Almost 3 Years After Benghazi: Families of Victims Still Have Many Questions
Michael Ingmire, uncle of one of the four Benghazi victims (Sean Smith), recently wrote in The Daily Signal:
“Most news accounts of the attack on Benghazi say it cost the lives of U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans.
My nephew Sean Smith was one of those other Americans.
It’s been a frustrating two years since Sean died serving his country on Sept. 11, 2012. There have been countless news reports, multiple congressional investigations and more than one set of recommendations that either should’ve been followed before the attacks or that should be addressed going forward.
But when it comes to definitive answers on what happened, how and why my nephew died that night, and what might be done to prevent such tragedies in the future, we’re still waiting and wondering and hurting and asking.”
Ingmire continued:
“We’re slow to even find out what went wrong. And when we do, and we realize this could’ve been prevented if we had acted on past recommendations, we’re even slower to hold people accountable.
There are some questions I have for the Benghazi Select Committee:
- Why was Stevens sent to this dangerous part of the world on the anniversary of 9/11 without adequate security? Why didn’t then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton personally oversee the security guidelines or even review the risk assessment for this “diplomatic mission” facility?
- For that matter, why has Secretary of State John Kerry still not appointed an undersecretary of diplomatic security, as has been recommended in previous Accountability Review Board reports? Will he be called to testify? Will Hillary Clinton or Leon Panetta?
- Finally, what were we doing in Benghazi in the first place?
The most disturbing lessons about Benghazi are that the U.S. government has learned nothing, and the most important recommendations of the Benghazi panel, as well as previous Accountability Review Board reports, still have not been implemented.”
Ingmire’s commentary was published the same week that Islamist militia leader Ahmed Abu Khatallah (and the alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2012 Benghazi terror attack) pleaded not guilty in the attack.
Of course, as we all know, the Benghazi attack, which the Obama administration initially blamed on an anti-Muslim video produced by a filmmaker in the United States, has become a political controversy that has led to an ongoing investigation.
