Obviously, the Bengazi situation NEEDS clearing up. Susan Rice NEEDS to clarify "talking points".

2012 Benghazi attack  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Benghazi_attack

Possible Poisoning

Al Qaeda weapons expert says U.S. ambassador to Libya killed by lethal injection. 

BY: Bill Gertz

An al Qaeda terrorist stated in a recent online posting that U.S. Ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens was killed by lethal injection after plans to kidnap him during the Sept. 11, 2012 terror attack in Benghazi went bad.

The veracity of the claim made by Abdallah Dhu-al-Bajadin, who was identified by U.S. officials as a known weapons experts for al Qaeda, could not be determined. However, U.S. officials have not dismissed the terrorist’s assertion.

An FBI spokeswoman indicated the bureau was aware of the claim but declined to comment because of the bureau’s ongoing investigation into the Benghazi attack.

“While there is a great deal of information in the media and on the Internet about the attack in Benghazi, the FBI is not in a position at this time to comment on anything specific with regard to the investigation,” Kathy Wright, the FBI spokeswoman, said.

A State Department spokesman also had no comment.

The FBI is investigating the death of Stevens, State Department information officer Sean Smith, and former Navy SEALs Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty. They were killed in the attack U.S. officials say was carried out by an al Qaeda-linked group known as Ansar al Sharia.

A State Department Accountability Review Board report and an interim House Republican report on the attack gave no cause of death for Stevens, whose body was recovered by local Libyans in the early morning hours of Sept. 12.

The House report, “Interim Progress Report for the House Republican Conference,” said “Libyan doctors tried unsuccessfully to resuscitate Ambassador Stevens upon his arrival at the hospital.”

To date, no official cause of death for Stevens has been made public, although it was reported that a Libyan doctor who examined Stevens said he died from apparent smoke inhalation and related asphyxiation.

Video and photos of Stevens being handled by a mob in Benghazi were posted on the Internet. It is not clear from the images whether he was dead or alive at the time.

However, according to the March 14 posting on an al Qaeda-linked website, Abdallah Dhu-al-Bajadin, the al Qaeda weapons expert, stated that Stevens was given a lethal injection and that the injection was overlooked during the medical autopsy.

According to Dhu-al-Bajadin, “the plan was based on abduction and exchange of high-level prisoners.”

“However, the operation took another turn, for a reason God only knows, when one of the members of the jihadist cell improvised and followed Plan B,” he wrote on the prominent jihadist web forum Ansar al-Mujahideen Network.

Dhu-al-Bajadin’s claim of assassination also stated that it had been copied to the Ansar al-Mujahidin website from the closed and al Qaeda-accredited website Shumukh al-Islam. That site is only open to members and was initially posted by a member identified as Adnan Shukri for Dhu-al-Bajadin.

The reference to Shumukh al Islam has boosted the credibility of the claim among some U.S. intelligence analysts.

A western intelligence official said Dhu-al-Bajadin is a well-known jihadist weapons experts and a key figure behind a magazine called Al Qaeda Airlines.

According to this official, intelligence analysts believe that Dhu-al-Bajadin’s claim of assassination by lethal injection appears in part aimed at putting pressure on the U.S. government over its handling of the Benghazi attack.

The article did not say what substance was used in the lethal injection. It also stated that the State Department had come under criticism for not providing adequate security in Benghazi prior to the attack.

Dhu-al-Bajadin also said he had further details of the attack and the assassination but would not reveal them in the posting.

The Washington Free Beacon obtained a copy of the translation of Dhu-al-Bajadin’s posting in Arabic.

The article stated that use of lethal injection is done “more than one place in the human body that autopsy doctors ignore when they see that the symptoms are similar to another specific and common illness.”

“Anyone who studied the art of silent assassination that spies applied during the Cold War would easily identify these parts of the body,” he said.

Dhu-al-Bajadin also stated that he was discussing the assassination of Stevens’ death months later because “the cell” behind “the infiltrative and secret operation is now completely safe from intelligence bureaus.”

Source: http://freebeacon.com/possible-poisoning/

Ansar al-Sharia (Libya) (English: Partisans of Islamic Law) is an Islamist militia group advocating the implementation of strict Sharia law across Libya.

