Reuters obtained Sensitive But Unclassified (SBU) emails from 9/11/12 that were sent to Washington, specifically, the White House Situation Room, the president's secure command post, within two hours of the attack against the U.S. mission in Libya.
The first email came 20 to 30 minutes after the initial attack, the second within the hour and then the third email, which was timed as two hours after the attack began, made it clear to the recipients that the al-Qaeda linked group Ansar al-Sharia had claimed responsibility for the attack which killed the U.S. Ambassador to Libya and three other diplomats.
A third email, also marked SBU and sent at 6:07 p.m. Washington time, carried the subject line: "Update 2: Ansar al-Sharia Claims Responsibility for Benghazi Attack."
The message reported: "Embassy Tripoli reports the group claimed responsibility on Facebook and Twitter and has called for an attack on Embassy Tripoli."
Conservatives have criticized the Obama administration for refusing to acknowledge that the attack in Libya against the U.S. mission in Libya and the deaths of the four diplomats were carried out as a direct attack against America by terrorists.
For almost two weeks after the attack, White House officials, including WH press secretary Jay Carney, Susan Rice, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, all attempted to convince the American people that the attack was a spontaneous protest over a film clip that had already been on the Internet for months before the worldwide protests occurred.
Examples:
September 13, 2012, Hillary Clinton's remarks at the U.S.-Morocco Strategic Dialogue:
I also want to take a moment to address the video circulating on the Internet that has led to these protests in a number of countries. Let me state very clearly – and I hope it is obvious – that the United States Government had absolutely nothing to do with this video. We absolutely reject its content and message. America’s commitment to religious tolerance goes back to the very beginning of our nation. And as you know, we are home to people of all religions, many of whom came to this country seeking the right to exercise their own religion, including, of course, millions of Muslims. And we have the greatest respect for people of faith.
To us, to me personally, this video is disgusting and reprehensible. It appears to have a deeply cynical purpose: to denigrate a great religion and to provoke rage. But as I said yesterday, there is no justification, none at all, for responding to this video with violence. We condemn the violence that has resulted in the strongest terms, and we greatly appreciate that many Muslims in the United States and around the world have spoken out on this issue.
September 14, 2012, three days after the attack, Jay Carney said "It is in response to a video, a film that we have judged to be reprehensible and disgusting. That in no way justifies any violent reaction to it, but this is not a case of protests directed at the United States writ large or at U.S. policy. This is in response to a video that is offensive to Muslims."
Via Washington Examiner:
Questioned at length about the causes of the anti-American violence, Carney insisted it was all about the movie. “The reason why there is unrest is because of the film,” he said at one point. “This is in response to the film.” At another moment, he said, “The cause of the unrest was a video.” At yet another, “These protests were in reaction to a video that had spread to the region.”
September 16, 2012, ABC News reports that U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice, also blamed the film:
“Our current best assessment, based on the information that we have at present, is that, in fact, what this began as, it was a spontaneous – not a premeditated – response to what had transpired in Cairo,” Rice told me this morning on “This Week.”
September 25, 2012, two weeks later, after the White Houses's story had already unraveled and administration officials had admitted the attack in Libya was an organized, preplanned terrorist attack, Barack Obama took the stage at the United Nations, refused to say the attack was terrorism and continued to blame the film.
They all lied to the American people, and still did not acknowledge publicly, that the film had been online for months prior to the worldwide protests and the terrorist attack in Libya. The film was the terrorists cover, the protests used to sustain the original attack by the terrorists making the other "protests" all part of the terrorism.
The Obama administration, while not their intent, prolonged those attacks against U.S. embassies by highlighting the film for as long as they did instead of instantly admitting the terrorist attack for what it was.
Continuing to condemn the film instead of focusing only on the terrorist attack, when we now know that the White House was informed by email, that the al-Qaeda linked group had already claimed responsibility, was the height of irresponsibility and incompetence.
Even more concerning, the fact that security personnel had requested extended coverage from the Obama administration for the U.S. mission personnel in Libya, prior to the attack, and was denied by the Obama administration, which was testified to in Congress by the leaders of the security team, shows a breakdown in security.
The Obama administration completely ignored the stated need for more security and ultimately removing the 16 man team that was protecting the U.S. mission in Libya, just a month before the attack.
U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens, who died in the terrorist attack on 9/11, also requested more security before the attack, as reported by CBS News.
Steven's memos to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, which is investigating attacks, show he personally pressed for strengthened security.
On July 9, 2012, Stevens sent a "request for extension of tour of duty (TDY) personnel." That refers to a 16-man military temporary security team with expertise in counter terrorism. They were set to leave in August, but Stevens asked to keep them "thru mid-September."
On August 2, six weeks before he died, Stevens requested "protective detail bodyguard potions," saying the added guards "will fill the vacuum of security personnel currently at post who will be leaving with the next month and will not be replaced." He called "the security condition in Libya ... unpredictable, volatile and violent." It's not known what happened to that request.
On August 8, as the special security teams left Libya, another cable from Stevens says "a series of violent incidents has dominated the political landscape" and calls them "targeted and discriminate attacks."
Perhaps the worst of the negligence by the Obama administration was in telling the security teams to stop asking for more help.
Via CBS News:
Wood said that there was a visible security drawdown while he was in Libya. Pressure came from the higher headquarters at the State Department.
"It began shortly after I arrived," he said. "There was pressure to reduce the number of security people there."
Over the six months leading up to the attack on Stevens, Wood says the security situation in Libya deteriorated. There were 13 threats or attacks in Tripoli and Benghazi. Wood says Stevens and his staff made the case for tightened security in emails and diplomatic cables. But one by one lost three State Department security teams, their only airplane and, eventually, Woods' squad too.
"There was certainly no disconnect in our transfer of information to them," Woods said. "They were getting the information from the situation on the ground, and we sent it up through State Department cable, and I sent it up to the military side on the DoD side, so there was awareness of what the situation in Libya was about."
Woods said he and his team became aware that they would not be allowed to stay through cables and draft cables coming back and forth. The State Department was telling the people in Libya not to continue to ask for help.
"The requests were being modified to say, 'Don't even ask for DoD support,'" he said.
The buck stops with Obama. The policies, decisions before, during and after the terrorist attack in Libya against the U.S. mission, show negligence, incompetence, disconnect and dishonestly from the Obama administration.