http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/may/9/seals-families-hit-2011-afghan-mission/?page=all#pagebreak
http://www.whitehousedossier.com/2013/05/09/internal-benghazi-review-clinton-obama/
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2013/05/exclusive-benghazi-talking-points-underwent-12-revisions-scrubbed-of-terror-references/
The families of Navy SEALs killed in an August 2011 downing of a helicopter in Afghanistan came forward Thursday to blast the U.S. command and the Obama administration for the mission and to call for an official investigation into what they deem a whitewash.
They also rebuked the White House for its extensive leaking of details of the Osama bin Laden raid in May 2011. Identifying the raiders as the secretive SEAL Team 6 put a target on the heads of the members of the doomed mission in Afghanistan, the parents said.
They also said the CH-47 Chinook helicopter used in the mission had no gunship escort and no cover when it was attempting to land at 2 a.m. that Aug. 6. Taliban on a rooftop shot down the helicopter with a rocket-propelled grenade.
All 38 onboard died in the fiery crash. The casualties included 17 SEALs, making it one of the elite unit’s worst losses in combat. The hastily planned mission was intended to aid 47 Army Rangers in the Tangi Valley, even though the Rangers controlled the battle zone.
The groups that organized the news conference Thursday at the National Press Club said a Muslim cleric chosen by the U.S. command to speak at a memorial service insulted the fallen. According to an English translation of a video of the service, the cleric condemned the dead to hell and mocked “the God of Moses.”
“We demand to know who made the call to send our sons into hostile territory where evidence proves a shootdown attempt had been in full force for weeks and in less-than-adequate, antiquated air frames documented to be in very poor condition,” said Karen Vaughn, whose Navy SEAL son, Aaron, was killed.
“We also discovered that [the Chinook] entered the battle zone that night completely unescorted with no pre-assault fire,” Ms. Vaughn said. “We were told pre-assault fire damaged our efforts to win the hearts and minds of our enemy. … The operation was spun up with such urgency that many mistakes were made.”
A Pentagon spokesman issued a statement:
“First, I want to say that we share in the grief of all of the families who lost their loved ones. The loss of 38 U.S. and Afghan military personnel was a tragic loss during a difficult campaign. The 30 U.S. casualties represent the diversity and talent of America and its military; these warriors served in three services (Army, Navy, and Air Force), in special operations and conventional units, and represented Reserve and active-duty units from 20 states.”
The spokesman noted that the official investigation “found that the tactics employed in the mission were consistent with previous missions.”
The families noted that Afghan security forces were closely involved in planning the mission, yet no one appears as having been interviewed in the military’s official investigative records given to relatives.
The family members suggested that these insiders leaked information about the mission to the Taliban, given the fact that the enemy happened to be stationed near the landing zone on a roof with rocket-propelled grenades.
“[They] were positioned in a tower in a building at the perfect place and the exact time to launch an attack on the CH-47 when it was most vulnerable,” said Doug Hamburger, father of Army National GuardSgt. Patrick Hamburger, a gunner and flight engineer. “How can anyone justify putting our troops in that type of danger?
“It was not a thorough investigation. It’s a shame that we as parents have to demand a congressional investigation to find out answers.”
Charles Strange’s son, Michael, was a SEAL code-breaker on the mission that night.
“Michael was a brave American,” he said. “He loved Philadelphia where we’re from. He fought for his country.”
Mr. Strange said his son’s code was “serve in silence.” He said that code was violated by Vice President Joseph R. Biden and other White House officials when they identified bin Laden’s killers as SEAL Team 6. Republicans have charged that Obama aides leaked bin Laden mission details for political reasons to bolster the president’s re-election bid.
“To put my son in the most elite SEAL team in the world in a Chinook helicopter over an active battle that’s been going on for over 3½ hours — unacceptable. Unacceptable,” Mr. Strange said. “Somebody has to answer for this.”
Mr. Hamburger said the White House’s leak “put a target on their backs.”
Mr. Strange recalled meeting President Obama at the Dover, Del., Air Force Base mortuary.
“The president comes up to me and he says, ‘Mr. Strange, Michael changed the way Americans live.’ I grabbed [Mr. Obama] by the shoulders and I said, ‘I don’t need to know about my son. I need to know what happened, Mr. President.’ The Secret Service grabbed me,” Mr. Strange said.
