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1. Who did pen the talking points? Ben Rhodes obviously, but who else?
2. If you can now downgrade the CIA station chief's belief as of 9/15/12 that the attack did not arise out of a spontaneous protest over a movie as merely his "opinion," how could the authors of the talking points rely on the CIA's mere "opinion" previously as the "official assessment"? Why did the authors ignore the "opinion" as of 9/15/12? You still have a real problem here - they were told by 9/15 at the latest there was a serious problem with their movie narrative by the people they claim they were relying on and yet they went with it. It was Sunday 9/16 when Rice first went on the Sunday shows, after the authors were advised the narrative was incorrect (i.e. a lie), and yet the administration went with it. Even if you give the administration the benefit of the doubt here, you have a serious time line problem with going out with this false narrative on 9/16 and later.
3. And who at the CIA was of the "opinion" that the attacks were caused by the movie prior to 9/15/12? I'm still unclear how this narrative developed after the initial immediate belief was it was a terrorist attack and they knew the specific group that was responsible.
1) CIA analysts in the United States penned the talking points. This has been testified to.
2) The downgrade of the CIA stations chief's belief occurred within the CIA. The authors of the talking points, within the CIA, are the ones that downgraded or downplayed the station chief's viewpoint. Again this has been testified to. It is (or was) also apparently official CIA policy to not overweight field reports. This was pointed out as a flaw in the process in the Senate intelligence committee report. The authors, in the CIA, were given a chance to alter their assessment based on the input from the CIA station chief. They did not alter their initial assessment.
The CIA didn't change their official assessment for a couple of weeks. The Senate intelligence committee report also dinged them for the length of time it took them to revise their initial assessment.
3) Read the Senate intelligence committee report. Morell's testimony also addressed this issue. The CIA had reports and intercepted communications that led them to believe that it started as a demonstration that evolved into attack. They also had reports that it was a terrorist attack from the beginning. Based on the CIA's initial assessment, they clearly put too much stock in the wrong information.
immediately attributing the attack to a specific terrorist group on 9/11/12
to a CIA talking point memo attributing it to a spontaneous protest over an internet movie on 9/14/12, apparently penned by Mike Morrell.
And that question (to the extent that it almost reflects what really happened) is the single most answered question in this whole affair. Assessments change as additional information is accessed and incorporated.
Insert "Duh" here.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MUTGR
Mike Morell recently testified he learned by 9/14/12 (the same day) that there was no protest and blaming the attack on a protest was likely false, yet they didn't take that talking point out:
What a shock. Assessments like these are the results of a team, not an individual. What any one person thinks at any given point in time is input, not synthesis.
I pray to god that none of you are ever put in a position of authority where you are required to do that kind of work.
It amazes me that some people still want to defend the Obama administration over such a blatant lie and deception. Hilary looked into the faces of the dead American's relatives, and lied to them days after the attack, blaming it on a youtube video. That doesn't bother you at all?
At the very least, Biden's comment to the grieving relatives was extremely inappropriate:
"'Did your son always have balls the size of cue balls?"
The whole thing stinks rotten. Why did Obama get so angry and defensive whenever Romney tried to make it a talking point in the debate? That's usually the reaction of someone who is guilty. Thankfully, Obama had the moderator to rescue him on that one.
Is it a lie if it is what they believed at the time. There were lots of people claiming a lot of things, most of them wrong. The Obama Administration went with the CIA initial assessment.
Actually, the time line is a problem. The state department immediately blamed it on a terrorist group, not a spontaneous protest. The CIA talking point email wasn't distributed until the morning of 9/14/12 - and it is now questionable, based on Morell's own testimony, why the movie was blamed at all:
You keep saying that, but it is (of course) not true.
One state department email (not "The State Department") references the terrorist group that immediately took credit for the attack. The video was already being talked about as the likley cause of the events in the press within hours of the events taking place.
The U.S. ambassador to Libya and three other members of the embassy staff were killed after the protesters threw rockets at the U.S. consulate in Benghazi on Tuesday. Riots have cropped up in Benghazi and in Cairo over an amateur U.S. film that is seen as being offensive to Islam. President Obama "strongly condemned the outrageous attack" while U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton expressed "profound sadness." The ambassador, Christopher Stevens, was paying a short visit to Benghazi when the consulate came under attack. He reportedly died from smoke inhalation after rocket-propelled grenades were thrown at the building and it caught fire. An angry mob stormed the U.S. embassy in Cairo on Tuesday, pulling down the American flag and then attempting to burn it outside the embassy walls.
