Wednesday, September 11, 2013

Benghazi One Year Later

At USA Today, "Since Benghazi attack, Libya worse off, families in lurch":


TRIPOLI, Libya — A year to the day since an attack on the U.S. Embassy in Benghazi that killed four Americans including the ambassador Christopher Stevens, the security situation in Libya has gone from bad to worse, say locals and analysts.

On Wednesday morning, unknown assailants detonated a car bomb near Benghazi's Foreign Ministry building that decades ago housed the U.S. Consulate, security officials said. No one was killed in the blast.

It is the latest in a string of bombings and assassination attempts plaguing Benghazi, the cradle of the Libyan revolution, which ended with the death in late 2011 of former leader Moammar Gadhafi.

In the United States, the families of those killed a year ago at the consulate say the Obama administration has yet to tell them what really happened, and why it is that none of the killers has been captured or killed.

It's hard, I never expected this from my government," Patricia Smith, mother of Sean Smith, told Fox News. "All they have to do is tell me the truth."

Sean Smith was an information officer at the consulate who was among four people killed in the Sept. 11, 2012, attack by al-Qaeda-linked terrorists.

President Obama and then-secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton initially blamed the attacks on a spontaneous protest against a U.S.-made anti-Islam video despite a CIA report that discounted that explanation. Smith and other family members say the State Department and the White House have rebuffed their attempts to find out why security was so lax under Clinton, and why Obama did not order military assistance to the embattled officials that night.

The White House has said it has provided all the information it can on the attack, and Obama alluded to Benghazi as a "phony scandal." Meanwhile, those responsible for murdering the Americans that night are presumably still in Libya or the region.

Obama said last month that the U.S. was still committed to capturing those who carried out the assault. Obama said his government has a sealed indictment naming some suspected of involvement.

The leaders of an independent review board that investigated the Benghazi attack will testify at a House hearing next week. Retired admiral Michael Mullen and former ambassador Thomas Pickering will appear before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on Sept. 19.

Meanwhile, in the two years since Libya was freed of Gadhafi due in large part to a Western air campaign aiding rebels, the country has failed to build a stable government, strong military or police force.
Also at Hot Air, "CIA Director promises to produce Benghazi survivors for Congressional testimony" (via Memeorandum).

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