to arrive this weekend — was an easy one.
“He was low-hanging fruit,” one source told Fox News. “We could have picked him up months and months ago and there was no change, or urgency to do this now.”
Former Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans were killed in the Sept. 11, 2012, attack. Khattala was long thought to be involved, but is also considered by some to be rather low on the suspect list.
According to sources, the United States has a “target list” that initially contained about 10 suspects identified within days of the attack and eventually grew to more than 20 as American Special Forces conducted surveillance in and around Benghazi.
The four groups on the “target list” include Ansar al-Sharia, with the top target being the “Emir of Ansar al Sharia,” Abu Sufian Ibrahim Ahmed Hamuda bin Qumu. He was a prisoner at Guantánamo Bay for more than five years and at the time was classified by analysts at the prison as “a probable member of Al Qaeda.” Despite this significant threat to American security and allies, bin Qumu was released as part of an amnesty for militants in 2008. Sources told Fox News that intelligence has shown his involvement in the attacks, and actionable intelligence has for some reason been ignored.
In this same group, but at the bottom of the list, is Khattala.
The latest Fox pollmade headlines yesterday with its cornucopia of bad news for Barack Obama and his administration. His approval fell to 41/54, and the IRS did a lot worse than that, which Noah broke down in detail on Wednesday. The Hill noticed another data point that portends trouble for one of Obama’s pet projects — the effort to close the detention center at Guantanamo Bay. Not only do a majority want it to stay open, but almost two-thirds of all respondents think the latest captured terrorist belongs in the military-commission system and not federal court:
More than 6 in 10 people believe the captured Benghazi attack suspect is an enemy combatant who should be tried by military commission.
According to a Fox News poll released Wednesday night, 63 percent want Ahmed Abu Khattala tried by military tribunal, and 29 percent believe he is a criminal who should be tried through the U.S. court system. Another 9 percent do not know.
Earlier this month, the U.S. military and FBI captured Abu Khattala, a “key figure” involved in the 2012 terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya, that killed U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans. He is the first suspect captured by the United States since the attack nearly two years ago.
Khattala is expected to face trial in the U.S. District Court of the District of Columbia and is faced with three criminal charges. He is currently being transferred to the states on the USS New York.
Interestingly, the majority that wants to keep Gitmo open for these kind of military commissions is smaller, at 52%, with 36% wanting it closed. That’s down from May, when the answer to the question looked almost identical to this month’s Khattala question, 63/28 in favor of keeping it open. Other than a brief flip when Obama took office in January 2009 of 45/47, the series has maintained around a 3:2 – 2:1 ratio in favor of continued operation, with solid majorities.
Usually, that disconnect between Obama and the electorate hasn’t influenced their perception of his focus on fighting terrorism, although Fox hasn’t asked that question in years. In 2010, the last time Fox polled on that question, Obama had solid majorities that credited him with as much seriousness in fighting terrorism as George W. Bush. That’s flipped in this poll to 42/52 in this poll despite the capture of Abu Khattala. That may reflect the very long period of time it took to capture Khattala, who lived openly in Libya and granted numerous media interviews, or perhaps a reaction to the ISIS sweep in Iraq and the appearance of US impotence in the face of it.
Khattala is heading for a federal court in Washington DC instead of a military commission despite the unpopularity of that move, and he’s on his way to the US in Navy custody aboard the USS New York. The New York Times reports that questions are already being raised about the wisdom of this decision:
But the decision to bring him to the nation’s capital has raised questions about the logistics of holding a trial here and the experience of prosecutors to bring such a case.
Nearly all the high-profile terrorists tried in federal court since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks have been tried in New York or Alexandria, Va., across the Potomac River from Washington. The New York courthouse is connected directly to jails where the defendants are typically held, making it far easier to transport them for court appearances.
The Washington courthouse is not connected to a jail, so every time Mr. Abu Khattala has to appear in court the government will have to move him with armed guards in armored vehicles.
