#BENGHAZI #GATE Lawmakers Demand Answers as Obama Administration’s Inconsistent Libya Story Falls Apart

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‘Benghazi-Gate’: Lawmakers Demand Answers as Obama Administration’s...

Republicans are lashing out at President Barack Obama and senior administration officials over their evolving description of the deadly Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. Consulate in Libya after fresh...

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10:36 PM - 27 Sep 12 · Details

‘BENGHAZI-GATE’: LAWMAKERS DEMAND ANSWERS AS OBAMA ADMINISTRATION’S INCONSISTENT LIBYA STORY FALLS APART

Posted on September 27, 2012 at 8:35pm by Jason Howerton
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A picture shows the damage inside the burnt US consulate building in Benghazi on September 13, 2012, following an attack on the building late on September 11 in which the US ambassador to Libya and three other US nationals were killed. (Credit: AFP/Getty Images)

Republicans are lashing out at President Barack Obama and senior administration officials over their evolving description of the deadly Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. Consulate in Libya after fresh claims that U.S. intelligence officials knew almost immediately that the attack was a coordinated terrorist plot.

Two senior U.S. officials told Fox News on Thursday that U.S. intelligence officials were aware within 24 hours of the attack that it was a terrorist plot and suspected al-Qaeda was involved.

“This is turning into something not short of Benghazi-gate,” Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) told Fox News.

As FoxNews.com points out, the “account sharply conflicted with claims by U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice on the Sunday after the attack that the administration believed the strike was a ‘spontaneous’ event triggered by protests in Egypt over an anti-Islam film.”

“The best information and the best assessment we have today is that in fact this was not a preplanned, premeditated attack — that what happened initially was it was a spontaneous reaction to what had just transpired in Cairo as a consequence of the video,“ Rice said on ”Fox News Sunday” earlier this month.

Her assessment was at odds with Libya’s interim President Mohammed el-Megarif, who said there was no doubt the perpetrators had predetermined the date of the assault.

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney also initially tried to blame the fatal attack on the anti-Muslim YouTube video, deflecting blame from radical Islam and the Obama adminstration. Finally, Carney and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called the violence a terrorist attack last week. However, Obama has still not called the incident a terrorist attack, despite being given many chances. He said last week that extremists used an anti-Islam video as an excuse to assault U.S. interests.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta on Thursday also admitted it was a terrorist attack.

“What terrorists were involved I think still remains to be determined by the investigation,” he told reporters at the Pentagon. “But it clearly was a group of terrorists who conducted that attack.”

Now, lawmakers want answers as to why they were initially “misled.”

“If there was information a day after that was to the contrary, I think Congress was misled,” Rep. Mac Thornberry (R-Texas) told Fox News. “But again, it’s even more serious than that. It means that we have a real problem in not being able to face up to the national security challenges our country faces.”

Corker also said that the briefing he and his fellow lawmakers received was “worthless.”

Fox News has more details:

“It was just unbelievable that Ambassador Rice and Secretary Clinton and the White House spokesman and others would say that there was no evidence – that this was a spontaneous attack, yet they say, ‘come on, honey, bring your mortars, we’re going to a spontaneous demonstration,’” Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said on CBS’ “This Morning.”

McCain, who called the administration’s statements “disgraceful,“ joined three other Republican senators this week in a letter to Rice pressing her on her ”troubling statements that are inconsistent with the facts.”

The FBI is investigating, but the apparent contradictions have prompted demands for information from Congress and a flurry of scathing letters to the administration.

So far, U.S. intelligence has indicated that heavily armed extremists numbering 50 or more attacked the consulate, relying on gun trucks for added firepower. They established a perimeter, limiting access to the compound. A first wave of attacks forced the Americans to flee to a fallback building, where a second group of extremists attacked with mortar fire. Stevens died of apparent smoke inhalation when he was caught inside one of the consulate buildings, which had been set on fire.

An armed man waves his rifle as buildings and cars are engulfed in flames after being set on fire inside the US consulate compound in Benghazi late on September 11, 2012. An armed mob protesting over a film they said offended Islam, attacked the US consulate in Benghazi and set fire to the building, killing one American, witnesses and officials said. (Credit: AFP/Getty Images)

A vehicle and the surrounding area are engulfed in flames after it was set on fire inside the US consulate compound in Benghazi late on September 11, 2012. An armed mob protesting over a film they said offended Islam, attacked the US consulate in Benghazi and set fire to the building, killing one American, witnesses and officials said. (Credit: AFP/Getty Images)

Officials have not singled out one responsible group, but have focused their attention on Ansar al-Shariah, a Libyan militant group led by a former detainee at the U.S. military-run prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Thursday that there has been a “thread of intelligence reporting” about groups in eastern Libya trying to coalesce, but no specific threat to the consulate.

Since the fall of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi last year, militias, weapons and terrorists are common in Libya.

Sabha Libya cave 13k yrs old

Cave Art north and west of Sabha in the desert show water animals? That could have only existed there at the end of the ice age when no people hostorically should have lived there yet

The Sahara is the home of the world’s largest collection of prehistoric cave art sites: some 100,000 sites

Libya's Tripoli's Assaraya Alhamra Museum houses a wonderful collection of prehistoric artifacts and treasures from the Sahara and there is no doubt that the museum deserves a visit. But serious explorers of ancient civilizations will benefit greatly from the museums of the Sahara herself - a place well-known to the Berber Nasamons of ancient Libya, from whom Herodotus appears to have had hurriedly derived his descriptions of this enigmatic interior of Libya. The Sahara is the home of the world’s largest collection of prehistoric cave art sites: some 100,000 sites; each is a unique gallery of prehistoric drawings, paintings and engravings, telling different stories about life in the past. One of the prehistoric paintings discovered by Henri Lhote, that of a human figure, about 18 feet tall, holds the record of being the largest prehistoric painting in the world.

Professor Mori alone had identified more than 1400 prehistoric art sites. Among his famous discoveries was a Libyan mummy of a child (Gallery 4 of Assaraya Museum), thought to be at least 5400 years old. The complete mummy of a small boy, preserved in a good condition using a sophisticated and advanced technique of mummification, was found in a place called Wan Muhuggiag.