David Petraeus testifies before the Senate. (photo: Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)
17 November 12
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Friday the Republican politicians who had so angrily demanded the
testimony of David Petraeus about Benghazi got what they wanted - and
what they deserved - when the former CIA director set forth the facts
proving that their conspiracy theories and witch-hunts are dead wrong.
Appearing behind closed doors on Capitol Hill, Gen.
Petraeus, recently resigned from the spy agency over his illicit affair
with biographer Paula Broadwell, answered questions from legislators
concerning the tragic Sept. 11 assault that left Ambassador Chris
Stevens and three other diplomatic personnel dead.
When the session concluded, Petraeus was spirited
away. And Senator John McCain (R-AZ), whose criticism of the Obama
administration over Benghazi has verged on hysterical, emerged from the hearing room with very little to say to the reporters waiting outside.
"General Petraeus' briefing was comprehensive. I think
it was important; it added to our ability to make judgments about what
was clearly a failure of intelligence, and described his actions and
that of his agency and their interactions with other agencies," said
McCain, adding, "I appreciate his service and his candor" before
abruptly fleeing as reporters tried to question him.
McCain's curt statement was in sharp contrast to his
voluble remarks on Thursday, when he denounced UN Ambassador Susan Rice
for what he and Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) described as her
misleading description of the attack on Sunday television shows a few
days after it occurred. (It later emerged, embarrassingly, that his
posturing before the cameras on Benghazi had prevented him from
attending a scheduled hearing on that subject. He didn't want to to discuss that either.)
Essentially, McCain and Graham, joined by Senator
Kelly Ayotte (R-NH), accused Rice on Thursday of lying and covering up
the fact that the Benghazi consulate had been attacked by terrorists
affiliated with al Qaeda. They vowed to prevent her confirmation as
Secretary of State, should the president nominate her to replace Hillary
Rodham Clinton.
But with McCain departing so abruptly after the
Petraeus hearing, it was left to others, including House Intelligence
Committee chair Peter King (R-NY), Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), Sen. Dianne
Feinstein (D-CA), and Sen. Kent Conrad (D-ND) to reveal what their
Arizona colleague didn't care to discuss. In his testimony, Petraeus
blew apart the half-baked theories offered by McCain and Graham - and
left them looking foolish.
On earlier occasions, King had echoed the same
complaints made by McCain and Graham, but after Friday's hearing he
reluctantly admitted the truth: Petraeus had confirmed that the CIA had
approved the talking points used by Rice, tentatively blaming the
incident on a notorious anti-Muslim video sparking demonstrations in
Cairo and elsewhere at the time. Although Petraeus said he had believed
that terrorists were responsible, that suggestion was removed from the
talking points in order to protect the ongoing FBI investigation into
Benghazi, which Rice also mentioned.
As King explained in response to reporters' questions,
Petraeus not only confirmed that any allusion to al Qaeda had been
removed from the talking points given to Rice, but that his agency had
consented to that decision:
Q: Did he say why it was taken out of the talking points that [the attack] was al Qaeda affiliated?
KING: He didn't know.
Q: He didn't know? What do you mean he didn't know?
KING: They were not involved - it was done, the process was completed and they said, "OK, go with those talking points." Again, it's interagency - I got the impression that 7, 8, 9 different agencies.
Q: Did he give you the impression that he was upset it was taken out?
KING: No.
Q: You said the CIA said "OK" to the revised report –
KING: No, well, they said in that, after it goes through the process, they OK'd it to go. Yeah, they said "Okay for it to go."
In short, Rice was using declassified talking points,
developed and approved by the intelligence community, when she discussed
the Benghazi attack. So McCain's nasty personal denunciation of her ,
along with most of his claims about how the White House handled
Benghazi, has been blown out of the water like so much naval scrap.
The
Arizona senator, his colleagues, and their loud enablers on Fox News and
elsewhere in the wingnut media will never apologize to Rice. But that
is what they owe her.
2 comments:
Yes, it confirmed that the administration changed the facts for policitcal purposes; then went about the nefarrious task of spreading the lie. Susan Rice in disseminating the lie is complicit. Not a left or right wing issue. its an issue of the administration lying to the families of the fallen and the American people for benefit of his own political interests.
JES, you are a moron! It wasn't a lie. It was DECLASSIFIED information, so that we could I don't know maybe catch the people that did it! His organization APPROVED the talking points! I mean it's not like we sent THOUSANDS of soldiers to die over the intelligence briefing, what would you call that? Asshat!
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