Why the House Intel Committee’s Benghazi Report is Worthless

Stays-in-Benghazi

The House Intelligence Committee’s Final Benghazi Report is a whitewash. That’s why the media is currently running around turning cartwheels and misrepresenting the report.

But let’s clear up some myths about the report.

To quote from its introduction, “the House Intelligence Committee’s investigation into the Benghazi attacks focused on the Intelligence Community’s activities before, during, and after the attacks in Benghazi… The Committee did receive evidence about the activities of the Defense Department, State Department, and White House personnel, which are explained in both the report and the additional views.  But the Committee does not make final conclusions about other agencies to the extent they were not the focus of the Committee’s investigation.”

While the media is treating this as some sort of conclusive overall report, it’s a look at the actions of the CIA.

That said, the report is a joke. I have no idea why it was even released. It’s a meaningless collection of statements undercut within that same report. Here’s another example from the introduction.

“The committee finds that a mixed group of individuals including those affiliated with Al Qaeda, participated in the attacks on US facilities in Benghazi, although the Committee finds that the intelligence was and remains conflicting about the identities, affiliations and motivations of the attackers.”

That entire sentence nullifies itself.

The report is filled with such self-nullifying conclusions in which the conclusion can be summed up as “Uh.”

The report concludes that there was no intelligence failure because there was no specific warning that an attack would occur on September 11. Aside from the “stream of contradictory and conflicting intelligence” afterward.

Again the media is wildly misrepresenting this to mean that everything is okay. The report does not say that everything is okay.

The report does mention inadequate State Department security. That much even the State Department’s own report conceded.

Finally there’s the “stand down order” issue which is what Media Matters and their ilk will be focused on.

The “stand down” order was always a red herring since simply preventing personnel from going to the rescue is not considered a stand down order. This has become a legalistic technicality means to suppress the facts.

Here’s what the highest ranking US diplomat said happened.

In an interview with the House Oversight and Reform Committee last month, Greg Hicks, deputy chief of mission at the U.S. embassy in Libya during the attacks on U.S. facilities in Benghazi, recalled his conversations with Libyan government officials and U.S. military leaders as he tried to get support to U.S. diplomatic and intelligence officials under attack in Benghazi.

“So Lieutenant Colonel Gibson, who is the SOCAFRICA commander, his team, you know, they were on their way to the vehicles to go to the airport to get on the C‑130 when he got a phone call from SOCAFRICA which said, ‘you can’t go now, you don’t have authority to go now,’’ Hicks recalled. “And so they missed the flight.”

Pushed to clarify whether they second rescue missed flight because they were told not to take it, Hicks responded: “They were told not to board the flight, so they missed it.”

Hicks remembers Gibson saying: “I have never been so embarrassed in my life that a State Department officer has bigger balls than somebody in the military.”

No 0ne is denying this happened. Now here’s where the debate over the “stand down order” kicks in. Here’s how General Dempsey explained it.

“They weren’t told to stand down. A `stand down’ means don’t do anything,” he said. “They were told that the mission they were asked to perform was not in Benghazi, but was at Tripoli airport.”

So when the report denies the existence of a stand down order, this is what it’s really saying.

Back to Benghazi, again, same old story. In the heavily massaged words of the report, “There were mere tactical disagreements about the speed with which the team should depart.”

Why?

“Some Annex members wanted to urgently depart the Annex for the TMF to save their State Department colleagues.

There you have it. No stand down order. Just “tactical disagreements” and “strategic patience” and all the rest. And four dead Americans.

I would delve into the claims about the “protest” talking points, but plenty of other people will be doing that. And I only have so much of an appetite for digging through bureaucratese in government coverups. Which is what this once again is.

  • SoCalMike

    Republicans are perfect cowards.
    Where was Obama? What orders did he give?
    What di he know and when did he know it?
    Why did he abandon Americans under attack?
    Did he just do to bed?
    Republicans are perfect spineless cowards too afraid to even ask.

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    • Bamaguje

      Even Romney deferred to Obama during the 2012 presidential debate.

      • Erudite Mavin

        Even Romney took on Obama during the debate and CNN Candy Crowley took on Romney for questioning Obama

    • Erudite Mavin

      Too bad you have missed what the Republicans have asked, charged, et al during the past few years.
      Sen. Lindsey Graham today called the new report “crap” and he is not letting this go as well as the rest of the Republicans.
      It is the Libertarian crowd who give cover to Obama.

    • Skeptic7

      This report was written by only 2 members of the Gang of 8 who had oversight over Libya. This is the cover-up report for the Gang of 8 for CYA purposes- nothing more. This article explains the political motivation:

      http://theconservativetreehouse.com/2014/11/22/the-motives-behind-the-november-rogersruppersberger-house-intelligence-panel-report-on-benghazi/

  • Pete

    “The history of the failure of war can almost be summed up in two words: too late.” – Douglas MacArthur

  • Dan Knight

    Outrageous, but expected … Just pablum for the media to tell the drones.

    • Patriot077

      I’m holding out hope that Trey Gowdy has more spine. I know he has more integrity.

      • Dan Knight

        Agreed… we need him, and more like him.

  • CKAinRedStateUSA

    Political language…is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.

    – George Orwell, “Politics and the English Language” (1946)

  • Andy_Texan

    The House committee was only doing what Boehner wanted. Government organizations rot from the top down.

