CNN Sources: 3 al Qaeda operatives took part in Benghazi attack

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jlprk said:
280 Marines died in Beriut in 1983, and I don't remember any Republicans demanding an inquiry of Reagan. Reagan sold Saddam the WMDs Saddam used later, and shipped Los Angeles its crack epidemic from the Nicaraguan war trade, yet Republicans fought the Iran-Contra investigation tooth and nail to keep it secret. After Pearl Harbor, Roosevelt had a big inquiry and fired generals and admirals within weeks, but Bush even years after 9-11 wouldn't allow a Congressional investigation.

As for Nixon, yes, your memory is fine, his administration encouraged the Watergate investigation, there was no Saturday Night Massacre when he fired everyone who wouldn't cover it up, and Pat Buchanan and Gen. Haig didn't climb the Republican Party ladder by sticking with their boss man. Good thing Republicans were so honest.
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Had the Reagan administration provably and knowingly withheld information about that bombing, and in fact lied brazenly for days afterward, I'm quite sure there would have been some fallout.
 
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world...f311d4-b677-11e2-aa9e-a02b765ff0ea_story.html

Special ops halted from responding to Benghazi attacks, U.S. diplomat says


As the weakly protected U.S. diplomatic compound in eastern Libya came under attack the night of Sept. 11, 2012, the deputy head of the embassy in Tripoli 600 miles away sought in vain to get the Pentagon to scramble fighter jets over Benghazi in a show of force that might have averted a second attack on a nearby CIA complex.

Hours later, according to excerpts of the account by the U.S. diplomat, Gregory Hicks, American officials in the Libyan capital sought permission to deploy four U.S. special operations troops to Benghazi aboard a Libyan military aircraft early the next morning. They were told to stand down.

Congressional investigators released a partial transcript of Hicks’s testimony Monday in advance of a hearing Wednesday at which he is scheduled to appear. His remarks are the first public account from a U.S. official who was in Libya at the time of the attacks about the options that were weighed as militants mobbed the American diplomatic outpost and CIA station in Benghazi, killing U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other government employees. . .
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What is offensive is the gullibility of the American people to either no care about the truth, or to be duped by a pathological liar.

... And the suggestion that anybody in my team, whether the secretary of state, our U.N. ambassador, anybody on my team would play politics or mislead when we’ve lost four of our own, Governor, is offensive. That’s not what we do. That’s not what I do as president. That’s not what I do as commander in chief.”

-Obama at the second 2013 Presidential debate.
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jlprk said:
280 Marines died in Beriut in 1983, and I don't remember any Republicans demanding an inquiry of Reagan. Reagan sold Saddam the WMDs Saddam used later, and shipped Los Angeles its crack epidemic from the Nicaraguan war trade, yet Republicans fought the Iran-Contra investigation tooth and nail to keep it secret. After Pearl Harbor, Roosevelt had a big inquiry and fired generals and admirals within weeks, but Bush even years after 9-11 wouldn't allow a Congressional investigation.

As for Nixon, yes, your memory is fine, his administration encouraged the Watergate investigation, there was no Saturday Night Massacre when he fired everyone who wouldn't cover it up, and Pat Buchanan and Gen. Haig didn't climb the Republican Party ladder by sticking with their boss man. Good thing Republicans were so honest.
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We didn't sell Saddam WMDs. We didn't sell him the MIG fighters in his air force. We didn't sell him the SCUD missiles he launched at Israel. We didn't sell him the Silkworm missiles he fired at our troops when W ordered him taken out. We didn't sell him the AK-47 rifles his armies used. We didn't sell him the RPGs his armies and later the insurgents used.

You really play loose with the truth.

