CIA operatives in Libya told to stand down during attack

[RLENT]

Well I see clown world still exists and is, in fact, going quite strong ...

Folks, I'd like you to meet Duane "Dewey" Clarridge - master scumbag extraordinaire ... unrepentant violator of human rights and likely torturer (before it was really popular) ... international terrorist in service to the empire ... and disgraced ex-CIA wild cowboy **** swinger ... who was forced to resign from the "agency" after being indicted for lying to Congress in the Iran-Contra Affair.

'Sometimes, unfortunately, things have to be changed in a rather ugly way,'​

Yeah ... I think after Benghazi ... we're really beginning to get the full picture ... you frickin' fat little Nazi ...


From his Wikipedia page:

Early Life
Clarridge was born into a "staunchly Republican family" in Nashua, New Hampshire on April 16, 1932 ...

CIA Career
During his three year tenure, he directed several of the CIA's more notorious operations in Latin America, including the 1984 mining of Nicaraguan harbors,an act for which the United States was convicted in the 1986 World Court at the Hague. When asked about his role in the mining, Clarridge was open about his involvement but downplayed the severity of the covert operation: "So we decided to go big time for the economics alright... So I was sitting at home one night, frankly having a glass of gin, and I said you know the mines has gotta be the solution. I knew we had 'em, we'd made 'em outta sewer pipe and we had the good fusing system on them and we were ready. And you know they wouldn't really hurt anybody because they just weren't that big a mine, alright? Yeah, with luck, bad luck we might hurt somebody, but pretty hard you know?"

Clarridge was also instrumental in organizing and recruiting Contra forces to overthrow Nicaragua's leftist Sandinista government. Clarridge used aliases such as "Dewey Maroni" during these operations.

Iran-Contra
He has claimed that he had no involvement in the later illegal diversion of funds to the Contras or the subsequent cover-up. Clarridge was indicted in November 1991 on seven counts of perjury and false statements. On Christmas Eve 1992 in the waning hours of his presidency, George H. W. Bush pardoned Clarridge before his trial could finish. At the same time, Bush pardoned five of Clarridge's associates in the Iran-Contra Affair including former Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger, Elliott Abrams, a former assistant secretary of state for Inter-American affairs; former National Security Advisor Robert McFarlane; and former CIA employees Alan Fiers and Clair George.

Post CIA
Colleagues say that Clarridge now views the CIA "largely with contempt." He has "likened his (private) operation to the Office of Strategic Services, the C.I.A.'s World War II precursor."

​

Hmmm .. private ("intel") operation ... comparable to the Office of Strategic Services ... the CIA's precursor ...

... private ... ?

Hmmm ... now who would pay for that ... and what exactly would they do with it ?

Stay tuned kiddies ... more to come ...​

 

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From a January 22, 2011 NYT article:

Former Spy With Agenda Operates a Private C.I.A.

WASHINGTON - Duane R. Clarridge parted company with the Central Intelligence Agency more than two decades ago, but from poolside at his home near San Diego, he still runs a network of spies.

Over the past two years, he has fielded operatives in the mountains of Pakistan and the desert badlands of Afghanistan. Since the United States military cut off his funding in May, he has relied on like-minded private donors to pay his agents to continue gathering information about militant fighters, Taliban leaders and the secrets of Kabul's ruling class.

Hatching schemes that are something of a cross between a Graham Greene novel and Mad Magazine's "Spy vs. Spy," Mr. Clarridge has sought to discredit Ahmed Wali Karzai, the Kandahar power broker who has long been on the C.I.A. payroll, and planned to set spies on his half brother, the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, in hopes of collecting beard trimmings or other DNA samples that might prove Mr. Clarridge's suspicions that the Afghan leader was a heroin addict, associates say.

Mr. Clarridge, 78, who was indicted on charges of lying to Congress in the Iran-contra scandal and later pardoned, is described by those who have worked with him as driven by the conviction that Washington is bloated with bureaucrats and lawyers who impede American troops in fighting adversaries and that leaders are overly reliant on mercurial allies.

His dispatches - an amalgam of fact, rumor, analysis and uncorroborated reports - have been sent to military officials who, until last spring at least, found some credible enough to be used in planning strikes against militants in Afghanistan. They are also fed to conservative commentators, including Oliver L. North, a compatriot from the Iran-contra days and now a Fox News analyst, and Brad Thor, an author of military thrillers and a frequent guest of Glenn Beck.

For all of the can-you-top-this qualities to Mr. Clarridge's operation, it is a startling demonstration of how private citizens can exploit the chaos of combat zones and rivalries inside the American government to carry out their ownagenda.

It also shows how the outsourcing of military and intelligence operations has spawned legally murky clandestine operations that can be at cross-purposes with America's foreign policy goals. Despite Mr. Clarridge's keen interest in undermining Afghanistan's ruling family, President Obama's administration appears resigned to working with President Karzai and his half brother, who is widely suspected of having ties to drug traffickers.
Charles E. Allen, a former top intelligence official at the Department of Homeland Security who worked with Mr. Clarridge at the C.I.A., termed him an "extraordinary" case officer who had operated on "the edge of his skis" in missions abroad years ago.

But he warned against Mr. Clarridge's recent activities, saying that private spies operating in war zones "can get both nations in trouble and themselves in trouble." He added, "We don't need privateers."

The private spying operation, which The New York Times disclosed last year, was tapped by a military desperate for information about its enemies and frustrated with the quality of intelligence from the C.I.A., an agency that colleagues say Mr. Clarridge now views largely with contempt. The effort was among a number of secret activities undertaken by the American government in a shadow war around the globe to combat militants and root out terrorists.

The Pentagon official who arranged a contract for Mr. Clarridge in 2009 is under investigation for allegations of violating Defense Department rules in awarding that contract. Because of the continuing inquiry, most of the dozen current and former government officials, private contractors and associates of Mr. Clarridge who were interviewed for this article would speak only on the condition of anonymity.

Mr. Clarridge declined to be interviewed, but issued a statement that likened his operation, called the Eclipse Group, to the Office of Strategic Services, the C.I.A.'s World War II precursor.

"O.S.S. was a success of the past," he wrote. "Eclipse may possibly be an effective model for the future, providing information to officers and officials of the United States government who have the sole responsibility of acting on it or not."

A Pentagon spokesman, Col. David Lapan, declined to comment on Mr. Clarridge's network, but said the Defense Department "believes that reliance on unvetted and uncorroborated information from private sources may endanger the force and taint information collected during legitimate intelligence operations."