The streets of Washington are often filled with the motorcades of American politicians and foreign leaders. But the daily transportation of such a suspect could create the risk of an attack or sabotage, security experts said.
“On a road there is the potential for an ambush or some sort of scheme where someone could be freed,” said Raymond W. Kelly, the former New York police commissioner, who is now president of Cushman & Wakefield’s Risk Management Services division. “Common sense is that you try and cut down that risk if at all possible.”
The Times notes that the trial of the 9/11 plotters was originally supposed to take place in New York in part because of those superior security arrangements, but got canceled due to “other reasons.” But among those “other reasons” was the security of New York City during a trial of the 9/11 plotters, as well as outrage that these unlawful combatants would gain all of the same rights and privileges of American citizens in the civil court system.
Another question about the venue has to do with the lack of experience the US Attorney’s office in Washington DC has in prosecuting terrorist charges in federal court. The administration defended that in part by noting just how much experience they have in pursuing leak cases … which is a frequent criticism of this administration by clean-government activists, and in some cases the media when reporters have been targeted in court filings.
Small wonder that Americans would prefer to leave these proceedings to the military, which is the more appropriate authority during a war on terrorist networks. Now, if Washington would quit interfering with those commissions, perhaps we could get somewhere.
Update: Fox News’ Adam Housley reports that intelligence sources are less than impressed with the Khattala capture:
According to multiple sources on the ground, including some with direct knowledge of the operations to identify and hunt the Benghazi suspects, intelligence that could have been acted upon at times has been ignored or put on hold. Further, they say, the recent capture of Ahmed Abu Khattala — now on a ship bound for the U.S., expected to arrive this weekend — was an easy one.
“He was low-hanging fruit,” one source told Fox News. “We could have picked him up months and months ago and there was no change, or urgency to do this now.”
Former Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans were killed in the Sept. 11, 2012, attack. Khattala was long thought to be involved, but is also considered by some to be rather low on the suspect list.
According to sources, the United States has a “target list” that initially contained about 10 suspects identified within days of the attack and eventually grew to more than 20 as American Special Forces conducted surveillance in and around Benghazi.
The four groups on the “target list” include Ansar al-Sharia, with the top target being the “Emir of Ansar al Sharia,” Abu Sufian Ibrahim Ahmed Hamuda bin Qumu. He was a prisoner at Guantánamo Bay for more than five years and at the time was classified by analysts at the prison as “a probable member of Al Qaeda.” Despite this significant threat to American security and allies, bin Qumu was released as part of an amnesty for militants in 2008. Sources told Fox News that intelligence has shown his involvement in the attacks, and actionable intelligence has for some reason been ignored.
In this same group, but at the bottom of the list, is Khattala.
Keep hope alive, says Jonathan Last. Not only has she been gaffe-ing up America’s airwaves — the “dead broke” remark, that gay-marriage meltdown interview with NPR, and some offhanded inanity about how smart the Russian reset was — but it’s all been happening against a backdrop of fiasco for American foreign policy.
How’d you like to be a former Secretary of State running on this record?
Obama — perhaps you’ve heard this? — got bin Laden. But other than that, his foreign policy record is disastrous: Libya, Egypt, Syria, the South China Sea, Crimea, Iraq, Afghanistan. It is difficult to find a spot on the globe that is better off today than when Obama took office. And yet Obama’s foreign policy is the only entry of substance on Hillary Clinton’s resume right now. Which means it will carry double the weight.
For Obama, Putin and Crimea are a mid-size political problem, ranked somewhere above the Keystone pipeline. For Clinton it’s an existential problem because foreign affairs are the only measures for her basic professional competence.
Think about it from the perspective of a Democratic voter: Hillary Clinton was wrong on Monica Lewinsky during the (Bill) Clinton years, wrong on gay marriage and Iraq during the Bush years, and now wrong on Putin and Syria and Egypt and the whole of American foreign policy during the Obama years. What has she ever been right on? And if you’re a Democratic voter, at some point you start to wonder, Can’t we do better?