On September 11, 2012, the United States Department of State Operations Center advised the White House Situation Room and other U.S. security units that Ansar al-Sharia was claiming responsibility for the attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi that had just occurred.^[13] Witnesses said they saw vehicles with the group's logo at the scene of the assault and that fighters there acknowledged at the time that they belonged to Ansar al-Sharia.^[10] Witnesses also said they saw Ahmed Abu Khattala, a commander of Ansar al-Sharia, leading the embassy attack, a claim Mr. Khattala denied.^[14] According tolongwarjournal.org, the group issued a statement asserting that it "didn't participate as a sole entity," and that the attack "was a spontaneous popular uprising" to an anti-Islam film.^[15]

On 21 September 2012, after massive anti-militia protests in Benghazi which largely blamed Ansar al-Sharia for the attack, hundreds of protesters stormed the militia headquarters, pulled down flags of the militia and torched a vehicle inside the base.^[16] Afterwards, crowds swelled to several thousand strong and breached into Ansar al-Sharia military base where militants retreated before the civilians got to the base and led a pro ansar sharia peaceful protest. Another compound was taken later that night. Elements of Libyan National Army and Libyan police came to the support of the civilians the rioters later took over control of the bases of different brigades such as Martyrs of 17 February and The first Libyan Shield.^[17]

source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ansar_al-Sharia_(Libya)

Susan Rice's Benghazi sacrifice pushes Obama confidante to greater heights

Secretary of state may have been the more prestigious job, but core of US foreign policy lies with the national security adviser

Susan Rice will replace US national security adviser Tom Donilon. Photograph: Spencer Platt/Getty Images

The redemption of Susan Rice, President Obama's next national security adviser, advances a recent institutional trend in US foreign policy: jobs that don't require Senate approval are often more powerful than the ones that do.

Rice, the close Obama confidante and United Nations ambassador, became congressional Republicans' scapegoat in the Benghazi affairafter she incorrectly told TV chat shows that the deadly September assault on the US consulate resulted from a protest over a YouTube video. Rice cautioned her statement that the facts were not fully known at the time of her appearances, but the damage was done. The resulting scandal prevented Rice from becoming Obama's second-term secretary of state.

It ended up benefiting her. Later on Wednesday, Obama will announce that Rice will replace national security adviser Tom Donilon. The job may not have been Rice's first choice, but it is the more powerful one.

At the White House, where the national security adviser works, Rice will command no budgets and run no agency. But she will be responsible for something more central to US foreign and national-security policies: co-ordinating the interaction between the various cabinet agencies to forge an unified agenda – and acting as the chief proxy on foreign policy for the president of the United States.

The national security adviser is not formally more powerful than every department in the US foreign policy apparatus. He or she cannot order troops into battle; cannot manage budgets that eclipse those of domestic agencies; cannot release malicious software that ends up damaging the sensitive equipment of foreign adversaries. But the national security adviser channels the wishes of the president at the meetings where such decisions are reached. In the Obama administration, like the Bush administration before it, the White House is the place where US foreign policy comes into existence.

The national security adviser also has a crucial advantage over his or her colleagues who run cabinet agencies and departments. The Senate has no influence over the appointment. He or she cannot be blocked from reaching the job, nor can presidential opponents in the Senate turn his or her confirmation hearings into high-profile forums to attack the administration, as occurred with defense secretary Chuck Hagel. Nor, absent truly exceptional circumstances, does the national security adviser have to testify to Congress about his or her performance on the job.

Perhaps most ironically for Rice's situation, the rise of the national security adviser has eclipsed the role of secretary of state. Over the years, the national security adviser, and even his or her staff, has increasingly played a large diplomatic role, a trend begun when Henry Kissinger occupied both national security adviser and secretary of state jobs simultaneously. Foreign leaders and their aides can wonder whether the secretary of state speaks with the president's voice: Colin Powell, for instance, was famously out of sync with the foreign policy of President George W Bush. No foreign capital has that worry about the national security adviser.