Whether military officials still listen to Mr. Clarridge or support his efforts to dig up dirt on the Karzai family is unclear. But it is evident that Mr. Clarridge - bespectacled and doughy, with a shock of white hair - is determined to remain a player.

On May 15, according to a classified Pentagon report on the private spying operation, he sent an encrypted e-mail to military officers in Kabul announcing that his network was being shut down because the Pentagon had just terminated his contract. He wrote that he had to "prepare approximately 200 local personnel to cease work."

In fact, he had no intention of closing his operation. The very next day, he set up a password-protected Web site, afpakfp.com, that would allow officers to continue viewing his dispatches.

A Staunch Interventionist

From his days running secret wars for the C.I.A. in Central America to his consulting work in the 1990s on a plan to insert Special Operations troops in Iraq to oust Saddam Hussein, Mr. Clarridge has been an unflinching cheerleader for American intervention overseas.

Typical of his pugnacious style are his comments, provided in a 2008 interview for a documentary now on YouTube, defending many of the C.I.A.'s most notorious operations, including undermining the Chilean president Salvador Allende, before a coup ousted him 1973.

"Sometimes, unfortunately, things have to be changed in a rather ugly way," said Mr. Clarridge, his New England accent becoming more pronounced the angrier he became. "We'll intervene whenever we decide it's in our national security interests to intervene."

"Get used to it, world," he said. "We're not going to put up with nonsense."

He is also stirred by the belief that the C.I.A. has failed to protect American troops in Afghanistan, and that the Obama administration has struck a Faustian bargain with President Karzai, according to four current and former associates. They say Mr. Clarridge thinks that the Afghan president will end up cutting deals with Pakistan or Iran and selling out the United States, making American troops the pawns in the Great Game of power politics in the region.

Mr. Clarridge - known to virtually everyone by his childhood nickname, Dewey - was born into a staunchly Republican family in New Hampshire, attended Brown University and joined the spy agency during its freewheeling early years. He eventually became head of the agency's Latin America division in 1981 and helped found the C.I.A.'s Counterterrorism Center five years later.

In postings in India, Turkey, Italy and elsewhere, Mr. Clarridge, using pseudonyms that included Dewey Marone and Dax Preston LeBaron, made a career of testing boundaries in the dark space of American foreign policy. In his 1997 memoir, he wrote about trying to engineer pro-American governments in Italy in the late 1970s (the former American ambassador to Rome, Richard N. Gardner, called him "shallow and devious"), and helping run the Reagan administration's covert wars against Marxist guerrillas in Central America during the 1980s.

He was indicted in 1991 on charges of lying to Congress about his role in the Iran-contra scandal; he had testified that he was unaware of arms shipments to Iran. But he was pardoned the next year by the first President George Bush.

Now, more than two decades after Mr. Clarridge was forced to resign from the intelligence agency, he tries to run his group of spies as a C.I.A. in miniature. Working from his house in a San Diego suburb, he uses e-mail to stay in contact with his "agents" - their code names include Willi and Waco - in Afghanistan and Pakistan, writing up intelligence summaries based on their reports, according to associates.

Mr. Clarridge assembled a team of Westerners, Afghans and Pakistanis not long after a security consulting firm working for The Times subcontracted with him in December 2008 to assist in the release of a reporter, David Rohde, who had been kidnapped by the Taliban. Mr. Rohde escaped on his own seven months later, but Mr. Clarridge used his role in the episode to promote his group to military officials in Afghanistan.

In July 2009, according to the Pentagon report, he set out to prove his worth to the Pentagon by directing his team to gather information in Pakistan's tribal areas to help find a young American soldier who had been captured by Taliban militants. (The soldier, Pfc. Bowe R. Bergdahl, remains in Taliban hands.)

Four months later, the security firm that Mr. Clarridge was affiliated with, the American International Security Corporation, won a Pentagon contract ultimately worth about $6 million. American officials said the contract was arranged by Michael D. Furlong, a senior Defense Department civilian with a military "information warfare" command in San Antonio.

To get around a Pentagon ban on hiring contractors as spies, the report said, Mr. Furlong's team simply rebranded their activities as "atmospheric information" rather than "intelligence."

Mr. Furlong, now the subject of a criminal investigation by the Pentagon's inspector general, was accused in the internal Pentagon report of carrying out "unauthorized" intelligence gathering, and misleading senior military officers about it. He has said that he became a scapegoat for top commanders in Afghanistan who had blessed his activities.

As for Mr. Clarridge, American law prohibits private citizens from actively undermining a foreign government, but prosecutions under the so-called Neutrality Act have historically been limited to people raising private armies against foreign powers. Legal experts said Mr. Clarridge's plans against the Afghan president fell in a gray area, but would probably not violate the law.

Intelligence of Varying Quality

It is difficult to assess the merits of Mr. Clarridge's secret intelligence dispatches; a review of some of the documents by The Times shows that some appear to be based on rumors from talk at village bazaars or rehashes of press reports.

Others, though, contain specific details about militant plans to attack American troops, and about Taliban leadership meetings in Pakistan. Mr. Clarridge gave the military an in-depth report about a militant group, the Haqqani Network, in August 2009, a document that officials said helped the military track Haqqani fighters.

According to the Pentagon report, Mr. Clarridge told Marine commanders in Afghanistan in June 2010 that his group produced 500 intelligence dispatches before its contract was terminated.

When the military would not listen to him, Mr. Clarridge found other ways to peddle his information. For instance, his private spies in April and May were reporting that Mullah Muhammad Omar, the reclusive cleric who leads the Afghan Taliban, had been captured by Pakistani officials and placed under house arrest. Associates said Mr. Clarridge believed that Pakistan's spy service was playing a game: keeping Mullah Omar confined but continuing to support the Afghan Taliban.

Both military and intelligence officials said the information could not be corroborated, but Mr. Clarridge used back channels to pass it on to senior Obama administration officials, including Dennis C. Blair, then the director of national intelligence.

And associates said that Mr. Clarridge, determined to make the information public, arranged for it to get to Mr. Thor, a square-jawed writer of thrillers, a blogger and a regular guest on Mr. Beck's program on Fox News.

Most of Mr. Thor's books are yarns about the heroic exploits of Special Operations troops. In interviews, he said he was once embedded with a "black special ops team" and helped expose "a Taliban pornography/murder ring."

On May 10, biggovernment.com - a Web site run by the conservative commentator Andrew Breitbart - published an "exclusive" by Mr. Thor, whodeclined to comment for this article.

"Through key intelligence sources in Afghanistan and Pakistan," Mr. Thor wrote, "I have just learned that reclusive Taliban leader and top Osama bin Laden ally, Mullah Omar, has been taken into custody."

