Dems Join Chorus Questioning Obama On Attack

Senate Democrats joined Republicans Thursday in questioning the Obama administration's handling of the fatal Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. consulate in Libya and why the administration refused for days to acknowledge that ti was a terrorist attack linked to al Qaeda.

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee, chaired by Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., circulated a bipartisan letter addressed to Deputy Secretary of State Thomas Nides, asking for an "accounting of the attacks against U.S. missions in Egypt, Libya and Yemen," according to a copy obtained by The Washington Examiner.

The lawmakers are also demanding to know whether the administration had any advance warnings of the Libyan attack and, if so, whether it had shared that information with U.S. personnel on the ground.

The letter marks the first time congressional Democrats have so directly expressed their dissatisfaction with the administration's response to inquiries about the attacks, which resulted in the death of Ambassador Christ Stevens and three others and raised questions about U.S. security throughout the Middle East and Northern Africa.

A Kerry aide confirmed that the committee intended to enlist the support of Republicans and Democrats and said the letter would likely be sent Friday. Another aide told The Examiner that the panel's 10 Democrats and nine Republicans plan to sign it.

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Baralis said:

If this was a terrorist attack that had nothing to do with the film and the administration brought the film into world attention by placing the blame on it. Would all these recent riots that are being blamed on the film have happened if the administration not acted as it had? Honest question, I am largely ignorant of details.

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The U.S. troop surge in Afghanistan ended last week. Conditions in Afghanistan are mostly worse than before it began.

That conclusion doesn’t come from anti-war advocates. It relies on data recently released by the NATO command in Afghanistan, known as ISAF. According to most of the yardsticks chosen by the military — but not all — the surge in Afghanistan fell short of its stated goal: stopping the Taliban's momentum.

Of course, that’s not ISAF’s spin. The command notes that enemy attacks from January to August 2012 are slightly lower, by 5 percent, from that period last year; and that the past two Augusts show a reduction in attacks of 30 percent. But the more relevant comparison is to 2009, when Afghanistan looked like such a mess that President Obama substantially increased troop levels. And compared to 2009, Afghanistan does not look improved.

In August 2009, the peak of the fighting season and the height of the internal Obama administration debate over a troop surge, insurgents attacked U.S. and allied troops — using small-arms fire, homemade bombs, mortars and more — approximately 2,700 times. In August 2012, they attacked just shy of 3,000 times.

In August 2009, insurgents used just under 600 homemade bombs on U.S.-aligned forces. They used just over 600 homemade bombs on U.S.-aligned forces in August 2012.

The same trend holds for every other month in 2009 compared to every month in 2012 for which there is data: The insurgency launched more attacks this year. In some cases, substantially more: insurgents attacked about 2,000 times in July 2009 and a shade over 3,000 times in July 2012. ISAF registered about 475 attacks from homemade bombs in July 2009; and about 625 in July 2012.

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The mother of Tyrone Woods, one of the two former Navy SEALs killed in the Sept. 11 attack on the Benghazi consulate, is speaking out about the slow pace of the investigation into the death of her son and three other Americans.

"Don't want to ever politicize the loss of my son in Libya, but it has been 16 days and the FBI has yet to get to Benghazi to begin their investigation," Woods's mother Cheryl Croft Bennett wrote on her Facebook page Thursday. "Apparently they have made it to Tripoli but haven't been allowed to enter Benghazi. Meanwhile, the diplomatic outpost where Tyrone and [former SEAL] Glen [Doherty] died, was not and is not secured. Absolutely unacceptable."

Bennett was apparently referring to reports by CNN and other outlets noting that the FBI team sent to investigate the Benghazi assault has yet to arrive in the city, and the consulate remains unguarded.

Bennett has been using her Facebook page to disseminate information about the Benghazi attack and talk about her son Tyrone, who was killed in the second wave of the firefight at an "annex" that some reports have called a "safe house" about half a mile from the main consulate building.

The mission personnel fled to the annex when the main consulate building was set on fire, but the attackers either followed them there or already knew the location. They attacked the annex early in the morning as a security team tried to evacuate the personnel.

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“The security at our consulate in Benghazi was obviously inadequate and hindsight is always clearer so we have to say that as a kind of qualifier, but it’s pretty clear now that there was a lot of intelligence coming out that the Benghazi area, eastern Libya was loaded with violent Islamic extremists groups. There had been terrorist attacks,” he said.

Four Americans, including U.S. Ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens, were killed in the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi on Sept. 11. Lieberman said there had been an IED attack outside the consulate in June.

“There had been an improvised explosive devise that blew outside our consulate in June and there had been attacks on British diplomats there, so looking back, you’ve got to say particularly coming up to September 11th that the security there was inadequate, and that’s why Senator Susan Collins, ranking member on the Homeland Security Committee in the Senate and I have requested that the inspector general at the Department of State do an independent investigation of this whole tragedy at the consulate,” Lieberman said.

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