That's why it was Donilon, and not secretary of state John Kerry, who negotiated the upcoming California meeting of Obama and Chinese president Xi Jinping. It is also why former White House counter-terrorism chief John Brennan was Obama's chosen manager of the sensitive relationship with Yemen, increasingly a centerpiece of his shadow wars against al-Qaida. In Washington, as in foreign capitals, secretary of state is the more prestigious job, a vestige of an era when grand strategy began and was managed out of Foggy Bottom. But that era has largely passed: US foreign policy begins at the White House, and its most powerful implementer is the Defense Department, whose budget is an order of magnitude larger than the State Department's.

Speaking of Brennan, he was another example of the trend Rice continues. In 2008, Obama wanted to appoint Brennan, a close campaign aide, as his first CIA director. But liberal critics – including now-Guardian columnist Glenn Greenwald – highlighted statements that Brennan made on television shows that seemed to excuse CIA torture. Brennan withdrew his nomination before the Senate could consider it and opposition could coalesce – and Obama instead appointed him to a broad portfolio in the White House designing, co-ordinating and managing intelligence, counter-terrorism and homeland-security policies. Brennan presided over the drone strikes that have come to define Obama's counter-terrorism efforts, even selecting targets to kill – an extraordinary power for a position unaccountable to the legislature.

This institutional shift in foreign policy and national security undermines the very reason why the constitution granted the Senate an "advise and consent" role over cabinet appointments. The idea, and long-standing American tradition, is to allow the people, through their elected legislative representatives, a measure of influence over the foreign policies conducted in their name – an area where the president's institutional powers are often at their apex. But entrenched partisan acrimony has convinced presidents of both parties that the easier course is to circumvent the Senate and vest power in their relatively unaccountable staffs.

read more at http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/05/susan-rice-national-security-adviser-benghazi 

AP source: Donilon resigns as security adviser

 Email this Story

Jun 5, 7:28 AM (ET)By JULIE PACE

(AP) U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice speaks at a news conference after the U.N. Security Council held... Full Image

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Barack Obama's top national security adviser Tom Donilon is resigning and will be replaced by U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice, marking a significant shakeup to the White House foreign policy team.

A White House official confirmed the personnel changes Wednesday morning ahead of a planned announcement by the president later in the day.

Donilon has been a key foreign policy adviser to Obama since he first took office. But the 58-year-old had been expected to depart sometime this year, with Rice seen as the likely candidate to replace him.

Rice, a close Obama confidante, came under withering criticism from Republicans as part of the investigations into the deadly attack on a U.S. compound in Benghazi, Libya. Rice, relying on talking points from the intelligence community, said in television interviews that the attacks were likely spontaneous, which was later proven incorrect.

Obama considered nominating Rice as his second-term secretary of state, but she withdrew amid the GOP criticism, saying she didn't want her confirmation fight to be a distraction for the White House.

Her new post as national security adviser does not require Senate confirmation.

The White House official said Donilon is expected to stay on the job until early July, after Obama wraps up two overseas trips and a summit later this week with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

The official insisted on anonymity in order to discuss the personnel changes before they were publicly announced. 

Source: http://apnews.myway.com/article/20130605/DA6NI1LG0.html

Anti-Muslim Video Never Linked To Libya Attack Per State Department

STATE DEPARTMENT: WE NEVER LINKED LIBYA ATTACK TO ANTI-MUSLIM VIDEO

Posted on October 9, 2012 at 8:25pm by  Jason Howerton

A pair of boots lies on the ground at the US consulate compound in Benghazi on September 13, 2012, following an attack on the building late on September 11 in which the US ambassador to Libya and three other US nationals were killed. Libya said it has made arrests and opened a probe into the attack, amid speculation that Al-Qaeda rather than a frenzied mob was to blame. (Credit: AFP/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON (TheBlaze/AP) — The State Department said Tuesday it never concluded that the consulate attack in Libya stemmed from protests over an American-made video ridiculing Islam, raising further questions about why the Obama administration used that explanation for more than a week after assailants killed the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans.

The revelation came as new documents suggested internal disagreement over appropriate levels of security before the attack, which occurred on the 11th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terror attacks on the U.S.