Larry Klayman, a lawyer and founder of the nonprofit public-interest advocacy group Freedom Watch, organized the news conference along with StandUpAmericaUS.org and its founder, retired Army Maj. Gen. Paul E. Vallely.
In August 2011, the U.S. command in Afghanistan first reported the failed mission to the news media as a rescue of Army Rangers in a firefight. But it was learned later that the Rangers controlled the battle zone and were hunting for some Taliban who escaped from a home the commandos had raided.
The Washington Times reported extensively at the time that special operations officers criticized the mission as unnecessary and a waste of lives.
Based on investigative documents, which U.S. Central Command later erased from its website, The Times revealed that special operators were uncomfortable flying with conventional National Guard flight crews, who ferried the SEALs that night.
The Times also reported that Apache gunships could have gone to the landing zone to provide protection, but they were never ordered to do so and stayed involved hunting the Taliban, who had run into some woods.
A Ranger officer told investigators that he could not explain why the choppers were not ordered to cover for the incoming Chinook.
Investigators also were told that special operations helicopters were moved out of their region, which included the Tangi Valley just south of Kabul, and moved farther south. Officers said they were never told why.
http://www.whitehousedossier.com/2013/05/09/internal-benghazi-review-clinton-obama/
Internal Benghazi Review Ignored Clinton, Obama
The internal State Department Accountability Review Board report being touted by the White House as an “unsparing” investigation into the Benghazi response actually completely spared the two individuals whose actions Republicans want to know about most: President Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
There is no mention in the report of the what Clinton or Obama did related to Benghazi. In fact, Obama isn’t mentioned at all in the document, and Clinton only once – in the context of her appointing the Review Board. There is no suggestion that Clinton or Obama were interviewed or even examined by the investigation.
What’s more, Accountability Review Boards are part of statutory State Department process that is not legally permitted to investigate the president.
It’s not even clear that an Accountability Review Board is permitted to probe the Secretary of State. The purview of a Review Board covers “employees” of the State Department who could be subject to discipline by the Secretary of State, who presumably would not be tasked to discipline herself.
Despite all this, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney Wednesday suggested the Review Board report exculpates Clinton.
From the briefing:
Q So the White House is confident that Hillary Clinton acted appropriately throughout this process?MR. CARNEY: We are. And I think I would point you to the Accountability Review Board and what –Q Which didn’t –MR. CARNEY: I think I would point you to the report the put out. I would point you to what the two heads of that board, Ambassador Pickering and Admiral Mullen — each highly praised by both sides of the aisle for their long, distinguished careers — put out in a statement this week: “From the beginning of the ARB process, we had unfettered access to everyone and everything, including all of the documentation we needed. Our marching orders were to get to the bottom of what happened, and that is what we did.”Again, this is an unsparing report done by two career professionals, nonpartisan career professionals, that contain within it very serious recommendations, found shortcomings that needed to be corrected, and the State Department acted immediately on that.
But there is no evidence Pickering and Mullin ever talked to Clinton, or that they even sought to.
Carney dodged a question about whether Obama was interviewed by the Review Board.
Q On the question of the Accountability Review Board, you keep saying it was unsparing and you said they had unfettered access. Did Admiral Mullen and Mr. Pickering interview the President about what he did on the night of September 11th?MR. CARNEY: Again, I will point you to what Admiral Mullen and Ambassador Pickering said and what the report said, beginning with the fact that — this is useful here. The Accountability Review Board investigation, headed by, as I said, two of the most respected, non-partisan leaders in Washington, found that the interagency response was timely and appropriate and “helped save the lives of two severely wounded Americans.”
Here’s a video of the exchange, in which Carney appears a little flustered.
Note that this is a classic case of press secretary spin, in which the answer contains a litany of facts wholly unrelated to the question and designed to draw attention away from the fact that the press secretary is not addressing the issue that was raised.
In this case, Carney was successful. There was no follow up.