Do you? Go watch this clip before you answer. My trust in the commentariat’s ability to gauge which gaffes are truly damaging among average voters and which aren’t is down to zero at this point, and yeah, I certainly include myself in “the commentariat.” The ultimate example of this, I think, is Obama’s “you didn’t build that” line during the 2012 campaign. Conservative media blew up over it, me included, to the point where it became a key theme at the GOP convention. Voters didn’t care, though, because most voters aren’t “builders.” They’re wage-earners. You could crap on entrepreneurs all day and they wouldn’t flinch, although it’d probably convince the Chamber of Commerce to pause from its amnesty campaigning for five minutes to write a check to your opponent.
My hunch is that nothing Hillary’s said this week has reduced her chances. It takes a big gaffe to register with average voters, and that gaffe has to reveal some perceived “deeper truth” about the candidate to have legs, I suspect. That’s why Romney’s “47 percent” comment outgrew the punditocracy and actually penetrated the electorate. It seemed to confirm the sense of him as a country-club Republican who looked down on the lower class. There’s potential, I guess, for Hillary’s “dead broke” comment and her stupid whining about how “brutal” American politics is to make her seem “out of touch,” but never forget that she’s got Bill around to give her a shot of blue-collar appeal when needed. If her last name weren’t “Clinton,” you might have something in drawing her as the consummate limousine liberal. As it is, I think it’s a glancing blow, nothing more, especially if the GOP ends up supporting the “out of touch” attack by, er, nominating a guy named Bush. As for the gay-marriage interview, it’s hard for me to believe liberals are going to give her too hard a time over any heresy knowing how difficult it is for a party to win the White House for three consecutive terms. Iraq is the perfect example. Her vote to invade helped Obama pull the upset in 2008, but no one thinks it’ll keep her from the nomination now. She’s clearly the strongest candidate Democrats have in an extremely difficult political climate. They’ll be prudent in deciding how severely to punish her for deviations from orthodoxy.
As for foreign policy, everything Last said is true — it looks like O’s going to toss her the keys to an agenda that’s been completely totaled. But … since when do voters elect presidents based on foreign policy? The only clear example I can think of recently is 2004 and it took 9/11 to make that happen. Even in 2008, when Obama ran as the anti-Bush and the GOP nominated the hawk di tutti hawks, McCain was competitive until the bottom dropped out on Wall Street. Unless Rand Paul shocks everyone in the primaries, the next Republican nominee is likely to run to Hillary’s right on foreign policy, which will set her up nicely to run a “no more Iraqs” campaign. (Repudiating her own vote for war will also rally the left.) That strategy might not work as well as it did in 2008, but barring any major terror attacks on the U.S., it’ll work well enough to neutralize most of the GOP’s foreign-policy criticism, especially if the economy picks up a bit in 2015-16 and gives her something else to talk about. You have two big problems running against her and neither has anything to do with the finer points of foreign policy. One: How do you neutralize Bill’s popularity? She’s going to run on his economic record, not O’s, and he’s going to help her — a lot, I’ll bet — with blue-collar voters. She may be a bad retail politician but he’s an exceptional one, and he’ll be campaigning as much as she will. What do you do about it? (Start by nominating a conspicuously blue-collar yourself, I’d guess.) Two: How do you neutralize the “it’s time for a woman” argument? That argument doesn’t depend on who’s gaffed worst or who was really responsible for security at the Benghazi consulate. My hunch is that the GOP will start this campaign with a single-digit lead among men and Hillary will start with a double-digit lead among women. Either we build heavily on the former or reduce the latter or we lose. Is the “dead broke” thing or Ukraine going to help do that?
Update: Tough but fair.
Does it matter whether Hillary is imploding when the GOP's big idea is a man in a squirrel suit?
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton embarked on a cable news blitz on Tuesday night which should dispel what remains of the notion that she is only engaged in a publicity tour for a book rather than a nascent presidential campaign. In those appearances, however, Clinton revealed her thinking on a variety of issues which indicate that she is well to the right of her party on a series of key issues.