Briefing reporters ahead of a hotly anticipated congressional hearing Wednesday, State Department officials provided their most detailed rundown of how a peaceful day in Benghazi devolved into a sustained attack that involved multiple groups of men armed with weapons such as machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades and mortars over an expanse of more than a mile.

But asked about the administration’s initial – and since retracted – explanation linking the violence to protests over an anti-Muslim video circulating on the Internet, one official said, “That was not our conclusion.“ He called it a question for ”others” to answer, without specifying. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly on the matter, and provided no evidence that might suggest a case of spontaneous violence or angry protests that went too far.

read more at http://www.theblaze.com/stories/ap-sources-state-department-never-linked-libya-attack-to-anti-muslim-video/

Producer of anti-Islam film to appear in court...

This Sept. 27, 2012, file courtroom sketch shows Mark Basseley Youssef, right, talking with his attorney Steven Seiden in court.(photo credit: AP Photo/Mona Shafer Edwards)

The man of many aliases, Mark Basseley Youssef, due to face questioning about violating probation

October 10, 2012, 3:36 pm

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A California man with many aliases who was behind an anti-Muslim film that sparked violence in the Middle East is expected to be asked by a judge Wednesday whether he violated his probation for a 2010 bank fraud conviction.

Federal prosecutors said Mark Basseley Youssef, 55, had eight probation violations, including lying to his probation officer and using aliases. If Youssef denies those allegations, a judge will then likely schedule an evidentiary hearing.

Youssef has been in a federal detention center since Sept. 28 after he was arrested for the probation violations and deemed a flight risk by a magistrate judge.

He went into hiding after a 14-minute trailer for the movie “Innocence of Muslims” was posted on YouTube. Angry protests stoked by the film broke out in Egypt and Libya, and violence related to the film has spread, killing dozens. Enraged Muslims demanded punishment for Youssef, and a Pakistani cabinet minister has offered a $100,000 bounty to anyone who kills him.

Federal authorities have said Youssef isn’t behind bars because of the film or its content, which portrays Muhammad as a religious fraud, womanizer and pedophile. They said Youssef hasn’t been truthful about his identity, using different names after he was convicted in 2010 of bank fraud.

Youssef was sentenced to 21 months in prison. He was barred from using computers or the Internet for five years without approval from his probation officer, though prosecutors said none of the violations involved the Internet.

An email left for Youssef’s attorney, Steven Seiden, was not immediately returned Tuesday.

At least three names have been revealed to be associated with Youssef in the past several weeks. Court documents show Youssef legally changed his name from Nakoula Basseley Nakoula in 2002, but never told federal authorities, who used that as part of the probation violation case against him.

Youssef, an Egyptian-born Christian who’s now a US citizen, sought to obtain a passport in his new name but still had a California driver’s license as Nakoula, authorities said. Youssef used a third name, Sam Bacile, in association with the film.

Authorities said Youssef used more than a dozen aliases and opened about 60 bank accounts and had more than 600 credit and debit cards to conduct a check fraud scheme.

When he was identified as Nakoula after the movie trailer went viral, federal probation officials questioned him. He denied using the name Sam Bacile, which was listed on the YouTube account that posted the trailer, and said his role in the film was limited to writing the script.

read more at http://www.timesofisrael.com/producer-of-anti-islam-film-to-appear-in-court/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

Time for Obama to Admit to the 9/11 Benghazi Attack Being Planned...Not Because of a Video.

SHOCK MEMO: STATE DEPT. REMOVED SECURITY IN LEAD-UP TO BENGHAZI ATTACK

In a new foreign policy headache for the embattled Obama administration, a memo has now leaked from the White House detailing numerous ways in which the U.S. Embassy in Libya warned Washington about an upcoming attack, according to Jake Tapper of ABC News.

The memo comes from the embassy’s “security support team,” a group of 16 special forces soldiers assigned to protect the embassy who were inexplicably removed from Libya in August over their commander’s objections, just one month before the attacks in Benghazi. That commander, Lieutenant Colonel Andy Wood, will testify about their removal before the House Oversight Committee this week. CBS News provides more on Wood’s story:

Speaking to CBS News correspondent Sharyl Attkisson, Wood said when he found out that his own 16-member team and a six-member State Department elite force were being pulled from Tripoli in August – about a month before the assault in Benghazi – he felt, “like we were being asked to play the piano with two fingers. There was concern amongst the entire embassy staff.”[...]