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2013/05/exclusive-benghazi-talking-points-underwent-12-revisions-scrubbed-of-terror-references/
Exclusive: Benghazi Talking Points
Underwent 12 Revisions, Scrubbed of
Terror Reference
Email
May 10, 2013 6:33am
AFP/Getty Images
When it became clear last fall that the CIA’s now discredited Benghazi talking points were flawed, the White House said repeatedly the documents were put together almost entirely by the intelligence community, but White House documents reviewed by Congress suggest a different story.
ABC News has obtained 12 different versions of the talking points that show they were extensively edited as they evolved from the drafts first written entirely by the CIA to the final version distributed to Congress and to U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice before she appeared on five talk shows the Sunday after that attack.
White House emails reviewed by ABC News suggest the edits were made with extensive input from the State Department. The edits included requests from the State Department that references to the Al Qaeda-affiliated group Ansar al-Sharia be deleted as well references to CIA warnings about terrorist threats in Benghazi in the months preceding the attack.
That would appear to directly contradict what White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said about the talking points in November.
“Those talking points originated from the intelligence community. They reflect the IC’s best assessments of what they thought had happened,” Carney told reporters at the White House press briefing on November 28, 2012. “The White House and the State Department have made clear that the single adjustment that was made to those talking points by either of those two institutions were changing the word ‘consulate’ to ‘diplomatic facility’ because ‘consulate’ was inaccurate.”
Summaries of White House and State Department emails — some of which were first published by Stephen Hayes of the Weekly Standard — show that the State Department had extensive input into the editing of the talking points.
State Department spokesman Victoria Nuland raised specific objections to this paragraph drafted by the CIA in its earlier versions of the talking points:
“The Agency has produced numerous pieces on the threat of extremists linked to al-Qa’ida in Benghazi and eastern Libya. These noted that, since April, there have been at least five other attacks against foreign interests in Benghazi by unidentified assailants, including the June attack against the British Ambassador’s convoy. We cannot rule out the individuals has previously surveilled the U.S. facilities, also contributing to the efficacy of the attacks.”
In an email to officials at the White House and the intelligence agencies, State Department spokesman Victoria Nuland took issue with including that information because it “could be abused by members [of Congress] to beat up the State Department for not paying attention to warnings, so why would we want to feed that either? Concerned …”
The paragraph was entirely deleted.
Like the final version used by Ambassador Rice on the Sunday shows, the CIA’s first drafts said the attack appeared to have been “spontaneously inspired by the protests at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo” but the CIA version went on to say, “That being said, we do know that Islamic extremists with ties to al-Qa’ida participated in the attack.” The draft went on to specifically name the al Qaeda-affiliated group named Ansar al-Sharia.
Once again, Nuland objected to naming the terrorist groups because “we don’t want to prejudice the investigation.”
In response, an NSC staffer coordinating the review of the talking points wrote back to Nuland, “The FBI did not have major concerns with the points and offered only a couple minor suggestions.”
After the talking points were edited slightly to address Nuland’s concerns, she responded that changes did not go far enough.
“These changes don’t resolve all of my issues or those of my buildings leadership,” Nuland wrote.
In an email dated 9/14/12 at 9:34 p.m. — three days after the attack and two days before Ambassador Rice appeared on the Sunday shows – Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes wrote an email saying the State Department’s concerns needed to be addressed.
“We must make sure that the talking points reflect all agency equities, including those of the State Department, and we don’t want to undermine the FBI investigation. We thus will work through the talking points tomorrow morning at the Deputies Committee meeting.”
After that meeting, which took place Saturday morning at the White House, the CIA drafted the final version of the talking points – deleting all references to al Qaeda and to the security warnings in Benghazi prior to the attack.
White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said none of this contradicts what he said about the talking points because ultimately all versions were actually written and signed-off by the CIA.
“The CIA drafted these talking points and redrafted these talking points,” Carney said. “The fact that there are inputs is always the case in a process like this, but the only edits made by anyone here at the White House were stylistic and nonsubstantive. They corrected the description of the building or the facility in Benghazi from consulate to diplomatic facility and the like. And ultimately, this all has been discussed and reviewed and provided in enormous levels of detail by the administration to Congressional investigators, and the attempt to politicize the talking points, again, is part of an effort to, you know, chase after what isn’t the substance here.”