During a town hall on CNN on Tuesday, Clinton was asked about a recent surge of unaccompanied minors rushing over the Mexican border. When asked what the United States should do about this predicament, Clinton endorsed deportation.
“They should be sent back as soon as it can be determined who responsible adults in their families are, because there are concerns whether all of them should be sent back,” Clinton said. “But I think all of them who can be should be reunited with their families.”
“We have so to send a clear message, just because your child gets across the border, that doesn’t mean the child gets to stay,” she continued. “So, we don’t want to send a message that is contrary to our laws or will encourage more children to make that dangerous journey.”
When the issue of marijuana use, both medical and recreational, was raised, Clinton hedged. She said that she does not believe “we’ve done enough research yet” on the benefits of medical marijuana and, while she endorsed a federalist approach to the recreational question, also expressed concerns about full legalization. “We have at least two states that are experimenting with that right now. I want to wait and see what the evidence is,” she said.
On foreign policy, Clinton did nothing to counter the prevailing notion on the left that she is far more hawkish than President Barack Obama. “I don’t think we should be retreating from the world,” Clinton said, in an implicit rebuke of the Obama administration’s unstated doctrine of global retrenchment.
She distanced herself from the present administration on Syria, noting that the White House should have armed the Syrian rebels “you know, two plus years ago.”
To the likely dismay of The New York Times editorial board, which praised the administration’s outreach to Iran on Tuesday, Clinton expressed doubts in the utility of a partnership with the Islamic Republic. “I am not prepared to say that we go in with Iran right now, until we have a better idea what we’re getting ourselves into,” Clinton said.
“What they (Iran) want to do in Baghdad is basically to envelop (Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki) in the Iranian embrace, maybe even use their own troops in Iraq, as they did in Syria. That is a very difficult position to put the United States in.”
Finally, on the persistent issue of the Benghazi attacks, Clinton legitimized a congressional select committee investigation by conceding that there are several unanswered questions about that event. “There are answers, not all of them, not enough, frankly,” Clinton said. “I’m still looking for answers, because it was a confusing and difficult time.”
The former secretary of state added that “there’s a lot we don’t know” about the nature of the attack, who participated, and what their motivation was.
In a subsequent appearance on Fox News on Tuesday, Clinton answered a series of hard questions about the Benghazi attack, her role that night, and how members of Obama’s administration responded. Not once did she bristle over the nature of her interrogation, nor did she suggest, as she has in the past, that Fox hosts’ lines of questioning were motivated by partisanship.
Similarly, when asked if she agreed with the president that this and other scandals, like that involving the IRS’s alleged targeting of conservative groups with undue scrutiny, were “phony,” Clinton appeared to suggest that she did not.
“Anytime the IRS is involved, for many people, it’s a real scandal,” she conceded.
On the NSA’s domestic surveillance techniques, Clinton defended, albeit obliquely, the practice of the collection of bulk metadata without a warrant. Though she did endorse “changes” to that practice in order to comport with the protections in the Fourth Amendment.
Only on the issue of gun control did Clinton stake out a rhetorical position which could be interpreted as to the left left of the present administration.
“We cannot let a minority of people — and that’s what it is, it is a minority of people — hold a viewpoint that terrorizes the majority of people,” Clinton said on CNN of the expanded background checks which failed to pass the House or the Senate in 2013. “We’re going to have to do a better job protecting the vast majority of our citizens, including our children, from that very, very, very small group that is unfortunately prone to violence, and now with automatic weapons can wreak so much more violence than they ever could have before.”
Conservative groups will be perfectly justified when they decry the incivility of characterizing gun rights advocates as terrorists and highlight Clinton’s inexplicable insistence that the federal government must do something about the public’s access to “automatic weapons.” Liberal voters, however, will be comforted by Clinton’s apparent zeal for stricter gun laws.
In a post-game analysis of Clinton’s appearance on CNN, former White House advisor and current Crossfire co-host Van Jones expressed concerns that Clinton may be alienating Obama Democrats with her center-left approach to a variety of pressing policy issues. These performances certainly did nothing to reassure progressives like MSNBC host Krystal Ball who Tuesday called Clinton the Democratic Party’s Mitt Romney; “tone-deaf” and “unrelatable” as she is.