Wood insists that senior staff in Libya, including Ambassador Stevens, State Department Regional Security Officer Eric Nordstrom, and himself, all wanted and had requested enhanced security.

“We felt we needed more, not less,” he tells Attkisson.

Asked what response their repeated pleas got from the State Department in Washington, Wood says they were simply told “to do with less. For what reasons, I don’t know.”

“We tried to illustrate… to show them how dangerous and how volatile and just unpredictable that whole environment was over there. So to decrease security in the face of that really is… it’s just unbelievable,” Wood tells CBS News.

ABC adds more on the leadup in its print report:

The State Department pushed the American diplomats to develop plans to transition its security staffing to one that incorporated more locally based assets, but its ability to do so was “severely limited by a number of factors,” the February memo states, including inconsistent support from the Libyan government, no reliable “armed, uniformed host government security at our residential and office compounds,” no “real progress on the policy framework required to support a transition to an armed locally engaged body guard force,” silence from the Libyan Minister of Interior when it came to formal U.S. “requests for firearms licenses, training sites, or static, host nation security.”

The request concludes: “Given the unstable security environment, projected staffing increases, lack of physical and technical security upgrades in place and continued high volume of VIP visits, Embassy Tripoli requests an extension” of the Security Support Team for four months, which “will allow us to implement the security transition plans recommended by the Department. A loss of SST now would severely and negatively impact our ability to achieve the Department’s policy and management objectives at this critical time in Libya’s transition.”

But ultimately the SST left and “they just had to make do with less security,” Wood told ABC News.

It should be noted that Lieutenant Colonel Wood does not speculate as to whether his presence, or the presence of his team, would have made a difference in the protection of Ambassador Chris Stevens. However, his revelations about being “asked to play the piano with two fingers” may strike some observers as damning enough without that specific speculative indictment.

source: http://www.theblaze.com/stories/shock-memo-state-department-removed-security-in-lead-up-to-benghazi-attack/

Bombshell: Obama Administration Deleted State Dept. Memo From Internet After Discovering Al-Qaeda Was Behind Benghazi Attack

Posted by Jim Hoft on Thursday, September 27, 2012, 9:17 AM

Yesterday there were reports that the Obama Administration found out that Al-Qaeda was behind the Benghazi consulate attacks within 24 hours of the assault that killed four Americans.

So what was their first action?
Did they secure the compound? – No, that took over a week to get FBI agents to the consulate
Did they acknowledge it was an Al-Qaeda attack? No, Obama this week blamed the terror attack on a YouTube protest.

Here’s what they did – They scrubbed a damning State Department memo from the internet–
On Wednesday September 12, 2012 blogger Speak With Authority discovered that five days before 9-11, the US State Department sent out a memo announcing no credible security threats against the United States on the anniversary of 9-11.

The Overseas Security Advisory Council, who posted the memo, is part of the Bureau of Diplomatic Security under the U.S. Department of State.

Here is a screengrab of the memo at the OSAC website:

The OSAC memo said:

Terrorism and Important Dates
Global
9/6/2012

OSAC currently has no credible information to suggest that al-Qa’ida or any other terrorist group is plotting any kind of attack overseas to coincide with the upcoming anniversary of September 11. However, constituents often have concerns around important dates, holidays, and major events, Often times, these concerns are the result of increased media attention to the issue, rather than credible evidence of a terrorist plot.

But now it’s gone.
The State Department scrubbed the letter from its OSAC website.

The damning memo is gone.
How convenient. They flushed the damning memo down the internet memory hole.

Source: http://www.thegatewaypundit.com

More details emerge on U.S. ambassador's last moments

By Arwa Damon, CNN

updated 7:59 PM EDT, Mon September 17, 2012

New details emerge about Libya attack

Benghazi, Libya (CNN) -- Three days before the deadly assault on the United States consulate in Libya, a local security official says he met with American diplomats in the city and warned them about deteriorating security.