It's also interesting too that Morell landed a job at CBS news, working for Ben Rhodes' brother.
What we don't yet know, and may never, is what role politics played in the CIA initially coming up with the internet movie protest narrative - remember the State Departments initial assessment, with no apparent doubt, was it was a terrorist strike and they named the specific group that did it.
What we do know is that the CIA people closest to the ground were telling Morell by 9/14 and 9/15 that it was a false narrative - just as Rice was being prepped. We also know Rice went out on the Sunday show on 9/16 and the administration continued with that narrative thereafter. In fact, I'm not sure the administration every really admitted it was false.
We also know the administration refused to produce the 9/14/12 Rhodes email initially and only after being ordered to do so by a court. They also retroactively tried to change its classification from non-classified to classified to avoid producing it.
I'm not suggesting this is impeachable. Probably should be, but as a political matter, it's not achievable.
Yet it is a very serious cover up over a situation in which Americans died and in fact, were left to die.
The record needs to be made to make this a part of Obama's legacy, and part of Hillary's Clinton's record when she runs for President.
I don't know if I would call it blame, but if you want to follow the chain of evidence on the evolution of the Administration's characterization of the attack in Benghazi it leads back to the CIA.
The administration is blaming the CIA for the false talking points, and its clear Morell is taking the hit for the CIA and the administration:
The only people trying to "blame" anybody are the right-wing propagandists trying desperate;y to blame the President and Secretary Clinton. The CIA talking points are not blameworthy. They were a work in progress and simply a snapshot of the CIA doing its job at that moment.
What you have highlighted, simply because he did not serve in that capacity during this attack, does not
mean he would not have insight into what could have been done, simply from his rank and expertise.
Therefore his opinion and/or facts as he sees them are valuable.
So he can speculate better than a Corporal could. It's still just speculation, offered after the fact at a moment when no bullets are flying.
Quote:
Originally Posted by pollyrobin
And the part " we have no evidence that the Dept of State officials delayed the decision to deploy
what few resources DOD had available", doesn't wash either. I think they were incomepetent to act,
period. The result is evidence enough.
It's kinda droll, you calling senior officials incompetent when yesterday you couldn't tell the difference between the Navy and the Marines. Forgive the rest of us if we consider your judgment on their competence less than compelling.
What you have highlighted, simply because he did not serve in that capacity during this attack, does not
mean he would not have insight into what could have been done, simply from his rank and expertise.
Therefore his opinion and/or facts as he sees them are valuable.
And the part " we have no evidence that the Dept of State officials delayed the decision to deploy
what few resources DOD had available", doesn't wash either. I think they were incomepetent to act,
period. The result is evidence enough.
What I think you are spinning, is that they talked for days about the youtube video because they
ran on CIA assessment of that is what triggered the attack.
I used to hate it when folks would call me a Paulette so I don't call anyone anything
Those quotes are coming from Buck McKeon who as his statement points out his committee "interviewed more than a dozen witnesses in the operational chain of command that night, yielding thousands of pages of transcripts, e-mails, and other documents." Those interviewed included Lovell's commander, the commander of AFRICOM. I think those in the chain of command are in a better position to know what actually occurred, especially when it is backed up by evidence.
What evidence is there that the State Department delayed the decision to deploy? The committee in the House responsible for knowing such things claims it never happened.
Here is what Susan Rice said on ABC, the other show transcripts are available at the same site.
But our current best assessment, based on the information that we have at present, is that, in fact, what this began as, it was a spontaneous — not a premeditated — response to what had transpired in Cairo. In Cairo, as you know, a few hours earlier, there was a violent protest that was undertaken in reaction to this very offensive video that was disseminated. We believe that folks in Benghazi, a small number of people came to the embassy to — or to the consulate, rather, to replicate the sort of challenge that was posed in Cairo. And then as that unfolded, it seems to have been hijacked, let us say, by some individual clusters of extremists who came with heavier weapons, weapons that as you know in — in the wake of the revolution in Libya are — are quite common and accessible. And it then evolved from there.
Her comments are very consistent with the CIA assessment. No spinning is required. Notice that the video connection comes from the connection to Cairo. The CIA linked Benghazi to Cairo.
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so I don't call anyone anything
