As additional information comes out on the Benghazi affair, it's difficult to determine what is true and what are lies. The prevailing opinion, however, is that the reason for the administration's coverup just before the 2012 election is that because al-Qa'ida was said to be destroyed, any terrorist attack had to be conveyed to the public as just an out of control mob angry about a video insulting Islam. That might have made sense if the sole purpose was to deflect criticism over claims of terrorism having been defeated, especially in an election year, but it doesn't explain why no help was given to the besieged diplomatic facility. After all, even if it had been an angry mob, why did the administration not come to the rescue? There had to be more to it. But what? Here's my theory:
It appears that Ambassador Stevens was meeting with the Turkish Ambassador just prior to the attack. The subject was alleged to be the transfer of arms that had been given to the Libyan rebels onward to the Syrian rebels via Turkey. Where were those arms? My assumption would be the secret CIA Annex about 1.2 miles away from the main consulate. Overhead imagery of the Annex shows four buildings, which seems excessive for housing offices for a small operation. On the other hand, they aren't warehouses. The other possible location for the weapons was the Consulate, which has one office building and another that could possibly store weapons. But it isn't a warehouse, either. In fact, the place to store weapons that the CIA was obtaining from the rebels, would be the port area. But there are no reports of any attacks in that area. It could be that weapons stored there were not given extensive security but were hidden instead and the terrorists simply went there to collect them and the attack on the consulate was part of a diversion or cover story.
During that attack, one of the security detail's former SEALs had a laser designator he was using to paint the enemy for precise targeting from overhead shooters or bombers. Why would a man detailed to protect our ambassador bring along a laser designator unless he knew it would be useful? That indicates he expected some kind of overhead aircraft to provide security. Was it the drone that reportedly was providing real time imagery of the attack to the White House and CIA? Or an AC-130 gunship that would routinely be used to provide security?
In any case, the overhead shooter never responded. Either there was no shooter overhead, or the overhead shooter was told not to fire. In the event, pleas for help by the security detail during the seven or more hour battle were also ignored. Clearly, nothing was done to rescue or combat whoever was attacking the Benghazi Consulate by anyone other than the small security contingent on site.
In the months leading up to the attack, not only were over 600 requests for additional security at the compound ignored, despite ongoing terrorist attacks that damaged the compound and the withdrawal of all other diplomatic missions in Benghazi, the security details were repeatedly reduced. It appeared that someone on high actually wanted there to be less security. The question is, why? The administration cited budget cuts, which is ludicrous. Valerie Jarrett has a larger security detail than that assigned to Benghazi.
Immediately after the attack, the blame was placed on an obscure Youtube video that had been released two months before the attack. It failed to provoke any outrage in the Muslim world until the day of the attack. How did the Obama administration know that the video provoked a mob to attack the Benghazi consulate so quickly? And now that it has been shown that the administration not only knew that the attack was not the result of Muslim outrage, but a premeditated terrorist attack, why did they continue to blame the video for two weeks afterwards? In fact, they reportedly knew the attack was coming six weeks before it occurred. Even if it were true that the video was responsible, as they claimed, why didn't they expect riots and take precautions by boosting security?
Every 9/11 is deemed a security risk by counter-terrorism analysts for obvious reasons. Since Benghazi was such a high security risk anyway, why weren't forces placed near enough to respond to an evacuation order? That's normal protocol. Why were forces at the US Navy Air Station, Sigonella, Italy, specifically there for emergencies such as occurred at Benghazi, not ordered to respond once the attack started? It did go on for hours, after all. In fact, an email to Hillary Clinton stated that these forces asked permission to go to the rescue of the Benghazi staff, but that permission was denied.
A week or so before the Benghazi attack, a freighter left Benghazi loaded with about five tons of weapons (including man portable air defense systems or MANPADS) and it docked in Turkey, September 5th, about a week before the Benghazi attack. The weapons had been given by the US to the Libyan rebels who overthrew Muammar Qadaffi through Arab intermediaries (Qatar and Abu Dhabi) and were now being transferred to Syrian rebels trying to overthrow their dictator, Bashar al-Assad. Many of these rebels were associated with al-Qa'ida (AQ). However, when the ship unloaded, a fight broke out between the AQ backed rebels and those "moderates" backed by the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) over who would get the weapons.
