Benghazi-CIA Connection
Oh what a tangled web we weave,
When first we practice to deceive! – Sir Walter Scott Marmion, Canto vi. Stanza 17.
We know that on the night of September 11, 2012 when the Special Mission Compound (SMC) in Benghazi, Libya was under armed assault in a terrorist attack, two CIA contract employees, Navy SEALS Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty disobeyed the stand down order they were given at their workplace, the CIA annex just a mile away, the two rushed to the aid of their fellow Americans and did their best to defend them and the compound until the military assistance they fully expected finally made it to them. We know they waited hours for it to show, sadly neither survived the assault. The mortar round that took both of their lives also shattered the leg of diplomatic security agent David Ubben who had run to the SMC as well. He was up on the roof where he waited twenty hours until a plane was sent to rescue him and retrieve the bodies of Woods and Doherty. When they pulled Woods’ slumped body off his weapon they found him in a pool of blood that had congealed, the time it took for help to finally arrive.
What we do not know is just how long CIA activity was going on at that annex. I have been unable to get any kind of information about it, no surprise of course. But it did come as a surprise to me to have Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) admit that before the night of the attack, she had no idea the CIA had an annex in the area. Not just a United States Senator who votes on the authorization and appropriations legislation for the Central Intelligence Agency but the Chairwoman of the Senate Select Intelligence Committee? She didn’t know this CIA installation existed? In the report on the Benghazi attack her committee issued, we learned that General Carter Ham, then head of AFRICOM, he was also unaware of the CIA annex when the assault occurred. We seem to have a good many on the record admitting they were unaware, so then just who did know the annex existed, who was in charge, what was going on there?
In the upcoming hearings of the special select committee created to fully investigate the entire event, it is hoped that we may hear from then-CIA Director David Patareus. He had been scheduled to testify under oath to the Senate Armed Services Committee but hours before he was due to be in his seat, conveniently timed public revelation he had had an extra-marital affair cancelled that appearance. He did testify later to a joint panel of House and Senate members in a closed-door briefing which he was spirited in and out of, no press access at all. Some members of that panel made comments to the press afterward, the Democrats happy that Patraeus seemed to confirm the legitimacy of Amb. Susan Rice’s comments regarding the cause of the attack as she portrayed them the Sunday after the event. Since we now know that her scripted words did not accurately portray the information the CIA had immediately and afterward, will Patraeus be brought back to be questioned as to which version of fact he wants to hold to? As then-CIA Director, will he be asked about the annex, when it was established? What activity was going on there?
Leon Panetta has also provided testimony regarding that night, however, it only consisted of information he had in his position as Secretary of Defense. But his immediate post prior to that was as CIA Director, in fact, he and Patraeus merely swapped job titles and duties after Obama’s re-election; I thought this rather odd. But since Panetta was the Director before Patraeus, he has knowledge of when that annex was established and what its activity was. Sec. Panetta should also be called to testify before Rep. Gowdy’s committee since the annex played a role that night. Who gave the stand down order that was passed along the chain of command to the agent in charge at the annex such that he ordered it but Woods and Doherty disobeyed it? Why did not the CIA Inspector General do any investigation when the terrorist attack made its way to the annex from the SMC where it started? Two CIA employees were killed in the attack and there have been other CIA-whistleblower complaints, yet to date, no official investigation was opened nor conducted. Why? And why if there was to be no investigation did then-Director Patraeus make a secret trip to Benghazi before he was to appear in front of the Senate? Where is the report he was to have been working on before the scandalous disclosure? There has to be some reason that so much secrecy and false narratives have been created over this whole that we put under the umbrella title of Benghazi.