Jamal Mabrouk, a member of the February 17th Brigade, told CNN that he and a battalion commander had a meeting about the economy and security.

He said they told the diplomats that the security situation wasn't good for international business.

"The situation is frightening, it scares us," Mabrouk said they told the U.S. officials. He did not say how they responded.

Mabrouk said it was not the first time he has warned foreigners about the worsening security situation in the face of the growing presence of armed jihadist groups in the Benghazi area.

The main building in the compound is in charred ruins.

The suite where the body of the ambassador was found was protected by a large door with steel bars; the windows had steel bars.

His body was recovered after looters broke into the room. It appears his security detail left him in the room while they tried to deal with the attack.

There are numerous questions about what happened at the consulate where protesters had gathered to demonstrate against the film "Innocence of Muslims," which reportedly was made in California by a filmmaker whose identity is unclear.

Chief among the questions is what happened to U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens, who went missing during the attack.

The State Department has not released details about how Stevens died, though numerous media reports have said the ambassador was taken from the consulate to the Benghazi medical center by locals.

He arrived at the hospital, according to the reports, unresponsive and covered in soot from the fire. A doctor was unable to revive him and declared him dead, the reports said.

According to one of the Libyan security guards who was stationed at one of the gates armed with only a radio, the assault began simultaneously from three directions.

Heavy machine guns and rocket -propelled grenades were used, according to the guard. He said masked men threatened to kill him at gunpoint for 'protecting the infidels. He declined to appear on camera for fear of repercussions.

read more at http://www.cnn.com/2012/09/15/world/meast/libya-diplomats-warning/index.html?hpt=hp_t2

CBS: State Department Told Benghazi Consulate To Stop Even Asking For More Security

And if that's not bad enough: A State Department official told Congressional staffers almost immediately after the attack that it was pre-meditated terrorism.

n a briefing to Capitol Hill staffers delivered the day after the deadly Sept. 11 attack in Benghazi, a top aide to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the killings appeared to be the result of a terrorist attack.Under Secretary of State for Management Patrick F. Kennedy -- who exercises responsibility for all department personnel, facilities, and operations, and who is one of the department's most respected civil servants, having served in his position under both the George W. Bush and Obama administrations -- delivered the assessment in an unclassified, half-hour conference call with staff aides to House and Senate lawmakers from relevant committees, and leadership offices, on the evening of Sept. 12. Capitol Hill sources described the call to Fox News.

And yet the White House went out insisting it wasn't pre-meditated, and was a "spontaneous protest" due to an "internet video."

source: http://minx.cc/?post=333628

ERIN BURNETT OUTFRONT

Interview with Rep. Darrell Issa; Warning Signs in Benghazi; The Final Factors

Aired October 2, 2012 - 19:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

ERIN BURNETT, HOST: OUTFRONT, next, did Washington reject repeated requests for increased security in Benghazi? That's what happened, according to House Republicans in a letter sent to Secretary Clinton today. One of the authors of the letter, Representative Darrell Issa comes OUTFRONT.

Plus, we're just about 24 hours away from the first presidential debate. What are they going to say? We've got advisers to both of them, Mitt and Barack OUTFRONT tonight, and how a lot of money is riding on tomorrow's debate -- a lot.

Let's go OUTFRONT.

Good evening, everyone. I'm Erin Burnett. OUTFRONT tonight, warning signs missed? That's what the Republican head of the House Oversight Committee is charging tonight in the lead up to the U.S. ambassador's death in Libya. He's calling for Congress to return for a special hearing next week. It was a three-page letter and in it, Darrell Issa listed 13 security incidents and threats in Libya over the past six months. Including in June, a pro Gadhafi Facebook page posted a picture of Ambassador Stevens and mentioned his running habits. The posting directed a threat against Stevens. Issa says Stevens stopped his morning runs for about a week and then resumed them.

In June, an IED was successfully placed at the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, blowing a hole in the security perimeter gate, big enough for 40 people to go through. And in the weeks before the September 11th attacks, unarmed Libyan guards working at the consulate were warned by family members to quit their jobs, because of, quote, "rumors in the community of an impending attack". Those are just a few of the 13 things that Darrell Issa listed. And he also included this major allegation.

