WH: Obama Called Hillary
on Night of Benghazi Attack--More Than Six Hours After It Started
February
20, 2013
By Fred
Lucas
(CNSNews.com)
– President Barack Obama called Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at
approximately 10 p.m. on the night of the terrorist attacks on the U.S.
facilities in Benghazi, Libya, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney told
CNSNews.com.
That
was more than six hours after the attacks started, more than an hour before
Tryone Woods and Glen Doherty were killed--and about the time that Clinton
first released a statement linking the attacks to “inflammatory material posted
on the Internet,” a reference to an anti-Muslim video on YouTube.
“Like
every president before him, he has a national security adviser and deputy
national security adviser,” Carney told CNSNews.com on Tuesday. “He was in
regular communication with his national security team directly, through them,
and spoke with the secretary of state at approximately 10 p.m. He called her to
get an update on the situation.”
Carney
was responding to questions from CNSNews.com about who Obama communicated with
on the evening of Sept. 11, 2012. Outgoing Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and
Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, told the Senate Armed
Services Committee they first notified the president of the attack during a
Sept. 11, 2012 meeting that began at 5 p.m. and ran for about 30 minutes. They
also told the committee they did not talk to Obama or anyone else at the White
House after that meeting.
U.S.
Ambassador Christopher Stevens, State Department Information Management Officer
Sean Smith, and former Navy SEALs Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty, who worked for
CIA, were killed in the Benghazi attacks.
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Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Gen. Martin
Dempsey. (AP)
That
night, while the attacks were still unfolding, and before Woods and Doherty
were killed, Secretary of State Clinton released a statement--entitled "Statement on the Attack in Bengazi"-- linking the
attacks to an anti-Muslim video that had been posted on YouTube. “Some have
sought to justify this vicious behavior as a response to inflammatory material
posted on the Internet," Clinton said. "The United States deplores any
intentional effort to denigrate the religious beliefs of others. Our commitment
to religious tolerance goes back to the very beginning of our nation. But let
me be clear: There is never any justification for violent acts of this kind.”
Over
the course of a week--from Jan. 8 to Jan. 15--CNSNews.com tried to get the
State Department to simply say when exactly on the night of Sept. 11, 2012, the
department issued this statement. The State Department would not respond.
CNSNews.com called again Tuesday to inquire what time the statement was
released. The State Department again did not respond.
However,
the Associated Press confirmed to CNSNews.com that at 10:58 p.m. Eastern time
that night, it ran a story quoting from Clinton's statement linking the
Benghazi attacks to “inflammatory material posted on the Internet.” Also, FactCheck.org, a project of the Annenberg Public Policy
Center, has reported that the State Department released Clinton's statement
"about 10:00 p.m."--which is when Carney tells CNSNews.com Obama
phoned Clinton.
FactCheck.org
also pointed out that MSNBC posted a Reuters story at 10:32 p.m. that night, which
quoted Clinton's statement linking the Benghazi attacks to "inflammatory
material posted on the Internet."
The
Benghazi attacks later were determined to have nothing to do with a protest
over the YouTube video--although administration officials, including the
president, continued to make that inference for days after the attacks.
During
her Jan. 23 testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Clinton stated
she spoke with Obama the night of the attack, but did not say what time.
"I
was notified of the attack shortly after 4 p.m. Over the following hours we
were in continuous meetings and conversations, both within the department, with
our team in Tripoli, with the interagency and internationally,” Clinton said.
Given that Clinton was notified shortly after 4:00 p.m. of the Benghazi attack,
she knew it was going on for about an hour before Defense Secretary Leon
Panetta notified the president.
Clinton
went on to say, “So it was a constant ongoing discussion and sets of meetings.
I spoke with President Obama later in the evening to, you know, bring him up to
date, to hear his perspective. Obviously, we kept talking with everyone during
the night. Early in the morning on the 12th I spoke with General Dempsey, again
with [National Security Adviser] Tom Donilon.”
White House Press Secretary Jay Carney. (AP)
On Tuesday, CNSNews.com
emailed White House Press Secretary Carney follow-up questions about the
Obama-Clinton 10:00 p.m. telephone call on Sept. 11. “Did the president and
Sec. Clinton discuss the statement she was about to issue?" CNSNews.com
asked. "And did they discuss the issue of ‘inflammatory material posted on
the Internet?’”
Carney did not directly
answer either question. Instead, he responded, “At about 10 pm, the
President called Secretary Clinton to get an update on the situation.”
CNSNews.com
also asked Carney about the Senate testimony of Panetta and Dempsey: “Panetta
and Dempsey said after they were finished with the 5:30 meeting--the meeting
from 5 to 5:30--that they weren’t in contact with the White House.”
.jpg)
This photo, which was published in the Bureau of Diplomatic Securities
annual report for 2011, shows then-Special Envoy Chris Stevens in Benghazi on
April 11, six days after he landed there in a Greek cargo ship. The caption in
the annual report says Stevens is speaking "to local media in
Benghazi," and identifies the man behind and to his right as a DS officer,
although it does not name him. (State Dept. photo)
Carney
responded, “No. They didn’t say that. They said they hadn’t spoken with the
president. The president has a National Security Advisor as has every president
before him dating back many, many presidencies. He has a deputy national
security adviser and remember he had already spoken with and met with in person
and discussed ongoing attack in Benghazi with the secretary of defense, with
the chairman of the joint chiefs. He then spoke with the secretary of state
because after all, it was a diplomatic facility that was attacked and at that
point, we were getting information that American lives had been lost. I think
that answers your question.”
At
a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on Feb. 7, Sen. Kelly Ayotte
(R.-N.H.) asked Panetta: “Did you communicate with anyone else at
the White House that night?”
“No,”
said Panetta.
Carney
stressed that the State Department’s Accountability Review Board(ARB)--chaired by retired
Admiral Mike Mullen and retired Ambassador Thomas Pickering--said, that the
administration’s response was adequate.
“Let
me say again, the ARB report specifically notes that the interagency
cooperation that evening was ‘timely and appropriate,’” Carney said. “Maybe CNS
is challenging the credibility of Admiral Mullen and Ambassador Pickering.
Probably, but I don’t know.”
Carney
went on to read from page 37 of the report that said, “The Board found no
evidence of any undue delays in decision making or denial of support from
Washington or from the military combatant commanders. Quite the contrary: the
safe evacuation of all U.S. government personnel from Benghazi twelve hours
after the initial attack and subsequently to Ramstein Air Force Base was the
result of exceptional U.S. government coordination and military response and
helped save the lives of two severely wounded Americans.”
VERITAS: Just a few questions - Why does this administration keep changing its story on Benghazi? Why aren't the American people demanding the straight truth as it is apparent to anyone who cares to read that the story has changed several times? Why isn't the American Press, the supposed fourth leg of our free society and the peoples voice, not asking more questions and demanding the truth? What do you think is going on or is this just a series of coincidences that no one could have avoided and the administration just isn't getting these fast paced facts correct in real time and thus must change the story as the facts evolve (sarcasm)?
You decide, its your government, its your country.
VERITAS: Just a few questions - Why does this administration keep changing its story on Benghazi? Why aren't the American people demanding the straight truth as it is apparent to anyone who cares to read that the story has changed several times? Why isn't the American Press, the supposed fourth leg of our free society and the peoples voice, not asking more questions and demanding the truth? What do you think is going on or is this just a series of coincidences that no one could have avoided and the administration just isn't getting these fast paced facts correct in real time and thus must change the story as the facts evolve (sarcasm)?
You decide, its your government, its your country.