In concert with a NBC/WSJ poll released on Tuesday which showed Clinton has fallen back to earth as she reenters the political fray, these appearances might give Clinton’s potential progressive challengers a reason to rethink their position on a 2016 bid.
Who knew the former Secretary of State was such a fan of getting answers? When Congress tried to get answers about the failures that led to the deaths of four Americans in Benghazi, Hillary Clinton infamously erupted in anger, asking “What difference at this point does it make?” Now that she’s preparing a run for the presidency, it apparently makes more difference now than it did then:
There are still too many unanswered questions about the attacks in Benghazi, Libya, that killed four Americans, former secretary of state Hillary Rodham Clinton said Tuesday, even as she welcomed the capture of a suspected mastermind of the assaults.
“There are answers, not all of them, not enough, frankly,” she said of the September 2012 attacks on a diplomatic and CIA compound that killed Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three others.
“I’m still looking for answers, because it was a confusing and difficult time,” Clinton said.
Her remarks, delivered during a CNN interview in Washington to promote her new book, appeared to lend credence to a central claim by Republicans that there is more to learn about the Benghazi tragedy. The Obama administration has said that after multiple investigations, there is little new to say about the attacks.
It’s also a statement against her own interests, and a sharp change from the past 18 months since the issuance of the Accountability Review Board. Since December 2012, Hillary has insisted that the ARB report was the sine qua non of Benghazi answers, but that report hasn’t convinced many Americans — perhaps because the ARB spent more time avoiding accountability than pursuing it. In this answer, Hillary has thrown away the ARB fig leaf and finally acknowledged that it didn’t provide any comprehensive answers at all, thanks to its relentless focus on everyone below the level of the actual decision-makers.
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says “the investigation needs to continue” into possible wrongdoing at the IRS — a position that puts her at odds with many fellow Democrats.
In an interview Tuesday night, Fox News’ Greta Van Susteren noted that President Obama has called allegations the IRS targeted conservative groups a “phony scandal.” Van Susteren added a simple question: “Is it a phony scandal?”
“Well, I think that any time the IRS is involved, for many people, it’s a real scandal,” Clinton began. “And I think, though, that there are some challenges that rightly need to be made to what is being said, and I assume that the inquiry will continue.”
“So I don’t have the details,” Clinton continued, “but I think what President Obama means is there really wasn’t a lot of evidence there that this was deliberate, but that’s why the investigation needs to continue.”
Hillary tried to salvage the “phony scandal” slam by saying it applies to “the circus” around the scandal, but that’s clearly not what the White House has said about it. Barack Obama went on national TV in February to proclaim that there’s “not even a smidgen of corruption” at the IRS — while Lerner takes the Fifth and the agency loses two years of e-mails related to the targeting practice. In the same interview, Obama also claimed that the White House had already shared all the answers on Benghazi, too. That argument was intended not to criticize “the circus” but to preclude the very investigations that Hillary now endorses, at least nominally.
This is nothing more than Hillary putting distance between herself and Obama … and on Benghazi, between Hillary 2012 and Hillary 2016.
Via the Free Beacon, make sure to read Ed’s post earlier to understand just how openly Khattala, the jihadi nabbed by U.S. forces over the weekend, has been living in Libya since the Benghazi attack. He was a prime suspect from the very beginning; he gave multiple interviews to western media in the years since, all but taunting the White House to come pick him up. The criminal charges against him were filed more than nine months ago. Only this month, for some reason, did the military finally move in. How come?
Two possibilities. One: The political situation on the ground in Libya changed enough to make a U.S intervention possible. My theory of why Obama laid off initially was because he didn’t want the weak Libyan government to have to cope with a backlash from the local militias if American troops swooped in and kidnapped a big-name jihadi or two. As long as we could monitor Khattala and make sure he didn’t run, we could wait until the government was in a stronger position to make our move. Problem is, the government’s only gotten weaker over time; lately, Libya’s devolved into a classic military-warlord-versus-jihadis struggle for control of the state. The White House may have concluded that there’d never be a better time to move on Khattala.