According to Issa, "multiple U.S. federal government officials have confirmed to the committee that prior to the September 11th attack, the U.S. mission in Libya made repeated requests for increased security in Benghazi. The mission in Libya, however, was denied these resources by officials in Washington." Now the State Department has responded to Darrell Issa's letter. Here is spokeswoman Victoria Nuland.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VICTORIA NULAND, STATE DEPT. SPOKESWOMAN: We are now working through all of the documents, all of the information that is available to us in this department. We will see where we are on the 10th, but it is our intention to cooperate fully.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BURNETT: All right. Hillary Clinton also responded to Issa with a letter of her own. I have it here. She said she has established an accountability review board, which begins work this week to determine, and I want to quote her, I'll read here to you straight from the letter, "wants to determine whether our security systems and procedures in Benghazi were adequate, whether they were properly implemented and any lessons that may be relevant to our work around the world." Darrell Issa joins me now. Good to see you, sir, and appreciate your taking the time tonight.

REP. DARRELL ISSA (R), CHAIRMAN, OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM COMMITTEE: Well thank you. And thanks for covering this.

BURNETT: Let me start, if I may, sir, with the serious allegation that you've made. And this one -- as I just read the quote from your letter. That the U.S. mission in Libya made repeated requests for increased security in Benghazi, which were denied. Where did you get that information?

ISSA: We got it from whistle blowers and from confirmation from an interview with the former regional security officer, what is called an RSO, who actually has over 66 separate incidents that he recorded. We're not making any allegations. We're taking the facts that were brought to us, putting them in perspective, and asking the question, and getting, quite frankly concerns from the individuals that themselves that were responsible for security. And we're doing it not just for what is a done and sad situation in Libya. But because with the Arab Spring going on around the Arab world, the question is what are we doing in these other countries? Will we be ready or could this happen again?

BURNETT: So do you know who denied the security that you're saying was repeatedly denied?

ISSA: Well, we have a number of documents we have requested. Secretary Clinton has said that she is going to cooperate and provide. Those exchanges -- we want to make sure we look at all of the documents fully, rather than just, if you will, whistle blower side of the story. And that's the nature of our committee, is we get a credible and verified allegation of a failure anywhere, and then we follow it up with full confirmation on both sides and that's what we expect to do between now and the 10th with the goal on the 10th to make sure this doesn't happen again in some other embassy or with some other foreign service personnel around the world.

BURNETT: So it's interesting, because I know you're referencing you know an individual that you have information from saying that there were multiple security incidents. But this issue of repeated requests being denied I think is really at the heart -- from -- of what the letter says today. And the reason I wanted to ask you about the sources is because the State Department is telling CNN tonight that security upgrades were actually made to the Benghazi mission in part in response to some of the security incidents that you reference in your letter. So what are you talking about? It sounds like they got more security.

ISSA: Well, first of all, we want to hear fully from the State Department. We want to understand how they evaluated the threat, why there were so few people. Remember that we're not investigating per se the details the day that the ambassador and his party were killed. But let's understand, clearly he had almost no security on that day. Clearly, this was in a consulate that had been breached earlier with a hole -- an explosive hole that was described as a hole --

BURNETT: True.

ISSA: -- that 40 people could run through. So we already kind of know the awful end result. We know there wasn't enough security. That's not our investigation. Our investigation is really about the signs and whether there's a process. And I think Secretary Clinton is saying she wants to do the same thing. And our hope is that between now and October 10th, we go a long way toward doing what we need to do and expecting it will continue after.

BURNETT: Why do you think it has taken so long for the administration to come out and say this was a terrorist attack? Obviously, they did so formally on Friday, the intelligence community.

ISSA: Well, I served on the Select Intelligence Committee. It's filled with very conservative people who will often tell you that there may be a threat, there may be a threat, and then when something happens, even if it fits all of their claims, they still want to double and triple check. So I give the administration as much as I can the benefit of the doubt for the slowness. Again, though, whistle blowers, multiple confirmed whistle blowers have told us that they saw and reported what they saw as coming together of al Qaeda and testing our missions and the British missions. And that's part of what we want to ask is are these warning signs ones that should have been heeded and are there similar ones in Beirut or in Oman or in any number of other countries in the Middle East.

