http://thelead.blogs.cnn.com/2013/0...ratives-on-the-ground-during-benghazi-attack/ Doesn't sound too good.
The CIA doesn't seem overly tied up in the crap involving Hillary and her uselessness. The issue they appear to be fighting about is weapons provision to undesirables.
BPV - you don't see Hillary's blurred response as being in many ways tied to the uncomfortable position that this consulate was the first house these operations were run out of (with the annex serving as additional CIA space)? It was an attack on ongoing CIA operations - but publicly an attack on a consulate ... the initial line was to cover the attack as protest to insulate from covert activity, IMO. Random vs targeted.
True. Neither the fact that the CIA has operations, nor that they are sometimes housed in or veiled by other US institutions warrants a coverup. In fact, such is so widely known as to be expected, consulate or not. Things don't reach this level merely to protect a CIA hangout.
I really think there is more than that here. CIA was scrambling from the word go to keep certain things quiet. I have no doubt the CIA in part won the argument over spin because it also made Obama look better. But much of the twisting arose there.
Obviously we use embassies as official cover and yes this is known. That this consulate existed for essentially no other reason that to run a covert CIA program and Stevens presence was really nothing more than an official cover in a sea of operations that both the CIA and the admin did not want released presented more than the usual complexities.
You could be right, TT. But it seems much more likely that you see this level of coverup from attempts to protect the sitting President (the GOP would do the same, so this is not unique to Dems / President Obama) in the throngs a reelection campaign, than to protect the proof of some CIA operation, and which far more would only be surprised to find that such didn't exist. JMHO.
No doubt, the CIA would prefer that this not be known. But again, it would not be of such a shocking surprise to most, so as to require the State Dept. / White House to allow its coverup to create the shit-storm that this has now caused.
Damage was done in a few days. It's not like they ran massive coverups of the attacks for months. They made an early mistake that they could pass this off as something other than a targeted attak on a base supporting an ongoing CIA weapons program and got caught with their pants down. Perhaps we should be asking just what 30 CIA officers and paramilitary were doing in Benghazi that would lead to such a strong desire for the early cover.
Serious question - is this weekend's terror alerts in the middle east just a guise to try to take spotlight from this?
Running guns to Syria is easily the best explanation I've heard yet unless we were doing something in Egypt that would cause even more headaches.