The Muslim Brotherhood has been backed by the Obama administration and under a scheme hatched by Obama and Turkey's President Recep Erdogan (along with support by George Soros), secular regimes supporting the US in Tunisia, Libya, Egypt and Yemen were overthrown and replaced by MB regimes. The stated reason given by the Obama administration was to institute democracy in those countries. Yet, as Erdogan once said, democracy is a train we ride to our destination and then get off. So it's clear that everyone in the Obama administration knew that democracy was a code word for rule by the Muslim Brotherhood. In any case, immediately prior to the Benghazi attack, Ambassador Stevens, who was really a CIA operative, met with the Turkish ambassador to discuss another arms shipment to the Syrian rebels.
If the MB and AQ rebels fought each other over the weapons in Syria, it's possible the MB wanted some of those weapons for its other clients, such as Hamas in Gaza. So perhaps MB and AQ came up with a plan to divide the weapons and avoid conflict. But how? The place to start would be within the Obama administration. Obama had and continues to have close relations with the MB. As someone who's clearly, at the least, highly sympathetic to Islam, he's put many MB operatives within his administration. Moreover, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's main aide, Huma Abedin, has parents who are both MB officials. So the MB has had the ear and support of the Obama administration.
My view is that the CIA was expecting to ship the materiel to Syria but people with MB connections in the White House persuaded President Obama to give them to the MB for use in Gaza instead. They couldn't do it openly because Israel and its supporters would be shocked that the US was arming Hamas in Gaza and relations with Israel would be even more damaged than they are now. I believe, then, that the MB liaison at the White House told the local rebels at the behest of Obama that they were to seize the weapons so that it would not look like the administration voluntarily gave them to Israel's enemies.
To provide further cover and plausible denial, the administration could not tell the CIA about the plan. So the operation would amount to Obama's tacit approval for allowing the MB to seize the weapons and the only role for the US would be to ensure there was insufficient security to thwart the operation. When the ambassador and his compound came under attack allegedly because of a video, then, it was a smokescreen for the real purpose, seizing the weapons.
Since the intelligence community knew that Benghazi was dangerous and a hotbed of terrorists, a terrorist attack would also make the administration look incompetent for not providing additional security, especially on the anniversary of 9/11. So to deflect attention away from their failure to provide security against a terrorist threat, the administration needed an excuse.
The "Innocence of Islam" video was posted on Youtube in July 2012 but an Arab language version wasn't posted until September 4. An Egyptian-born, but American Coptic Christian, brought the video to the attention of a Cairo newspaper reporter, saying he wanted it shown on September 11 as a way to discredit Islam. The reporter dismissed it's importance but wrote an article about it that appeared on September 6. A couple of days later, on September 9, the video was mentioned on Egyptian TV. Still, the video caused no stir until a hardline MB TV commentator in Cairo put it on his TV show on September 9. On 11 September, the same day as the attack on Benghazi, a riot started in Cairo and a mob attacked the US Embassy in outrage over the video. So, for the attack on Benghazi to have been the result of outrage over the video, it must have been either spontaneous or planned well in advance of September 9. As it turned out, the attack was planned at least 10 days earlier by terrorist organizations affiliated with AQ.
The MB does not directly run terrorist organizations, but does support them. Hamas is an MB offshoot, for example. When Hosni Mubarak, then President of Egypt, was overthrown with the help of Obama, he was replaced by Mohammed Morsi of the MB. Morsi not only tried to put MB personnel in every key position and replace the Egyptian Constitution with a new one giving him total power, he also contacted AQ through the offices of Mohmmed al-Zawahiri, the brother of AQ's chief. Morsi asked AQ for help in establishing MB control over Egypt (and AQ sent in over 3,000 fighters to Egypt) but also offered to support AQ Jihadis. In effect, MB formed an alliance with AQ, at least in Egypt, so if the MB went after the Benghazi weapons, they would have used AQ terrorists. (Morsi was overthrown in 2013 by the Egyptian military, which set back Obama's plans.)