Just last week, he blogged about another report - unconfirmed by American officials - from Mr. Clarridge's group: that Mullah Omar had suffered a heart attack and was rushed to a hospital by Pakistan's spy agency, the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence.

"America is being played," he wrote.

Taking on Afghan Leaders

Mr. Clarridge and his spy network also took sides in an internecine government battle over Ahmed Wali Karzai, head of the Khandahar Provincial Council.

For years, the American military has believed that public anger over government-linked corruption has helped swell the Taliban's ranks, and that Ahmed Wali Karzai plays a central role in that corruption. He has repeatedly denied any links to the Afghan drug trafficking.

According to three American military officials, in April 2009 Gen. David D. McKiernan, then the top American commander in Afghanistan, told subordinates that he wanted them to gather any evidence that might tie the president's half brother to the drug trade. "He put the word out that he wanted to 'burn' Ahmed Wali Karzai," said one of the military officials.

In early 2010, after General McKiernan left Afghanistan and Mr. Clarridge was under contract to the military, the former spy helped produce a dossier for commanders detailing allegations about Mr. Karzai's drug connections, land grabs and even murders in southern Afghanistan. The document, provided to The Times, speculates that Mr. Karzai's ties to the C.I.A. - which has paid him an undetermined amount of money since 2001 - may be the reason the agency "is the only member of the country team in Kabul not to advocate taking a more active stance against AWK."

Ultimately, though, the military could not amass enough hard proof to convince other American officials of Mr. Karzai's supposed crimes, and backed off efforts to remove him from power.

Mr. Clarridge would soon set his sights higher: on President Hamid Karzai himself. Over the summer, after the Pentagon canceled his contract, Mr. Clarridge decided that the United States needed leverage over the Afghan president. So the former spy, running his network with money from unidentified donors, came up with an outlandish scheme that seems to come straight from the C.I.A.'s past playbook of covert operations.

There have long been rumors that Hamid Karzai uses drugs, in part because of his often erratic behavior, but the accusation was aired publicly last year by Peter W. Galbraith, a former United Nations representative in Afghanistan. American officials have said publicly that there is no evidence to support the allegation of drug use.

Mr. Clarridge pushed a plan to prove that the president was a heroin addict, and then confront him with the evidence to ensure that he became a more pliable ally. Mr. Clarridge proposed various ideas, according to several associates, from using his team to track couriers between the presidential palace in Kabul and Ahmed Wali Karzai's home in Kandahar, to even finding a way to collect Hamid Karzai's beard clippings and run DNA tests. He eventually dropped his ideas when the Obama administration signaled it was committed to bolstering the Karzai government.

Still, associates said, Mr. Clarridge maneuvered against the Karzais last summer by helping promote videos, available on YouTube, purporting to represent the "Voice of Afghan Youth." The slick videos disparage the president as the "king of Kabul" who regularly takes money from the Iranians, and Ahmed Wali Karzai as the "prince of Kandahar" who "takes the monthly gold from the American intelligence boss" and makes the Americans "his puppet."

The videos received almost no attention when they were posted on the Internet, but were featured in July on the Fox News Web site in a column by Mr. North, who declined to comment for this article. Writing that he had "stumbled" on the videos on the Internet, he called them a "treasure trove."

Mr. Clarridge, his associates say, continues to dream up other operations against the Afghan president and his inner circle. When he was an official spy, Mr. Clarridge recalled in his memoir, he bristled at the C.I.A.'s bureaucracy for thwarting his plans to do maximum harm to America's enemies. "It's not like I'm running my own private C.I.A.," he wrote, "and can do what I want."

I think see ... if you were running your own private C.I.A then you could do want you want, is that it ?

Hmmm ... propaganda videos aimed at inciting Muslims ... seems like I heard something about something similar to that here recently ...

Former Spy With Agenda Operates a Private C.I.A.

 

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Benghazi ...

The interesting question about the Benghazi "scandal" is: cui bono ? (who benefits ?)

Certainly not the Big O ...

The Repuglicans and Mittens are an entirely different matter however ...

Maybe a little "October Surprise" intentionally designed to change the outcome of a presidential election that came a few months early ?

That would be quite a prize indeed ... one that would accrue to many Repug's "benefit" ... in pursuit of their insatiable lust for power ...

Connecting the dots - courtesy of Justin Raimondo:

The Mystery Behind the Benghazi Attack

Were the Obama administration and Ambassador Stevens set up?

A reporter found the evidence of our folly in the ruins of the American consulate in Benghazi, scattered on the floor where it had been overlooked by looters. Amid the rubble and ashes were documents left there since the attack - clearly State Department correspondence - including "two unsigned draft letters" both dated Sept. 11: the missives "express strong fears about the security situation" and dissatisfaction with the response from higher ups. The Rosetta Stone, so to speak - the key to understanding how and why our ambassador was murdered along with three other Americans - turns up in a letter "written on Sept. 11 and addressed to Mohamed Obeidi, the head of the Libyan Ministry of Foreign Affairs office in Benghazi," which says in part:

"Finally, early this morning at 0643, September 11, 2012, one of our diligent guards made a troubling report. Near our main gate, a member of the police force was seen in the upper level of a building across from our compound. It is reported that this person was photographing the inside of the U.S. special mission and furthermore that this person was part of the police unit sent to protect the mission. The police car stationed where this event occurred was number 322."

Sean Smith, State Department official (and spy), was playing an online video game when the mob began to coalesce in front of the consulate. He posted this harrowing message to the gaming forum a few hours before he was killed:

"Assuming we don't die tonight. We saw one of our 'police' that guard the compound taking pictures."

These documents and other official correspondence were just left there, a month and a half after the attacks, and weeks after a visit from the FBI. Apparently, our G-man stayed a mere three hours, due to the complete lack of security.

As I wrote when the attack occurred:

"In her response to the attacks, Hillary Clinton was clear that this had nothing to do with the Libyan government 'or the Libyan people.' How did she know that so soon after the event - before even a preliminary investigation had been launched? Which is to say she didn't know, but was merely hoping.

"Yet there is evidence of official complicity, at least at some level. When the consulate initially came under attack, the Ambassador and key personnel were moved to another building: when the rioters broke in, they found the place empty. However, the Libyan "security" team assigned to guard the compound helpfully pointed out where the Americans were located: presumably they did this in the process of fleeing. Whether they did it to save their own lives, or out of sympathy for the rioters, is an open question."

