There were 13 violent attacks and ominous incidents near the US consulate in Benghazi in the months before terrorists murdered the US ambassador to Libya on Sept. 11.
Militants even videotaped Ambassador Chris Stevens on his morning runs outside the wall — and threatened to kill him.
But if that wasn’t enough to clue in the State Department that trouble was at hand, the US mission in Libya also “made repeated requests for increased security in Benghazi,” according to congressional investigators — but was “denied these resources by officials in Washington.”
Sure enough, on the 9/11 anniversary, al Qaeda-linked jihadists killed Stevens — easily — and three other Americans along with him.
Stevens knew what was coming: He wrote in a journal found at the sacked consulate that he worried about “never-ending security threats” and believed he was on an al Qaeda hit list.
Yet The New York Times reported last week that US officials had a “false sense of security” (and stationed no Marines in Libya) partly because Libyan guards at the consulate responded well to a massive bombing in June.
The logic is mind-boggling: There was a bombing at the consulate in a jihadi-heavy town, so Team Obama thought things were safer.
No wonder Reps. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) and Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) of the House Oversight Committee are working so hard to figure out how the State Department could be so ill-prepared. And why Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is setting up her own review board.
But this just adds a new layer to Team Obama’s weeks-long coverup. Per Foreign Policy magazine: “Clinton asked Issa to withhold any final conclusions about the Benghazi attack until the review board finishes its work, which could come as early as November or as late as early next year.”
Either way, after Election Day. And likely months after Clinton is safely out of office.
Which is a craven dodge of responsibility.
“Nobody will hold this department more accountable than we hold ourselves,” Clinton told House investigators Tuesday.
But the families of those killed and wounded know better.
“I do find it troubling that [State Department officials haven’t] owned up to their shortcomings,” said the father of a bodyguard injured in the attack. “If you were in charge, it was your fault.”
That’s the real verdict, no matter what Clinton’s Dodge-the-Guilt Board may find.