You can read the Riegle Report for yourself. Not only does it find we did not sell WMDs to Saddam (that he used later), but that Saddam used chemical weapons against our troops with Gulf War Syndrome the result.


http://www.gulfweb.org/bigdoc/report/riegle1.html

A Report of Chairman Donald W. Riegle, Jr. and Ranking Member Alfonse M. D'Amato of the Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs with Respect to Export Administration
United States Senate, 103d Congress, 2d Session
May 25, 1994

Iraq was believed to have been manufacturing mustard gas at a production facility in Samarra since the early 1980s. It also began an extensive program to produce nerve agent precursor chemicals, taking advantage of its own natural resources. Phosphate mines/industries are at Akashat, Al Qaim, and Rutbah. The Iraqi Al Fallujah gas warfare complex was believed to be capable of producing up to 1,000 tons per month of Sarin, as well as the nerve agent VX. In addition, with the assistance of foreign firms, Iraq developed the capability to experiment with hydrogen cyanide, cyanogen chloride, and lewisite. By the start of the Gulf War, Iraqi forces had developed chemical delivery capabilities for rifle grenades, 81mm mortars, 152mm, 130mm, and 122mm artillery rounds; bombs; 90mm air-to-ground rockets; 216 kilogram FROG and 555 kilogram SCUD warheads; and possibly land mines and cruise missiles.

On July 30, 1991, Ambassador Rolf Ekeus, director of the United Nations Special Commission on Iraq (UNSCOM), charged with overseeing the elimination of Iraq's chemical and nuclear arsenals, told the Security Council that the U.N. inspectors had found chemical warheads armed with nerve gas. Mr. Ekeus claimed that some warheads found were already fitted onto the SCUD missiles.

Iraq's chemical warfare capability was known to the U.S. government before the war. A month before the war began, then Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) director William Webster estimated that Iraq possessed 1,000 tons of poisonous chemical agents, much of it capable of being loaded into two types of missiles: the FROG (Free Rocket Over Ground) and the SCUD B(SS-1). Jane's Strategic Weapons Systems lists warhead capabilities for the FROG-7 as high explosive (HE), chemical, or nuclear, and for the Iraqi versions of the SCUD as probably HE or chemical.

...

Committee staff has learned that Iraq may have acquired any one of a number of the Soviet binary novachok ("newcomer") series of chemical warfare agent compounds or information relevant to the development of those compounds. This series of chemical warfare agents reportedly contains both lethal and debilitating agents. According to a confidential Committee source, if the Iraqis had obtained samples of these compounds they could be easily analyzed and produced with readily available materials. Several of these compounds are described as agents that even in microdoses can have long lasting effects. These agents are described as inducing myosis, vomiting, memory loss, involuntary motions and internal organ dysfunction. Many of these materials are also described as having mutagenic effects. These materials are, according to the source, stored in the lipids (body fats) and have no known antidotes. In addition, according to the Committee source, the Soviets were believed to have conducted research in a number of dioxin-based chemical warfare agents, and on at least one agent that could be used to contaminate drinking water supplies. Committee staff is conducting further inquiries to determine if Iraq may have had access to any of these compounds.

...

The following is a detailed listing of biological materials, provided by the American Type Culture Collection, which were exported to agencies of the government of Iraq pursuant to the issueance of an export licensed by the U.S. Commerce Department:

(long list of biological agents)

The fears and the precautions taken prior to the Gulf War were not the product of excessive hysteria. Five United Nations reports have confirmed the use of chemical warfare agents in the Iran-Iraq War. Use of chemical weapons against both the Kurds and Shiite Moslems within Iraq is well documented. Press reports also document Iraqi readiness to use these weapons against Coalition forces during the Persian Gulf War.
In April 1993, two U.S. based human rights organizations confirmed that they had found residues of chemical weapons used by the Iraqi government of Saddam Hussein against Kurdish village in northern Iraq in 1988. These groups, Physicians for Human Rights and Human Rights Watch, said they had used advanced analytical techniques to discover the presence of mustard gas and the nerve gas Sarin. Those chemical weapons reportedly were dropped by aircraft on August 25, 1988 and killed four people in the Kurdish village of Birjinni. Testimony from survivors of the Birjinni bombing, who said victims of the raids died writhing and coughing blood, led to accusations that Iraq had gassed its own citizens as part of a campaign against rebellious Kurds that killed tens of thousands. This was the first time that scientists had been able to prove the use of chemical weapons, and especially a nerve gas, through the analysis of environmental residue acquired years after such an attack occurred.