BURNETT: I'm curious, because you know you sound so -- you're very calm here. Your letter though was -- you know -- like I said, there were some real smoking guns in that letter, the allegations that were in there and I'm curious, given how calm you are tonight, given that you say you want to work with the secretary of state, why was it that Elijah Cummings, the ranking member of your committee tells us that you didn't ask him to sign the letter. You know you didn't do this in a bipartisan fashion.

ISSA: Well, first of all, I expect that the hearing will be bipartisan. A number of the Democratic members have already told me they'll be attending. I just got off of "Fast and Furious". We're not a committee that we've seen much cooperation, even when there's real wrongdoing that we're running to ground. In this case, there wasn't time to meet our statutory requirements, our rule requirements. And quite frankly we had a meeting with state in which the -- Mr. Cummings, his representatives were there. We asked these questions. This letter is based on specific allegations from whistle blowers, confirmed by the regional security officer, and then put into a letter. So they're not allegations by us. They're actual statements by individuals who were on the ground, both in Tripoli and Benghazi. And we are pursuing this on a bipartisan basis. To be honest, Mr. Cummings was helpful when I called him and asked for this interview with the regional security officer and he helped make it happen the same day, so we do have a working relationship. We do not often sign on to letters partially because that can take several days --

BURNETT: And what about --

ISSA: But I think the letter is --

BURNETT: I just want to ask you -- sorry -- a final question though about the timing of this. Obviously, it's important to know who knew what, when, and if the ball was dropped. I don't know if there is any American, Democrat or Republican who would disagree with you on that, but why next week? Why ahead of the presidential election when you yourself just said look I understand that sometimes it takes time to get the final answers?

ISSA: Erin, we sent a letter on September 20th that wasn't responded to as of yesterday. Subcommittee Chairman Chaffetz sent that letter. So we started this right away. We continued pursuing it. But let's understand men and women are serving us overseas around the world. And if what happened in Libya happens again because we waited until after election, 30 or 60 days, then we haven't done our job. The secretary is working right now before the election. She has put together a panel to start looking at this. We're doing our job, too. And just because it's an election doesn't mean members of Congress shouldn't work, including fact-finding and that's what we're doing. We're doing it as timely as we can. Candidly, I would have preferred that the September 20th letter had been responded to sooner.

BURNETT: Fair enough. All right, well thank you very much, Chairman Issa. We appreciate your time tonight. So the question continues. Were warning signs missed? Well, the man who briefed Ambassador Stevens is standing by. But first was key intelligence about the attack in Benghazi left out of a memo used to brief Congress and the American people? Intelligence like the involvement of al Qaeda linked groups which CNN has reported U.S. intelligence knew about within 24 hours. Well last night CNN reported that the White House chose to leave out some intelligence from information shared with the public about the attack, the so-called talking points you've heard so much about.

The talking points that Ambassador Susan Rice used on Sunday talk shows that emphasized an initial assessment that the attack began as a spontaneous protest, that it didn't appear to be planned. The White House's National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor tells CNN the White House was not involved in writing that memo. Elise Labott has been following this story and she is back with us tonight. And Elise, I know you have been working fast and furious on this. What was the memo and what did it say?

ELISE LABOTT, CNN FOREIGN AFFAIRS REPORTER: Well Erin, what senior administration officials are telling us that they were speaking from unclassified talking points that were provided by the intelligence community based on preliminary intelligence assessments, which were used in the briefing members of Congress and speaking about it publicly. Now, we know, as you said, there was other information reporting from our sources saying there were indications of possible terror involvement. But National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor says they didn't have that information and in a statement I want to read to you he says "this was an intelligence community assessment based on the analysis of all of the available information."

source: http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1210/02/ebo.01.html

Leaked memo shows plane was denied US Benghazi consulate

A leaked memo shows the US State Department rejected a request to retain a plane for its security team in Libya, raising further questions about the protection provided for diplomats in Benghazi.

US Ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens was killed in an attack on the US Consulate in Benghazi

source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/9590374/Leaked-memo-shows-plane-was-denied-US-Benghazi-consulate.html