The Fog of the Obama Administration

Please take some time and read this piece in the WSJ about what we currently know about the terrorist attack in Benghazi.  This section is damning:

In his September 12 Rose Garden statement, Mr. Obama said "no acts of terror will ever shake the resolve of this great nation, alter that character, or eclipse the light of the values that we stand for." He said this at the end of his remarks, well after his specific comments about Benghazi. 

Unnamed Administration officials that same day told Reuters that an al Qaeda regional offshoot and members of Ansar al-Shariah were probably involved. "It bears the hallmarks of an organized attack," one U.S. official said. Intelligence officials briefed Members of Congress later that week that terrorism was the likeliest culprit. 

Yet by the end of that week, the White House offered a different account: That the Benghazi attack grew out of a spontaneous demonstration against an anti-Islam video on YouTube. On September 14, Obama spokesman Jay Carney said, "We don't have and did not have concrete evidence to suggest that this was not in reaction to the film." 

Two days later, U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice went on a tour of the Sunday talk shows to repeat the video-caused-the-protest story. On CBS's "Face the Nation," she contradicted Libya's President Mohamed Magarief, who on the same show blamed a "preplanned" attack by "foreign" terrorists. The White House and Ms. Rice have since claimed they were merely following talking points provided by the "intelligence community." 

Yet Reuters revealed last week that government officials saw a possible al Qaeda connection even as the attacks were taking place. Emails from State's regional security officer to the White House Situation Room, the Pentagon, the FBI and others noted that Ansar al-Shariah had taken responsibility. The Daily Beast's Eli Lake reported that FBI officers who interviewed security officers who worked at the consulate knew as early as September 14 that the attack was no protest. 

It took eight days for the Administration to formally declare that the four Americans "were killed in the course of a terrorist attack on our embassy," in the words of Matt Olsen, director of the National Counterterrorism Center. But six days later Mr. Obama was asked by Joy Behar on "The View" if "it was an act of terrorism"? He said the government didn't know. In his September 25 U.N. address, Mr. Obama made several general references to the YouTube video but made no mention of terrorism in the context of Benghazi. 

His campaign stump speech to this day includes the lines that "al Qaeda has been decimated" and the U.S. is "finally turning the page on a decade of war to do some nation-building right here at home" (Thursday in Las Vegas).

Mr. Obama has made the defeat of al Qaeda a core part of his case for re-election. Yet in Benghazi an al Qaeda affiliate killed four U.S. officials in U.S. buildings, contradicting that political narrative.

And another additional fact:  far from al Qaeda being decimated in Iraq, daily attacks have only increased since the U.S. withdraw.  This is unfortunately what happens when winning the war is pushed aside for easier goals.