Soil samples were gathered from the 1988 bombing sites and then delivered to a British laboratory. Chemists at Porton Down found traces of mustard gas and Sarin. Dr. Graham Pearson, director of the British Chemical and Biological Defense Establishment, verified these results and confirmed the samples were taken from bomb craters near the northern Iraqi village of Birjinni in June 1992. The byproducts of the breakdown of these poisons are so specific that they provide a "unique fingerprint" in chemical analysis that points directly to a poison gas attack.

An earlier attack had been reported on March 17, 1988 on the village of Halabja. Amnesty International reported that chemical weapons were used in an attack by Iraq, in which "some 5,000 Kurds were killed within an hour." A U.N. team sent to investigate the attack found evidence of chemical weapons, although they did not rule on who carried out the attack on the town, which had been occupied by Iran since mid-March.

On September 26, 1993, Shiite rebels living in the southern Iraqi marshlands reported an early morning shelling attack by Iraqi forces. The eyewitnesses, who spoke with a New York Times reporter, mentioned that the shells landed with a thud "and not the usual explosion" sending up white clouds. The artillery attack was followed by a ground assault by Iraqi troops who were equipped with gas masks.

A Shiite rebel claimed that upon entering one of the Iraqi armored personnel carriers they found battle orders calling for a chemical attack. Rebel leaders provided a copy of the captured orders. Written in Arabic on the twenty-sixth of September, the orders, numbered 1-15, instructed the Iraqi soldiers to use chemical weapons to "retake the village" and that "each soldier must be instructed on how to respond during the chemical attack."

After the attack, some villagers returned for their belongings, but there was nothing left. They discovered that trees and plants had withered and yellowed. Furthermore, "the cats, the dogs, the birds and even the water snakes had died. But for some reason the victims had been removed by the troops. We saw no bodies."
 
This worked before, so I see why you Repugs are trying it again. Problem is, Clinton won't be running. Way too old.

Maybe you can get the most conservative of the only 3 networks, ABC, to get its most conservative star Ted Koppel, not its house liberal Sam Donaldson, to start a 5-night per week reminder, Nightline, which starts every single night with Koppel's whiny voice trying to boom, "DAAAAAYYY....TWO HUNDRED AND EIGHTY THREE!!!!!!!!!! TODAY'S HOSTAGE DEVELOPMENTS FOLLOW THIS BREAK!!!!!!". Then there's an ad for Noxema or GAF cameras or something, then his stupid 15-minute nightly diatribe against Carter commences.
 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_and_weapons_of_mass_destruction

In the early 1970s, Saddam Hussein ordered the creation of a clandestine nuclear weapons program.[24] Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programs were assisted by a wide variety of firms and governments in the 1970s and 1980s.[25][26][27][28][29] As part of Project 922, German firms such as Karl Kobe helped build Iraqi chemical weapons facilities such as laboratories, bunkers, an administrative building, and first production buildings in the early 1980s under the cover of a pesticide plant. Other German firms sent 1,027 tons of precursors of mustard gas, sarin, tabun, and tear gasses in all. This work allowed Iraq to produce 150 tons of mustard agent and 60 tons of Tabun in 1983 and 1984 respectively, continuing throughout the decade. Five other German firms supplied equipment to manufacture botulin toxin and mycotoxin for germ warfare. In 1988, German engineers presented centrifuge data that helped Iraq expand its nuclear weapons program. Laboratory equipment and other information was provided, involving many German engineers. All told, 52% of Iraq's international chemical weapon equipment was of German origin. The State Establishment for Pesticide Production (SEPP) ordered culture media and incubators from Germany's Water Engineering Trading.[30]

The United States exported support for Iraq during the Iran–Iraq war over $500 million worth of dual use exports to Iraq that were approved by the Commerce department. Among them were advanced computers, some of which were used in Iraq's nuclear program.[31] The non-profit American Type Culture Collection and the Centers for Disease Control sold or sent biological samples of anthrax, West Nile virus and botulism to Iraq up until 1989, which Iraq claimed it needed for medical research. A number of these materials were used for Iraq's biological weapons research program, while others were used for vaccine development.[32] For example, the Iraqi military settled on the American Type Culture Collection strain 14578 as the exclusive anthrax strain for use as a biological weapon, according to Charles Duelfer.[33]
 
jlprk said:
This worked before, so I see why you Repugs are trying it again. Problem is, Clinton won't be running. Way too old.