With the discovery that these "policemen" were photographing the inside of the consulate, it looks like the question is closed. Clearly the Libyan "police" actively aided the attackers, both before and during the deadly assault. The CIA had apparently made an agreement with the "February 17 Brigade," a Libyan militia, to mobilize a "rapid reaction force" in an emergency situation, but when the emergency occurred the Brigade was nowhere to be found - indeed, this blow-by-blow account by retired Gen. Jack Keane indicates they actively obstructed the rescue effort at a militia "checkpoint."

As for Mr. Obeidi, he denies ever getting such a missive as is cited above, and claims he didn't even know the ambassador was in Benghazi, and yet the local cops say they received a letter from the Ministry informing them of the visit and requesting additional security - which may have been the problem, since the "security" personnel assigned to them were apparently in league with the attackers.

In short, Ambassador Chris Stevens and the three others were killed with the active complicity of the duly constituted authorities in Benghazi. Whether the conspiracy went all the way up to the national level we don't yet know, but this fellow Obeidi is definitely on the suspects list. And it doesn't end there?

The security arrangements for the Benghazi consulate, and indeed for all our operations in Libya, are under scrutiny, and one detail is being seized on: the hiring of a small and little-known outfit, Blue Mountain Security, based in the UK, to guard the Benghazi consulate. This Reuters report couldn't be more ****ing:

"Several of Blue Mountain's Libyan employees told Reuters that they had no prior security training or experience. 'I was never a revolutionary or a fighter, I have never picked up a weapon during the war or after it,' said Abdelaziz al-Majbiri, 28, who was shot in the legs during the September 11 assault.

"The Libyan commander in charge of the local guards at the mission was a former English teacher who said he heard about Blue Mountain from a neighbor. 'I don't have a background in security, I've never held a gun in my life,' he said, speaking on condition of anonymity out of fear for his safety. When hired, the commander said he was told 'you have great English and get along with everyone and are punctual; we want you to be a guard commander.'

"The unarmed guards were told to sound the alarm over the radio and then run for cover if there was an attack, a Libyan who acted as a supervisor for the Blue Mountain local guard team at the mission said during an interview with Reuters. He also displayed a medal embossed with 'Department of State' and a horseman carrying Libyan and U.S. flags. 'They thanked us for our help and also gave us this medal as an appreciation,' he said."

Unarmed "security" guards - who ever heard of that? How the heck did Blue Mountain get this contract? That's the really interesting part?

The Libyan government had previously been hostile to the idea of allowing foreign security companies to operate within their borders, but modified the rulesby granting access to those who could find a local (presumably Libyan) partner. Blue Mountain, described by UPI as "leading the way" for foreign mercenaries in Libya, found such a partner: the Eclipse Group, according to several news accounts. However, Eclipse isn't "local," not by any stretch of the imagination: the Eclipse Group is Duane Clarridge's "private CIA," which up until recently had a $6 million DoD contract - withdrawn after Eclipse embarked on a campaign to prove Afghan President Hamid Karzai's drug addiction. After the cut-off of Pentagon funds, Clarridge - one of the Iran-Contra defendants, indicted and later pardoned - found undisclosed "private donors" to run his gang of international cowboys. His reports, regularly issued to Pentagon insiders and journalists, have been used to target militants in Afghanistan and Pakistan: they have also been utilized by Fox News and others to "leak" information embarrassing to the Obama administration. A New York Times profile described him thusly:

"From his days running secret wars for the C.I.A. in Central America to his consulting work in the 1990s on a plan to insert Special Operations troops in Iraq to oust Saddam Hussein, Mr. Clarridge has been an unflinching cheerleader for American intervention overseas.

"Typical of his pugnacious style are his comments, provided in a 2008 interview for a documentary now on YouTube, defending many of the C.I.A.'s most notorious operations, including undermining the Chilean president Salvador Allende, before a coup ousted him 1973.

"'Sometimes, unfortunately, things have to be changed in a rather ugly way,' said Mr. Clarridge, his New England accent becoming more pronounced the angrier he became. 'We'll intervene whenever we decide it's in our national security interests to intervene. Get used to it, world. We're not going to put up with nonsense.'"

A former CIA officer, he was the brains behind the mining of Nicaragua's harbors during the Sandinista era and was deeply involved in recruiting for the "contra" cause. Indicted for perjury and other crimes during the Iran-Contra scandal, he was pardoned by George H. W. Bush on Christmas Eve, 1992, in the midst of his trial. Aside from collecting rumors and packaging them for the delectation of Fox News contributors such as his former Iran-Contra buddy Oliver North, and efforts to collect clippings from Karzai's beard, Eclipse appears to be doing little that can be called intelligence-gathering - unless denouncing and otherwise undermining the CIA, which Clarridge disdains, can be considered useful.

What is the Eclipse Group doing in Libya? How did they pass muster with the Libyan "government" as a "local" security company? We don't know, but Reuters reports:

"Blue Mountain and Eclipse parted ways in the spring over problems with Tripoli contracts, several sources familiar with the matter said. The severed relationship may have prevented Blue Mountain from getting additional work in Libya, which required the local affiliation."

The more one looks into the security arrangements at the Benghazi consulate, the murkier the picture gets: a "security firm" - not even a year old - posting unarmed guards at a US consulate where armed jihadists are roaming the streets, a "local" security company which isn't local at all and is headed up by a "staunchly interventionist" neocon type and his "private CIA" engaged in what the New York Times described as "schemes that are something of a cross between a Graham Greene novel and Mad Magazine's 'Spy vs. Spy'" - what is going on here?

The whole arrangement screams setup.

Fox News has been "investigating" the Benghazi incident, constructing a story line in which the Obama administration supposedly left the consulate in the lurch, and ordered a rescue team to "stand down" when they could have been saved. Gen. Keane, in an interview with National Public Radio, effectively debunked that scenario and the CIA has released a timeline. The neocons' hope that this would turn the election around and put the Obama administration on the defensive has proved not to be the case, but one can't help wondering what role Clarridge and his Eclipse Group had in setting the stage for this poisonous narrative.

Was the Benghazi attack an "October surprise" intended to ambush the Obama administration - and what part did the shadowy Eclipse Group play in all this? In this context, Clarridge's words take on a rather ominous aspect:

"Sometimes, unfortunately, things have to be changed in a rather ugly way."

NOTES IN THE MARGIN

I would note the curious similarity between the catalyst that supposedly set this whole incident in motion - the Innocence of Muslims video - and "Blue Mountain Security Solutions," a company that sent unarmed guards who had never held a gun in their lives to stand watch over the US consulate in Benghazi. Both have a curiously haphazard aspect to them, as if they were thrown together at the last minute: in both cases, as Gertrude Stein said of the city of Oakland, "there is no there there." In short, both schemes look like fronts, cut-outs, to be used and thrown away when they no longer serve the purpose for which they were created.

