For a full week following the deadly ambush at the US consulate in Benghazi, the Obama administration told the American public that the incident was triggered by a “spontaneous protest” over an anti-Islam video that spun out of hand. They’ve equivocated over recent days, as the himself president has begun to hedge — finally allowing that other forces may have had a hand in the destruction. Today, national security correspondent Eli Lake has a bombshell exclusive in Newsweek/The Daily Beast that destroys the administration’s official story and points to an intentional cover-up:
Within 24 hours of the 9-11 anniversary attack on the United States consulate in Benghazi, U.S. intelligence agencies had strong indications al Qaeda–affiliated operatives were behind the attack, and had even pinpointed the location of one of those attackers. Three separate U.S. intelligence officials who spoke to The Daily Beast said the early information was enough to show that the attack was planned and the work of al Qaeda affiliates operating in Eastern Libya. Nonetheless, it took until late last week for the White House and the administration to formally acknowledge that the Benghazi assault was a terrorist attack. On Sunday, Obama adviser Robert Gibbs explained the evolving narrative as a function of new information coming in quickly on the attacks. “We learned more information every single day about what happened,” Gibbs said on Fox News. “Nobody wants to get to the bottom of this faster than we do.”
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