Maybe you can get the most conservative of the only 3 networks, ABC, to get its most conservative star Ted Koppel, not its house liberal Sam Donaldson, to start a 5-night per week reminder, Nightline, which starts every single night with Koppel's whiny voice trying to boom, "DAAAAAYYY....TWO HUNDRED AND EIGHTY THREE!!!!!!!!!! TODAY'S HOSTAGE DEVELOPMENTS FOLLOW THIS BREAK!!!!!!". Then there's an ad for Noxema or GAF cameras or something, then his stupid 15-minute nightly diatribe against Carter commences.
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You consistently make up stuff or claim things are fact that are patently false.

Like we sold Iraq WMDs they used later.

And now you rant about Ted Koppel, the guy who wasted hours of his show reading the names of US soldiers killed in Iraq.
 
I made up nothing in this thread. Just because you can quickly copy and paste the Company line proves nothing.

Now if you want to read Magnifier's thread about Mercury spinning out of its orbit and blowing up, yep, I made up an answer there.
 
jlprk said:
I made up nothing in this thread. Just because you can quickly copy and paste the Company line proves nothing.

Now if you want to read Magnifier's thread about Mercury spinning out of its orbit and blowing up, yep, I made up an answer there.
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The Democrats went on a witch hunt and made that report. There was no company line. They simply could not come up with the kind of dirt you imagine and justify it.
 
This thread will peter out now. No one will read those superlong Denny cut and pastes, including me. Any bets on how long till PapaG starts his 21st Benghazi thread?

Tick...tick...
 
jlprk said:
This thread will peter out now. No one will read those superlong Denny cut and pastes, including me. Any bets on how long till PapaG starts his 21st Benghazi thread?

Tick...tick...
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You know what?

I read that riegle report from start to finish several times.

I remember when it first came out, too.

I can't help you be intellectually curious.
 
Damn, and Obama even got one of his buddies to rescue three kidnapped girls to try and bury this story...
 
The whistleblowers aspect has given the story traction, it seems.

CBS News, NBC News, Washington Post, USA Today, Daily Beast, Slate Magazine, Bloomberg, and others all ran the whistleblower story I linked above.
 
So, now that it is clear that Islamic extremists killed four US citizens, what have we done about it?

Could I have a show of hands for how many here think that the President wants to 'get to the bottom' of all this, like he said in the run-up to the election?

"What difference does it make?" If they had come clean about what happened at Benghazi, it may have changed the outcome of the election.

Go Blazers
 
The entire attack made Obama's stump line of "Al Qaeda is on the run" an embarrassment. So, blame it on a Youtube video, raid a US citizens house, and then throw him in jail until after the election.

Fascism rules...

The hearings start tomorrow. Should be enlightening to see who changed the talking points, what Obama was doing during the attack, what the communication was between State and the WH...
 
I don't think the Al Qaeda link is what scared the Obama campaign. In fact, it would have been something they could have handled.

The issue, as I saw it, was Obama's entire mid east foreign policy could be called into question. The arab spring uprisings turning formerly western friendly nations into religious islamic states. And particularly the issue of Obama sending war planes and support to overthrow the government in Libya with the kind of spectacular results for all to see.
 
Denny Crane said:
I don't think the Al Qaeda link is what scared the Obama campaign. In fact, it would have been something they could have handled.

The issue, as I saw it, was Obama's entire mid east foreign policy could be called into question. The arab spring uprisings turning formerly western friendly nations into religious islamic states. And particularly the issue of Obama sending war planes and support to overthrow the government in Libya with the kind of spectacular results for all to see.
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Everything you typed can be said about Bush's wars, but the damage to the U.S. is a billion times greater. When will Congress hold hearings on that, like these purely political Republican ones now?

This thread is so yesterday. End it so PapaG can resume his hobby of starting Benghazi threads.
 
jlprk said:
Everything you typed can be said about Bush's wars, but the damage to the U.S. is a billion times greater. When will Congress hold hearings on that, like these purely political Republican ones now?

This thread is so yesterday. End it so PapaG can resume his hobby of starting Benghazi threads.
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It remains to be seen what happens after the middle east is religious islamist nations.

Congress by huge majority voted Bush the authority to go to war. Democrats beat the drum as much as anyone in the administration did.