I would also note that Fox News, in constructing their "Obama-cut-and-ran" narrative, cites anonymous "American intelligence" sources "on the ground" in Libya: given Clarridge's well-documented links to Fox as a "source," the question arises: are these "intelligence" sources Clarridge and his dubious outfit?

The Mystery Behind the Benghazi Attack

 

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Oh ... SNAP ... looky here at who was trying to "shop" a Benghazi narrative (likely of highly dubious quality ):

Bob Woodward Says Romney Allies Brought Benghazi Source To His Home

WASHINGTON -- Allies of defeated presidential candidate Mitt Romney approached reporters with a government insider on the Benghazi, Libya, U.S. embassy attack in the final weeks of the campaign, Pulitzer Prize winning investigative journalist Bob Woodward told Fox News Wednesday night.

Woodward, appearing on the Sean Hannity show to discuss media coverage of Obama administration scandals, used the anecdote as an example of how he had tried to look into the story behind the Sept. 11 attack on an U.S. diplomatic outpost in Benghazi that left four Americans dead, including the ambassador.

"Some people close to Romney, a couple of weeks ago, just showed up at my house and said that they had somebody in a very sensitive position in the U.S. government who was willing to meet with me and give me information about Benghazi," Woodward told Hannity.

After the source failed to show at several meetings, Woodward said he finally met the person and was disappointed by the quality of the information.

"He finally showed up and he didn't have anything where he had any firsthand knowledge," Woodward said. "He said you ought to talk to his person and that person and so forth."

It was not clear from Woodward's remarks whether the people shopping the source in the first place were part of Romney's campaign, or were operating with the candidate's knowledge.

Woodward declined to elaborate when asked later by The Huffington Post. A Romney spokesman didn't immediately respond.

Bob Woodward Says Romney Allies Brought Benghazi Source To His Home

 

[bobwg]

Rlent and your source for all of your posts here is accurate? and with out agenda? I think not . Obama was claiming Bin Laden was dead and his terrorist group was no longer a great threat to the world. And to put more security in Libya as requested would have been to admit Obama was wrong about the threat being reduced. Then the attack happens again he has to blame some stupid video even though they knew it was not a protest but a terrorist attack. Then when asked point blank by a reporter were requests for help denied he refused to answer. Funny thing we have pictures of Obama in the white house situation room so he can claim his role in the killing of Bin Laden and pictures of him for Hurrican Sandy but no pics of him doing anything during the Libya attack in fact he flies off to Las Vegas for a fund raiser.

 

[RLENT]

Rlent and your source for all of your posts here is accurate?

First off, it would be s-o-u-r-c-e-s (plural) ... not source (singular)

My guess is that what I quoted in my initial post on Clarridge (which is based off of his wikipedia page) is accurate, as to factual details (indeed - it's mostly documented fact)

My characterizations of "Dewey" are my own opinions - other people may perceive him differently.

My guess is that the NYT article that I quoted is entirely accurate.

The article by Justin Raimondo as to the Benghazi aspect contains a number of documented facts and a good deal of opinion/speculation based on those facts - and should be considered as a presentation of a hypothesis ...

The assertion by Woodward on Fox News that Romney allies were trying to shop a narrative on Benghazi ?

Well, ol' Bob does have a credible history as an investigative journalist, having broke Watergate wide-open and all ... make your own call.

It's interesting to note that Woodward waited to come forward until after the election - if he were totally in the bag for Obama, sure would have been better to come out with it before everyone voted.

and with out agenda?

You're not naive enough to really believe that anyone doesn't have their own agenda are you ?

The relevant question: what is the real agenda ?

That varies quite a bit ... and ranges from the nefarious to the innocent and innocuous ...

Sometimes people and organizations are honest about their agendas, other times not so much ...

Good example of the latter would be Fox News' continual assertion that they are "Fair and Balanced" - they are neither (J. Goebbels would no doubt be very proud tho')

The "agenda" for the NYT story is probably the CIA's - an effort to try and cut Clarridge off at the kneecaps ... since he's screwing around with crap that they pretty much consider to be their own exclusive province ...

Raimondo's agenda is that he hates war ... and probably neocons - because he accurately sees them for the nutjobs they actually are - and understands the danger they pose to this country. I also think that his agenda is to push the truth - because often (almost always in fact) this nation has been taken to war on lies ...

I think not.

Heheheh ... yeah I'll bet.

My advice: change the channel from Fox News, spend a little time outside of the right wing-nut blogosphere/echo chamber ... and scope out some other sources of news.

Obama was claiming Bin Laden was dead

Evidently a true claim, according to a number of sources.

and his terrorist group was no longer a great threat to the world.

Quite possibly true (that they are no longer a great threat) - if you understand his terrorist group was actually quite small to begin with. Doubtless it or it's offshoots and mimics have grown numerically since then, but whether they pose anything close to the threat that it did earlier is questionable/arguable ...

Of course, it is certainly to the Big O's political benefit to say that they aren't/don't ...

And to put more security in Libya as requested would have been to admit Obama was wrong about the threat being reduced.

That would be a logical fallacy in and of itself.

Then the attack happens again he has to blame some stupid video even though they knew it was not a protest but a terrorist attack.

Actually there was a protest involved apparently - a fact that was reported in a number of interviews of eyewitness on the ground in Benghazi done on the day after the attack (9/12) by a number of media sources (including some foreign) that actually had reporters on the ground in Benghazi at the time ...

The "protest" may have been simply a cover/pretext for the attack did that occur.

Useful idiots are, after all ... useful ...

Then when asked point blank by a reporter were requests for help denied he refused to answer.

That proves what exactly ?

I can't really speak to it anymore than that, because I am unfamiliar with the event you are talking about.

Funny thing we have pictures of Obama in the white house situation room so he can claim his role in the killing of Bin Laden and pictures of him for Hurrican Sandy but no pics of him doing anything during the Libya attack

Huge difference between deliberately planned actions and events by the administration ... and reactions by the administration to actions/events by others ...

So you figure that in the middle of a reaction to a crisis, their first thought on hearing our embassy is under attack is "Oh ... we better call in WH photographer to get some action shots of the C-I-C !"

Seriously - is that really what ya wanna go with ?

in fact he flies off to Las Vegas for a fund raiser.

When exactly ?

After the attack was over and our guys were evac'ed to Tripoli ?