During the Benghazi hearings that grilled Hillary Clinton, it was revealed that Hillary was in constant contact with a close friend and Clinton Foundation, Sid Blumenthal, during her stint as Secretary of State. Hundreds of emails were exchanged between the two as Blumenthal offered detailed information he had acquired about Libya where he hoped to conduct business. It seems that Hillary and Blumenthal had their own de facto intelligence organization. Blumenthal's emails read exactly like official intelligence reports and are even marked CONFIDENTIAL, yet were sent to Hillary's unsecure private email account on her home's bathroom server.
In contrast, the late Ambassador Chris Stevens, who Hillary called a close friend but who she referred to as Chris Smith in an email immediately after the attack, didn't even have Hillary's email address. So he couldn't ask her directly for help.
In one of those emails from the day after the Benghazi attack, Blumenthal stated that Libya's interim president, al-Magariaf, was told by a security adviser, probably from the MB since many of his advisers were from that organization, that the Benghazi attack was inspired by the video. Obviously, Blumenthal would not have known about the CIA weapons transfer operation, but surely al-Magariaf did. My guess is that the MB was in the process of spreading the cover story at that point and so told it to al-Magariaf.
In February 2013, Blumenthal reported intelligence provided by the Algerians to the Libyans that was supposed to be secret and close hold. It stated, among other things, that French intelligence told Algerian intelligence that the Benghazi attack was financed by wealthy Islamists from Saudi Arabia. Privately, the Algerians claim that Libyan intelligence told them the same information. So why would rich Saudis pay for an attack on the Benghazi mission? It seems the MB used Saudi money to fund the operation.
How could the Obama administration know that the attack on Benghazi was the result of the video so soon? Someone should look into the reason the American Copt was pushing so hard to get the video known the Egyptian public just prior to the 9/11 anniversary and why a hardline MB commentator on TV showed it a couple of days before the attack. It should be obvious that the American Copt must have known that the only outcome for his promoting the video would be Muslim outrage and rioting.
What about the drone that should have protected the Consulate? I believe there really was an armed drone there at the behest of the CIA, as would be normal, to protect the weaponry until it was shipped. The DOD wouldn't have a gunship or other protection in the vicinity because they wouldn't know about the arms shipments nor the plan to have the MB terrorists seize the weapons. But when the attack occurred, if the overhead drone fired to kill or disperse the MB rebels when they attacked their first target, the Consulate, it would be expected to protect the Annex, too. In fact, that was probably its main mission. So rather than protect both sites, it was ordered to stand down by the Obama administration (as were any possible forces that could have come to the rescue) and to protect neither, sacrificing the ambassador so that the MB could get the weapons.
Where did the Benghazi weapons go? Turkey, which had been trying to send flotillas of aid, including weapons, to Gaza has been consistently interdicted by the Israeli navy. I suspect Obama made a deal with Erdogan to get the Benghazi weapons from Libya to Gaza overland through Egypt while Turkey would supply the Syrian MB rebels from its own materiel. Under its then new MB regime, Egypt would be willing to allow a transit provided Hamas didn't provoke a premature war with Israel that Egypt could be dragged into.
As it happened, Hamas in Gaza demonstrated a new found confidence to take on the Israelis shortly after the Benghazi attack, virtually declaring war on Israel by firing hundreds of rockets into Israel. It's as if Hamas, an MB organization, was daring the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) to come stop them. Would the IDF then find a well-armed hornet's nest of weapons, especially MANPADS, taken from Benghazi? Interestingly, many MANPADS supplied by the US to the Libyan rebels found their way into Afghanistan where, for the first time, they were used to shoot down American helicopters. Hamas may have wanted to duplicate that against the Israelis.
Allegedly, the then new head of the CIA, former General Petraeus, was betrayed by his subordinates who outed his affair with Paula Broadwell because they didn't like his administration. That seems unlikely, given that under President Carter, his CIA head, former Stansfield Turner, gutted the Clandestine Service and made plain his disdain for the CIA. The staff didn't turn on him. However, if the CIA staff didn't realize that the White House was responsible for the betrayal of Ambassador Stevens and the CIA operation, they may have unjustly blamed Petraeus. That may have been enough to provoke mutiny. However, as indicated in my essay on the Petraeus affair, there may be more to it than the alleged CIA revolt.