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Peace/2013/05/09/Hillary-Misled-Congress-But-Not-Under-Oath
Wednesday's testimony on the Benghazi terror attacks by State Department whistleblowers before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform contradicted several statements by then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in testimony before House and Senate committees in January.
However, while Clinton may have misled Congress in her testimony, she likely did not commit perjury because she never actually testified under oath.
Video recordings of Clinton's Jan. 23 testimony before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee suggest that she was never sworn in. Breitbart News subsequently confirmed with staff on both committees that she did not take an oath to tell "the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth," as the three witnesses, all career civil servants, did Wednesday before the House Oversight Committee.
A Senate aide confirmed to Breitbart News Thursday: "We checked with the committee and she wasn’t sworn in." A House aide indicated that Clinton had not been sworn in, but added that "all witnesses testifying before the House Foreign Affairs Committee, including Secretary Clinton, are under a legal obligation to tell the truth. Any misrepresentation to the Committee in the context of a review or investigation is a violation of law."
Perjury and lying to Congress are two different crimes. Perjury, defined under 18 U.S.C. § 1621, requires violation of an oath. The crime of making a false statement to Congress, defined under 18 U.S.C. § 1001, covers lying about or concealing a "a material fact" in "any investigation or review, conducted pursuant to the authority of any committee, subcommittee, commission or office of the Congress, consistent with applicable rules of the House or Senate."
The difference is subtle but significant. A witness testifying under oath is under a greater obligation to tell the truth right down to what he or she believes it to be. A witness merely testifying to a committee of Congress without taking an oath may not subjectively believe what he or she is saying but will probably escape punishment, so long as he or she does not "knowingly and willfully" misrepresent or cover up a material fact.
In 2004, the 9/11 Commission insisted on hearing testimony from then-National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice under oath, even after she had already spoken to the panel in a private interview, because of concerns about inconsistencies between her statements and those made by other witnesses. The White House initially resisted, then relented, and on Apr. 8, 2004, she took the oath and testified before the Commission.
In the Benghazi hearings, Clinton merely offered ordinary testimony while lower-ranking State Department personnel, including witnesses at the Oct. 10, 2012 hearing before the House Oversight Committee, all testified under oath. (Then-Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chair General John Dempsey also appear to have testified about Benghazi before Congress in February without doing so under oath.)
The differential treatment partly reflects the traditional deference shown by the legislature to presidential appointees, but also reflects a phenomenon referred to by the witnesses on Wednesday, who noted that the key decisions had been made by "presidentially-appointed, Senate-confirmed" officials, yet those disciplined thus far had been career civil servants. The message, they said, was that "if you're above a certain level" you will not be held accountable.
Secretary of State Clinton made at least three statements that have been contradicted by subsequent testimony. First, she told the House Foreign Affairs Committee that "we didn't have a clear picture" of what had happened in Benghazi. Yet Greg Hicks, who had been second in command at the U.S. mission in Libya, testified Wednesday that he spoke to Clinton on the night of Sep. 11-12 and told her exactly what had happened.
Second, Clinton told the Senate: "So I saw firsthand what Ambassador Pickering and former Chairman Mullen called timely and exceptional coordination: no delays in decision-making, no denials of support from Washington or from our military." Yet testimony on Wednesday revealed that help was denied twice--once when support from the State Department's Foreign Emergency Support Team (FEST) was denied, and once when Lt. Col. Gibson was told to stand down.
Third, Clinton told the Senate that she had not seen diplomatic cables from Libya requesting more security: "I didn't see those requests. They didn't come to me. I didn't approve them. I didn't deny them." Yet Gen. Dempsey appeared to cast some doubt on Clinton's testimony when he told the Senate in February that it seemed unlikely she had not seen the cables: “I would call myself surprised that she didn’t.”
Given these contradictions, it appears that Clinton misled Congress. But she did not do so under oath, and it would be difficult to prove her guilty of "knowingly and willfully" concealing material facts when she was reporting her memories and impressions of a volatile situation.
The only way to find out the truth is to recall Clinton--as Rice was once recalled--to testify under oath about what happened on Sep. 11, 2012 and in the days that followed.
John Sexton, Matthew Boyle, and Pam Key contributed to this report.
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