You sound kinda like some right-wingers on another board I'm on - although they actually far more rabid - more like the 'shooter and LDB but worse ...

So after listening to them 'tards act like a bunch of parrots by continuously spewing out the right-wing "facts" and talking points, I decided to flip the narrative - I asked the obvious question, which was: who actually benefits from this disaster ?

Not Obama obviously ...

Within I think 36 to 72 hours after I did that, Raimondo published his piece on "The Mystery of Benghazi" ...

I wish I could say I was surprised, but I'm afraid that I understand quite well the magnitude of evil that men are all too willing to commit.

 

[bobwg]

Reporter Presses Obama On Libya Attack, "Bull****ter" Comment - YouTube a simple yes or no answer but Obama refuses to answer seems like cover up or the so called commander in chief is not the commander. Obama benefits if the truth doesnt come out till after the election since no way to punish /remove him

 

[RLENT]

Reporter Presses Obama On Libya Attack, "Bull****ter" Comment - YouTube a simple yes or no answer but Obama refuses to answer seems like cover up or the so called commander in chief is not the commander. Obama benefits if the truth doesnt come out till after the election since no way to punish /remove him

Is this - and "I think not" - the best ya got to address all of what I posted in this thread ?

... "seems like cover up" ?

Really ... ?

As far as an answer, a case could be made that he did answer ... but not in a way which would allow his political opponents to exploit it ...

As far as "dodgy" answers by politicians go, try going back up there to YouTube and search for "George Bush" ... you'll find plenty of it.

It's what they traffic in ...

 

[RLENT]

And if you wish to understand how exactly Fox News misrepresents and perverts the truth to drive an agenda, read the following - which is part of series that critically examines Fox's coverage and the problems with it:

Fox News and Benghazi video: For real?

On Oct. 26, Fox News published a big story on the U.S. response to the Sept. 11 attacks on a diplomatic installation in Benghazi. Beset by incompetence and slow-footedness, the Central Intelligence Agency failed to capably defend U.S. personnel against the Libyan attackers, alleged the piece by Fox’s Jennifer Griffin. Four U.S. personnel died in the clashes.

The U.S. military had surveillance technology in place to capture a portion of the conflict. Griffin’s story explains:

Fox News has learned that there were two military surveillance drones redirected to Benghazi shortly after the attack on the consulate began. They were already in the vicinity. The second surveillance craft was sent to relieve the first drone, perhaps due to fuel issues. Both were capable of sending real time visuals back to U.S. officials in Washington, D.C. Any U.S. official or agency with the proper clearance, including the White House Situation Room, State Department, CIA, Pentagon and others, could call up that video in real time on their computers.​

That’s from the Web story published on FoxNews.com. Notice how carefully Griffin articulates her reporting; she doesn’t make any representations about who was watching these “visuals,” but rather reports only that the video was available.

There are two Fox Newses, however. One is the Fox News that Griffin inhabits. The other is the one that Sean Hannity inhabits.

On “Hannity,” Griffin’s reporting on video surveillance has gotten the elastic treatment. On the night of Oct. 29, right around the time Superstorm Sandy was greeting the Jersey shore, Hannity was interviewing Charles Woods, the father of fallen Benghazi defender Tyrone Woods. He said to Hannity:

CHARLES WOODS: Let’s say I don’t want to point any fingers, but obviously people in the White House were watching this happen real-time. Someone in the White House or many people in the White House watched the events unfolding and knew that if they gave the order to stand down that my son would die. They watched my son die.

​

Tommy Vietor, spokesman for the National Security Council, tells the Erik Wemple Blog, “No one at the White House watched live footage of the Benghazi attacks from the situation room or anywhere else in the White House.”

Hannity himself has tuned his video attacks to a different channel. On Wednesday night, in a chat with author Bob Woodward, Hannity began inveighing against the Obama administration’s handling of Benghazi:

HANNITY: But let me ask you this: We don’t know where the president was on the night of 9/11, when this happened. We don’t know what he knew. He denied for two weeks what was —what we know our State Department watched in real-time, according to this woman [State Department official Charlene] Lamb, who testified [before Congress on Oct. 10].

​

Bolded text added to highlight Hannity’s version of a campaign theme. On Friday, Nov. 2, with Liz Cheney, he said:

HANNITY: There is no food in some places. And [the president] is gone. He is out back to Vegas. He seems but not a photo op of what he did with Benghazi. Was he in the situation room? Was he aware that the State Department was watching this in real time?​

On Oct. 31, with Newt Gingrich, he said:

HANNITY: Well, there are three aspects to this from my perspective, before during and after the ambassador requested extra security. He was denied. They reduced the force at one point so who made that decision?​

Then it’s during this entire episode, we know that according to Charlene Lamb, our government, our State Department was watching this in real-time. Where was president?​

And on Oct. 30, with Fred Thompson, he said:

HANNITY: Why two weeks after the attack were you still denying it was a terrorist attack when we now know that our State Department and intelligence knew and were watching this in real-time? So you’re offended, Mr. President?​

When asked whether the State Department was indeed watching the Benghazi attacks in real time, a State official responded, “Nobody at the Department had the ability to watch either of the attacks in real time.”

According to official accounts, the assault on the large U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi started around 9:40 p.m. on the night of Sept. 11. The assailants barged through the facility’s pedestrian gate, torched some security barracks with diesel fuel and then turned their attention to the compound’s main building, according to Lamb’s testimony before Congress.

Just who was doing all that storming; what they were doing before the attack; whether there were protesters in their midst — all of that is a matter of intense dispute with political implications. Administration official said after the attacks that they may have been associated with protests over an anti-Muslim video; critics responded that no, this was strictly a terrorist attack.

There was never any real-time video of this early portion of the Benghazi hostilities. No one in Washington — State Department, White House, whatever — was watching live feeds of the gate-crashing.

An administration official explains: “The Benghazi compound had a CCTV [closed-circuit television] system. Meaning, a system of cameras on the compound. Those cameras could be monitored from the [Tactical Operations Center, TOC], which is one of the structures on the compound.. . . Those images could not be seen anywhere outside the TOC, let alone outside Benghazi.

The footage from those cameras is recorded and stored for a period. The footage from the attack was not in USG [U.S. government] hands until later in September.”

Other officials confirmed this account, and Lamb’s testimony before Congress indicated that she was getting updates ”almost in real time.” By telephone, not video. According to an administration official, a security agent stationed in the operations center was providing Lamb phone updates on the hostilities. “She was on the phone with one of the agents for much of the attack,” notes the administration official via e-mail.

“That agent was literally juggling 3 phones, a radio, and his weapon. So she had an ‘open line’ to him and could hear what he said.”