I think the lesson of Watergate is that the people take fucking with elections rather seriously.
 
jlprk said:
Everything you typed can be said about Bush's wars, but the damage to the U.S. is a billion times greater. When will Congress hold hearings on that, like these purely political Republican ones now?

This thread is so yesterday. End it so PapaG can resume his hobby of starting Benghazi threads.
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Hillary Clinton's signature is on the order to refuse the requested security in Benghazi, sent by the very State Department officials who lived and worked there. It's why they are testifying now against their former boss. Not the GOP House, since they weren't even made aware of it. Since that obvious lie from you, what's the point in even engaging you in any meaningful discourse?

You're a joke. Sometimes I forget to treat you as a joke.
 
PapaG said:
What is offensive is the gullibility of the American people to either no care about the truth, or to be duped by a pathological liar.
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You're being pretty hard on yourself aren't you?
 
Denny Crane said:
It remains to be seen what happens after the middle east is religious islamist nations.

Congress by huge majority voted Bush the authority to go to war. Democrats beat the drum as much as anyone in the administration did.

I think the lesson of Watergate is that the people take fucking with elections rather seriously.
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Congress voted Obama the authority to fight Libya. Republicans beat the drum. Now they're politicizing how he did it.

When will Republicans investigate why Bush screwed up his whole decade?
 
jlprk said:
Congress voted Obama the authority to fight Libya. Republicans beat the drum. Now they're politicizing how he did it.

When will Republicans investigate why Bush screwed up his whole decade?
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Congress did not vote Obama the authority to fight in Libya.

http://www.npr.org/2011/06/24/137392574/house-moves-toward-votes-on-libya-operation

In a pair of strikingly different votes, the House on Friday exposed its loud bark and its soft bite on U.S. military efforts in Libya.

The chamber voted down a measure that would give President Obama the authority to continue the U.S. military action against the Libyan regime — but it also rejected an attempt to cut off money for those efforts.

The 295-123 defeat on the authority resolution was expected, but it still represented a rebuke to the commander in chief. Obama, who did not seek congressional permission before the Libyan mission began, had said he had welcomed a resolution authorizing the participation.

http://archives.cnn.com/2002/ALLPOLITICS/10/11/iraq.us/

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- In a major victory for the White House, the Senate early Friday voted 77-23 to authorize President Bush to attack Iraq if Saddam Hussein refuses to give up weapons of mass destruction as required by U.N. resolutions.

Hours earlier, the House approved an identical resolution, 296-133.
 
Denny Crane said:
The chamber voted down a measure that would give President Obama the authority to continue the U.S. military action against the Libyan regime — but it also rejected an attempt to cut off money for those efforts.
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They voted to not continue what had been authorized earlier? Which measure had done that, as if I don't know? Anyway, Iraq got approved after a year of lies about yellowcake, nuclear tubes, and hordes of WMDs. The media had right-wingers in a panic with flags everywhere, but polls showed a majority of Americans opposed to attacking Iraq.

No comparison. Did you want Obama to issue a pack of lies like Bush did?
 
Oh I forgot. You Bush guys suddenly want a Truth in War consumer bill, so you are politicizing Benghazi. You'll be practicing this revelation when there's a Republican president, right?
 
jlprk said:
They voted to not continue what had been authorized earlier? Which measure had done that, as if I don't know? Anyway, Iraq got approved after a year of lies about yellowcake, nuclear tubes, and hordes of WMDs. The media had right-wingers in a panic with flags everywhere, but polls showed a majority of Americans opposed to attacking Iraq.

No comparison. Did you want Obama to issue a pack of lies like Bush did?
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Did you deliberately ignore this? It was in my post. It does not agree with your version of the "truth."

"Obama, who did not seek congressional permission before the Libyan mission began, had said he had welcomed a resolution authorizing the participation."
 
Always nice to be reassured that incompetence knows no party boundary in today's administrative/bureaucratic machinery.

We may not have the government that we need, but we certainly have the one that we deserve.
 
Nikolokolus said:
Always nice to be reassured that incompetence knows no party boundary in today's administrative/bureaucratic machinery.

We may not have the government that we need, but we certainly have the one that we deserve.
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Bingo.
 
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