Two: This is exactly what it looks like, i.e. Obama’s trying to stop the bleeding he’s endured lately on foreign policy over Ukraine and Iraq and the Taliban Five by seizing an easy victory. I’m old enough to remember when U.S. counterterror developments, especially “terror alerts,” were greeted by our liberal betters online as obviously political gambits by the Bush administration, designed to distract the public from more important matters. Questioning the timing was standard practice for the lefty blogosphere circa 2006. Today, of course, it’s the height of crankery to believe that a guy whose party is in deep trouble in the midterms, and who’s proved before that he’s not above well-timed executive action for electoral ends, might have given this order with an eye to putting some good news on the front page for once. That’s what Rosen’s getting at here. Jen “Promise of Hashtag” Psaki has no real answer, of course.
The White House is enjoying a rare piece of good news in a season of disarray on foreign policy and national security. The US have finally captured the first suspected ringleader of the attack on the Benghazi consulate 21 months ago. US special forces seized Ahmed Abu Khattala in a raid this weekend in Libya, which has now been made public after all personnel have left the country:
U.S. Special Operations forces captured one of the suspected ringleaders of the terrorist attacks in Benghazi in a secret raid in Libya over the weekend, the first time one of the accused perpetrators of the 2012 assault has been apprehended, according to U.S. officials.
The officials said Ahmed Abu Khattala was captured near Benghazi by American troops, working alongside the FBI, following months of planning, and was now in U.S. custody “in a secure location outside Libya.” The officials said there were no casualties in the operation, and that all U.S. personnel involved have safely left Libya.
Khattala’s apprehension is a major victory for the Obama administration, which has been criticized for having failed so far to bring those responsible for the Benghazi attacks to justice.
One jubilant official called Khattala’s capture “a reminder that when the United States says it’s going to hold someone accountable and he will face justice, this is what we mean.”
Can’t blame them for being jubilant, but it’s not as if this should have taken 21 months, either. Khattala lived openly in Libya after the deadly attack on the State Department and CIA facilities, enjoying himself too. Michael Calderone noted last December for Huffington Post the oddity of seeing Khattala giving media interviews in Benghazi and elsewhere while the Obama administration insisted that it was doing everything it could to bring the attackers to justice:
While the U.S. government has so far been unable to catch Khattala, journalists haven’t had trouble locating him since shortly after the attack that killed four Americans, including Ambassador Christopher Stevens.
Last year, I wrote how both the New York Times and Reuters sat down with Khattala around the time he was first considered a suspect. In those reports — and in more recent ones — journalists have noted the disconnect between his status as a wanted man and casually meeting in public.
On Oct. 18, 2012, New York Times reporter David Kirkpatrick ”spent two leisurely hours”with Khattala “at a crowded luxury hotel, sipping a strawberry frappe on a patio and scoffing at the threats coming from the American and Libyan governments.”
Reuters caught up with Khattala the same day and similarly reported that he didn’t appear overly concerned. “Sitting with a friend in the restaurant of a Benghazi hotel, the 41-year-old, sporting a red felt hat and a full salt-and-pepper beard, laughed gently,” wrote Hadeel Al Shalchi and Ghaith Shennib.
And that’s not the last time Khattala popped up in the western media. In August, CNN’s Arwa Damon spent two hours with him at a well-known hotel coffee shop in Benghazi. When asked on-air about locating Khattala, Damon said he’s “not a man who is in hiding.”
So yes, this is a win for the US, but it’s still going to raise questions about how much effort the US put into capturing Khattala until now. At the time of Calderone’s piece, the White House insisted that they couldn’t act without destabilizing the government in Tripoli. What’s changed since then? Last week, incoming PM Ahmad Maiteeq offered his resignation after a court ruled his election was unconstitutional and current PM Abdullah Al Thani refused to recognize his legitimacy. This hardly seems like a propitious time for a Special Forces raid if the previous delays were taken to promote stability.