So: No real-time video was available at the time of the initial attack on the compound. Technical capabilities, however, changed later in the night — just after 11:00 p.m. — when a Predator drone took position over the area, minutes before U.S. personnel vacated the compound for a CIA annex about a mile away.

That drone had video-sending capacity, though the footage was of limited use to folks back in Washington. It “didn’t provide resolute clarity on what was happening on the ground — no,” says a Defense Department official. “It later provided us with analysis on the timing of the attacks and the facilities that were impacted, but was not providing real-time information to senior department leaders.”

Drone assets were in the sky through the second major clash of the Benghazi episode, when two security officials protecting the CIA annex were killed engaging with the enemy. That happened over 11 minutes, starting at 5:15 a.m.

Precision on the real-time video question matters. Loose talk about how government officials were sitting around watching Benghazi TV carries the implication that they knew everything about the attack in real time and did nothing to assist in thwarting it. Benghazi furnishes plenty of Obama administration missteps/scandals — including why security problems didn’t get more attention and why officials made repeated references to a YouTube video in the aftermath of the attacks. Use of real-time video, though, doesn’t appear to be one of them.

Fox News and Benghazi video: For real?

 

[Pilgrim]

General Ham announces his retirement. Curious timing to say the least. Is he being relieved of his duty for disobeying a command not to send in help? Maybe retiring because of disgust about the lack of action from Obama and Panetta? Like to know the real story from him.
TRR: Is a General losing his job over Benghazi? - Washington Times

Petraeus resigns over extramarital affair; also supposedly won't testify before Congress. Since when do politicians and govt officials quit over silly little things like this? Timing sounds odd to me. Hopefully Congress will subpoena him to testify anyway - would be interesting to hear what he has to say about that whole mess.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/10/us/citing-affair-petraeus-resigns-as-cia-director.html?_r=0

 

[muttly]

Petraeus resigns over extramarital affair; also supposedly won't testify before Congress. Since when do politicians and govt officials quit over silly little things like this? Timing sounds odd to me. Hopefully Congress will subpoena him to testify anyway - would be interesting to hear what he has to say about that whole mess.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/10/us/citing-affair-petraeus-resigns-as-cia-director.html?_r=0

Curious timing to say the least. The FBI knew about this for awhile so if Petraeus was such a potential security threat this should have been dealt with when it was discovered. Now he resigns just after the election on a Friday and a few days before he is to testify. He reportedly has said he was looking forward to testify, but now has changed his tune and said he won't. They will probably have to subpoena him,which they should.

 

[muttly]

More Benghazi leaks from the whitehouse it appears.
Intel director launches initial leak probe over ex-NYT reporter's Libya claims | Fox News

 

[RLENT]

Petraeus resigns over extramarital affair; also supposedly won't testify before Congress. Since when do politicians and govt officials quit over silly little things like this?

Ahhh ... it happens periodically ...

Evidently you've never heard of Thad Viers ?

or Anthony Weiner ?

or David Wu ?

or Chris Lee ?

or Herman Cain ?

or Mark Souder ?

or Eric Massa ?

or Tom Ganley ?

And that's just pols at the federal level over the ;ast two years ...

Timing sounds odd to me.

Well ... just imagine how it sounds to the 'shooter ...

Hopefully Congress will subpoena him to testify anyway - would be interesting to hear what he has to say about that whole mess.

Director of the CIA testifying about what (Benghazi) was essentially a CIA covert op ?

One that NATSEC interests may require restarting or continuing at some point ?

You're probably ain't gonna hear a tenth of it ...

My guess is, that in terms of gross negligence or incompetence on the part of the administration, there ain't no there there ... at least not yet ...

 

[RLENT]

Curious timing to say the least. The FBI knew about this for awhile so if Petraeus was such a potential security threat this should have been dealt with when it was discovered.

Might wanna clear up the difference between a security threat ... and a security risk ...

He may have been a security risk ...

She may be, or have been, a security threat (honey trap)

Now he resigns just after the election on a Friday and a few days before he is to testify. He reportedly has said he was looking forward to testify, but now has changed his tune and said he won't.

You got a link reporting where he actually said that ?

They will probably have to subpoena him,

Perhaps ...

which they should.

My guess is that, on Benghazi, there is very little that he knows, that others do not also know as well ...

 

[RLENT]

More Benghazi leaks from the whitehouse it appears.

Hey mutt ... maybe you can help me out here ... and point me to where in that article it is in any way implied that the alleged leak was from the WH ...

Or was that just something you decided to pull out of your *** ?

 

[Turtle]

Hey mutt ... maybe you can help me out here ... and point me to where in that article it is in any way implied that the alleged leak was from the WH ...

Or was that just something you decided to pull out of your *** ?

It's in the article in two places. One, where Gelb wrote that he was privy to the same intelligence briefing as Susan Rice, saying, "Her (Rice) mistake was taking the initial intelligence at face value," and "The White House briefers made the same error, and so did I," which clearly implicates the briefers of the briefing as being from the White House. The second place in the article where the article implies the alleged leak was from the White House was Peter King's quote, "To have a journalist have top secrets of the United States and not have it come from the CIA, not have it come from the director of national intelligence, this seems to have been given to him from someone in the White House."


On the matter of Patraeus and the likes of Anthony Weiner and Herman Cain, et al, and politicians quitting over things like this, the one thing I find interesting is, in the case of Patraeus, it wasn't someone other-than Patraeus who first made this affair public. In the other cases, someone else made the information public, including details, which resulted in scandal, which resulted in the politician quitting over it. With Patraeus, there was nothing public about it at all. There's no scandal to resign over. Granted, the chief spook is subject to blackmail over things like this, same as any other intelligence employee, so on that basis it makes at least some sense to resign out in front of any scandal. But, some of the details have come out, and they're pedestrianly boring.

The FBI was investigating some other issue entirely, and stumbled upon evidence of the affair when they were checking into whether or not the security of one of the computers Patraeus had been using had been compromised. The affair happened with Paula Broadwell, the co-author of a biography of Mr. Petraeus, who spent extended periods of time with Mr. Petraeus in Afghanistan, interviewing him for her book. That's boring. If it had been Paul instead of Paula, that would be more entertaining and scandal-worthy, ripe for blackmail, that's for sure. But it's boring.

What's entertaining, however, when the FBI stumbled upon the affair, they met with Patraeus to discuss what they found, which was evidence of the affair as well as "other security concerns" with regards to his use of that computer. That's some fun right there. It's the "other security concerns" that seems to be fodder for speculation as to those concerns were scandal-worthy enough to get out in front of the issue and retire ahead of any details coming out, rather than some boring affair with his biographer.