    • Pete

      Exactly!

      Purty boy Mike Rogers was carrying water.

      • Patriot077

        The first picture is not the same Mike Rogers. there are two. The one on the Intel Committee is an older blondish guy with a broader face.
        He did not run for re-election.

        • Pete

          So what is his next gig?

          • Patriot077

            I was thinking it was a lobbying position, but apparently he thinks he can compete with conservative talk radio hosts. Another Huckleberry?

          • Pete

            There are many local talkshow host that only make 50 to 70 grand. He has to be at least regional to make up for his congressional pay, although if he does not have to live around the Beltway that will help.

            The water is already crowded. Scarborough has beat him to the punch and spoiled it. So the going might be harder than he expects.

            Rush Limbaugh could have helped him out. There are several talkshow host that got a start or got a boost on Rush’s show like Michael Medved or Oliver North (Oliver north sucked! I agreed with everything he had to say, but his delivery was flat. He’s has gotten much better since then. Point is that if he had not had helped his radio/TV career might have died aborning. ).

            But I sincerely doubt at this stage of the game that Rush would give a guest spot to someone who smelled of RINO.

          • Patriot077

            I don’t see many tuning in to hear him unless he is backed by one of the phony organizations pretending to be conservative. But I also saw rumors that he wants to run in 2016 so a radio career full of soundbites makes no sense.

    • Pete

      As Hugh Hewitt says often “absence of evidence is not evidence of absence

      It might mean that you suck at your job or that you are covering up.

    • Pete

      “Rogers and Ruppersberger were part of the “gang of eight” at the top of the political food chain that AUTHORIZED the shipments of arms that were in that compound in Benghazi to be shipped clandestinely to Syria (an act that was completely illegal at the time as it had been forbidden by law).”
      - JPstillhere

      What did Mike Rogers know about shipments to Syria and when did he know it?

  • NJK

    I can’t take it anymore. God, I want to go home to my America. This isn’t America. This is a slum.

  • Alleena

    When I heard about the Benghazi report, I was truly ashamed of the people who wrote it. I believe nothing that Obama says, and the Republicans are trying to play catch up. I do not trust my government-Democrat or Republican.

  • Pete

    I note that Rep. Mike Rogers does not have a military background unless working for the United Way in some way counts.

    “A fifth generation resident of Calhoun County in East Alabama, Rogers graduated from Saks High School and earned both his undergraduate degree in Political Science and Masters of Public Administration at Jacksonville State University in Jacksonville, Alabama.”

    “While serving on the Commission and working for the United Way, Rogers enrolled at the Birmingham School of Law.”

    Now a grunt, an enlisted man, may not have a handle of things on the operational or strategic level. He might only know tactics.

    But how does having a degree in poly sci, a degree in public admin and a J.D. give you any better handle?

    I think a grunt, whose b_tt is on the line has a better handle and is more honest about the capabilities of forces, the time it would take to get there and the effect they would have on battle.

    • Patriot077

      This is a different Mike Rogers. Here is a link to his webpage. He’s from Michigan not Alabama and he will be gone at year end.

      http://mikerogers.house.gov/

      • Pete

        If that is so I am wrong about Mike Rogers of Alabama.

        But I stand by the poly-sci, public admin JD thing opinion.

    • Pete

      The correct Representative is Mike Rogers of Michigan as Patriot077 pointed out to me.

      He has no law degree. Which can be considered a hindrance. Law makers should be alike librarians. A masters degree in in a field of specialty and a masters degree in library science.

      So a law maker would have a master (or a bachelors) in some subject or other, 10 years experience and law degree.

      I am not real keen on poly-sci and public admin. I see way too many policy wonks in think tanks or congressmen with degrees in the humanities like public admin and international relations … and it never seems to get better. The world is just as f_cked up as ever or worse. I would rather see more quants, accountants, MBAs, or some STEM subject.

  • Pete

    “So this BS report came out…..i don’t think these weak congressman understand our resolve..i promise i will bring them all down!!! #13hours” – Kris “Tanto” Paronto

    Pretty boy Rep Mike Rogers needs to be primaried. He needs to go

  • nimbii

    When Debbie Wasserman-Shultz said the latest tag line for the mid-terms was “We’ve got your back” she meant “We’ve got the administration’s backside” as in this report.

  • DVG

    There are people on Gowdy’s staff that are muslim sympathizers. It wasn’t ever going to happen.

    • Patriot077

      This isn’t the Gowdy investigation.

  • Max Kuenkel

    There is a website called specialoperationsspeaks.com. That website used to have a list of the 16 unanswered questions about Benghazi. The list was signed by 700 special operations personnel. Recently, the website was changed, and now the 16 questions no longer appear. However, if you have an old link, you can still get to it: click here: http://specialoperationsspeaks.com/petition then scroll down and click on the button that says: “Read the SOS Open Letter to Congress”. I don’t know why the website now HIDES those questions: they are good questions, and many of them are still not answered by the Benghazi report that just came out, which is here: http://intelligence.house.gov/sites/intelligence.house.gov/files/documents/Benghazi%20Report.pdf .

  • cattastrophe

    Whitewash with nonsensical babble that even a lawyer couldn’t get their head around. If she were even capable of it I’d say they had Shrillery edit the whole damn thing.