The lack of sufficient vetting for security at the Benghazi consulate turns out to be the rule rather than the exception in the Hillary Clinton-run State Department. After the sacking of the facility in which security contractors fled from or possibly participated in the attack, State’s Inspector General conducted a review of six of the highest-risk US diplomatic facilities in the world. All six failed to follow requirements for vetting and oversight of security personnel:
A newly completed internal audit of security contracts at U.S. embassies abroad found that none of those examined had fully complied with vetting and other requirements for contractors who provide the first line of defense against attack.
The audit, to be released Friday by the State Department’s Inspector General, was conducted in the wake of the 2012 attacks on the U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya, that left four Americans dead. Local guards contracted to secure the perimeter and entry to the diplomatic compound there were found to have fled or failed to perform their duties.
Of six embassies selected for review based on location and terrorism threat level, “none . . . fully performed all vetting requirements” for local guards, placing “embassies and personnel at risk,” the inspector general audit said. Chief diplomatic security officers at five of the six were said to have performed “inadequate oversight” of local guard vetting.
The performance of local security guards was a significant factor raised by the State Department’s Accountability Review Board examination of the Benghazi incident. The ARB report said that security dependence on a local Libyan militia and an inexperienced British-based firm that hired local guards was “misplaced.”
The IG inspections took place between March and September 2013, but the records checks go back to 2010. In most cases, records were either incomplete or nonexistent. One location employed a guard for months before discovering that he used multiple identities to hide his criminal record. At another, State paid more than a million dollars for wages to a contractor before finding out that the guards didn’t get paid at all — over a three-year period.
Between 1998 and 2012, there were at least 272 significant attacks on U.S. diplomatic facilities and personnel, according to the report, including the deadly assault in Benghazi. A Senate intelligence committee found that during the months leading up to September 2012, a temporary mission facility in Benghazi had been vandalized and attacked by guards assigned to protect the outpost. …
This week’s release of Hillary Clinton‘s book “Hard Choices” also has fueled the debate. The former secretary of state wrote that she takes responsibility for the deaths in Benghazi, but she rebuked her critics, accusing them of politicizing the tragedy.
In an interview with ABC News that aired Monday, Mrs. Clinton fielded questions about whether she could have made the diplomatic compound in Benghazi safer.
Mrs. Clinton said she gave direct instructions to professionals with security expertise but that she was “not equipped to sit and look at blueprints, to determine where the blast walls need to be or where the reinforcements need to be.”
Nor is this the only IG report to which Hillary will have to respond. In April, a separate investigation showed that State had “misplaced” $6 billion, most of it during her tenure as Secretary of State:
The State Department misplaced and lost some $6 billion due to the improper filing of contracts during the past six years, mainly during the tenure of former Secretary of State Hilary Clinton, according to a newly released Inspector General report.
The $6 billion in unaccounted funds poses a “significant financial risk and demonstrates a lack of internal control over the Department’s contract actions,” according to the report.
The alert, originally sent on March 20 and just released this week, warns that the missing contracting funds “could expose the department to substantial financial losses.”
The report centered on State Department contracts worth “more than $6 billion in which contract files were incomplete or could not be located at all,” according to the alert.
“The failure to maintain contract files adequately creates significant financial risk and demonstrates a lack of internal control over the Department’s contract actions,” the alert states.
The situation “creates conditions conducive to fraud, as corrupt individuals may attempt to conceal evidence of illicit behavior by omitting key documents from the contract file,” the report concluded.
That $6 billion might have come in handy for vetting security personnel, no? None of this adds up to an argument for putting Hillary Clinton in charge of the entire executive branch and national security. If the House select committee on Benghazi doesn’t take an interest in these IG reports, Democrats can be sure that Republicans will in other contexts. Whether these issues tie directly to Benghazi or not, they all still go to the claims of Hillary’s executive experience and competence, and make minced meat of them.