Combine that with the fact that the FBI did not inform the Senate and House Intelligence Committees about the inquiry until this week, coincidentally after the election, despite the laws requiring Senate committees, at least their chairmen and ranking members, are supposed to be told about significant developments in the intelligence arena, including any investigations of key intelligence personnel. The revelation of a secret inquiry into the head of the nation’s top spy agency raises all kinds of questions, especially when looked at in concert with non-divulged "other security concerns".

Another "after the election" coincidence is the incident where two Iranian fighter jets fired on a US surveillance drone in international airspace over the Persian Gulf. The incident took place last week, but the story was kept under wraps and wasn't released until the day after the election. If the story had been released last week, it would have meant 4-5 days of answering uncomfortable questions that Obama and his campaign didn't want to have to address prior to the election, and it would have meant Romney would have been given plenty of chances to comment his views. It's interesting that in the final weeks up to the election, as is usual, Romney had been getting daily security briefings, just like Obama, but unlike Obama's briefing, the Iranian shooting incident was absent Romney's version of the briefing.

"Political risk analysts noted that the firing had taken place days before it was clear whether the American elections would be won by President Obama or his Republican challenger, Mitt Romney, who was far more hawkish than Mr. Obama in his public criticism of Iran during the campaign."

 

[RLENT]

It's in the article in two places. One, where Gelb wrote that he was privy to the same intelligence briefing as Susan Rice, saying, "Her (Rice) mistake was taking the initial intelligence at face value," and "The White House briefers made the same error, and so did I," which clearly implicates the briefers of the briefing as being from the White House.

No, not really ...

People who are tasked to brief the White House might rightly be referred to as "White House (Intelligence) Briefers" ... but that doesn't necessarily mean that they are actually a part of, or from, the White House ...

Understanding the history of the PDB (President's Daily Brief) - the primary vehicle used to brief the President on intelligence matters - provides some context ... it was originally produced by the CIA but later became the province of the ODNI (Office of the Director of National Intelligence), specifically the Assistant Deputy Director of National Intelligence for the President's Daily Brief.

ODNI serves as the collection/compilation vessel into which are funneled the various products of the United States Intelligence Community, a group of 16 governmental elements which are charged with the collection and production of intelligence.

ODNI is not located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue (or even the OEOB) - in fact, it's not even located in DC - it's in McLean, VA.

Additionally, from what I have read over a very long period of time, people involved in briefing the president on such things, are often brought in from outside the White House (from the intel community) - which only stands to reason - since they are they ones in possession of the greater body of detailed intelligence, from which the PDB's are compiled.

Interestingly enough, it is the DNI/ODNI - not the White House - that is launching the investigation ... one might take that as an indication as to where some believe the potential leak originated from ... or not ...

The second place in the article where the article implies the alleged leak was from the White House was Peter King's quote, "To have a journalist have top secrets of the United States and not have it come from the CIA, not have it come from the director of national intelligence, this seems to have been given to him from someone in the White House."

Yeah ... well ... Peter King ... now there's a source I'd really want to trust as far as being far and non-partisan ...

King's statement obviously includes the assumption that the info Gelb was operating on did not come from ODNI briefers ... but what is that based on exactly ... a characterization a journalist wrote in a article ?

King probably has no real knowledge on the matter and is only speculating ... likely for partisan reasons.

On the matter of Patraeus and the likes of Anthony Weiner and Herman Cain, et al, and politicians quitting over things like this, the one thing I find interesting is, in the case of Patraeus, it wasn't someone other-than Patraeus who first made this affair public. In the other cases, someone else made the information public, including details, which resulted in scandal, which resulted in the politician quitting over it. With Patraeus, there was nothing public about it at all. There's no scandal to resign over. Granted, the chief spook is subject to blackmail over things like this, same as any other intelligence employee, so on that basis it makes at least some sense to resign out in front of any scandal. But, some of the details have come out, and they're pedestrianly boring.

The FBI was investigating some other issue entirely, and stumbled upon evidence of the affair when they were checking into whether or not the security of one of the computers Patraeus had been using had been compromised.

Yes - some of the details of his affair have come out and can rightly be described as pedestrianly boring ... however what has not come out are the details of "some other issue entirely" ...

It may well be the case that the Febbies are well enough along in whatever they are investigating, and that it was apparent to Petraeus that there was a very good chance that the matter - including his affair - was going to become public at some point - either as a consequence of what he was told when he was questioned by the FBI, or just by the nature of the questions that they asked.

Obviously, it would be better (for Petraeus) to get ahead of that, before the rumors start flying, possibly as a consequence of the continuation of the investigation.

The real thing that is interesting is the "some other issue entirely" ... although undoubtedly the media will devote much time to the affair, given it's salacious nature ...

 

[Turtle]

No, not really ...

People who are tasked to brief the White House might rightly be referred to as "White House (Intelligence) Briefers" ... but that doesn't necessarily mean that they are actually a part of, or from, the White House ...

Well, I don't know about really or not, and I understand that it doesn't necessarily mean they were actually part of the White House, but that's where I found it in the article, and where in the article is what you were looking for, as far as I understood your question.

Yeah ... well ... Peter King ... now there's a source I'd really want to trust as far as being far and non-partisan ...

King's statement obviously includes the assumption that the info Gelb was operating on did not come from ODNI briefers ... but what is that based on exactly ... a characterization a journalist wrote in a article ?

King probably has no real knowledge on the matter and is only speculating ... likely for partisan reasons.

I don't know one way or the other, but I do know where in the article that he said it, which is what you were looking for, as far as I understood your question.

 

[muttly]

Might wanna clear up the difference between a security threat ... and a security risk ...

He may have been a security risk ...

She may be, or have been, a security threat (honey trap)


You got a link reporting where he actually said that ?


Perhaps ...


My guess is that, on Benghazi, there is very little that he knows, that others do not also know as well ...

He was a potential security threat due to his risky behavior. Comprendo?

Fine, let them all testify and then we shall see.
My link is from Fox News. How Will Petraeus Resignation Impact Hearings on Benghazi Attack? | Fox News Insider

 

[muttly]

Hey mutt ... maybe you can help me out here ... and point me to where in that article it is in any way implied that the alleged leak was from the WH ...

Or was that just something you decided to pull out of your *** ?

What Turtle said. He pretty much covered it. Got to admit though,there does seem to be a disturbing pattern with this administration regarding what is leaked(always benificial to them) and what is witheld (not beneficial to them.) There seems to be a pattern