GOP and “Benghazi-Gate” Hype: The Real Target is Hillary in 2016

By Brigitte L. Nacos

Of all the so-called “scandals” within the Obama administration, “Benghazi-Gate” remains and will remain the one the GOP and their Tea Party wing love to exploit most for their never-ending attacks on President Obama. This May, some eight months after the attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, former Vice-President Richard Cheney told Sean Hannity of FOX News, “I watched the Benghazi thing with great interest, Sean. I think it’s one of the worst incidences, frankly, that I can recall in my career.”

Either Cheney has lost his marbles or he is confident that everyone else has. He was, after all, in the White House on September 11, 2001, when terrorists struck in New York and Washington killing close to 3,000 victims. He was the mastermind of the cooked intelligence that led to the invasion of Iraq, the death of thousands of American troops and far more Iraqi civilians, and repeated attacks on the U.S. Embassy in Bagdad.

Plenty of the “worst incidences” on Cheney’s watch.

Indeed, as far as terrorist attacks on U.S. diplomatic missions abroad are concerned, the record of the Bush/Cheney administration is extensive and deadly. Yes, the deaths of four Americans, among them Ambassador Christopher Stevens, was a tragedy. But there were at least twelve terrorist attacks against U.S. diplomatic missions during the Bush/Cheney years apart from those in Bagdad with a total of 62 persons killed and at least 64 injured.

Here are the most deadly attacks during that period:

Karachi, Pakistan, June 14, 2002: Suicide bomber believed to be linked to Al Qaeda strikes the U.S. Consulate, killing 12 and injuring 51.

Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, December 6, 2004:  Al Qaeda members storm the U.S. Consulate killing nine people.

Karachi, Pakistan, March 2, 2006:  Suicide bomber attacks the U.S. Consulate killing four people, including U.S. diplomat David Foy who seemed the particular target of the perpetrators.

Damascus, Syria, September 12, 2006:  Gunmen shouting "Allahu akbar" attack U.S. Embassy with grenades, automatic weapons, a car bomb and a truck bomb. Four people were killed, 13 wounded

July 9, 2008. Istanbul, Turkey, July 9, 2008:  Four terrorists attack the U.S. Consulate. Six people are killed

Sana'a, Yemen, September 17, 2008: Terrorists dressed as military officials attack the U.S. Embassy with an arsenal of weapons including RPGs and detonate two car bombs. Sixteen people are killed, including an American student and her husband.

None of these incidents or the other six attacks against U.S. missions abroad resulted in criticism of the Bush/Cheney White House, State Department, or other parts of the administration by Democrats or Republicans. The same members of Senate and House who are now keeping the Benghazi conspiracy theories alive remained silent then.

Cheney has been relentless in attacking Barack Obama.  In February 2009, he said in an interview, there was a “high probability” that terrorists would  attempt a catastrophic nuclear or biological attack in coming years, and that he feared the Obama administration’s policies would make it more likely the attempt would succeed.

But in his May appearance on FOX, he did not single out the president but drew a larger circle of targets when he said: “They lied. They claimed it was because of a demonstration video, that they wouldn’t have to admit it was really all about their incompetence. They ignored repeated warnings from the CIA about the threat. They ignored messages from their own people on the ground that they need more security. They reduced what was already there.”

“They lied,” he said not mentioning former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton by name. But you can be sure that his finger pointed in her direction.

Others are more direct in their attacks. Most of all Karl Rove who has aired an American Crossroads ad that blames Clinton as principal in the Benghazi “cover-up.”

So, the real and lasting target of “Benghazi-Gate” procedures and accusations and speculations in the Congress and on Tea Party sites and in social media posts is and will remain Hillary Clinton—just in case she decides to run in 2016.

Comments

[Eric Chen]

Apologies, reposting the 2nd link:

A problem of definition in the Iraq controversy: Was the issue Saddam's regime or Iraq's demonstrable WMD?:
http://learning-curve.blogspot.com/2012/05/problem-of-definition-in-iraq.html

[Eric Chen]

Professor Nacos: "the cooked intelligence that led to the invasion of Iraq"

The mistaken notion that intelligence on Iraqi WMD "led to the invasion of Iraq" is based on a fundamental misconception of the US-led UN mission in Iraq from 1991-2003.

The proximate cause for Operation Iraqi Freedom was the same proximate cause for Operation Desert Fox: Saddam's failure to comply with the Gulf War ceasefire and UNSC resolutions, which included humanitarian and terrorism standards as well as weapon standards. (The 2004 CIA DCI Special Advisor Report on Iraq's WMD, commonly called the Duelfer Report, confirmed that Iraq was in violation of the UNSC resolutions related to weapons, though not entirely as suggested by the pre-war intelligence. There is, of course, no disagreement that Saddam was in violation of the UNSC resolutions related to humanitarian and terrorism standards.)

The accusation that OIF was based on manufactured intelligence or the 'confirmation bias' of Bush officials relies on revisionist premises.

First, Iraq's guilt on WMD was established and presumed as the basis of the Gulf War ceasefire and UNSC resolutions. The US and UN carried no burden of proof to demonstrate Iraqi WMD. The intelligence did not and could not trigger OIF because the burden of proof was entirely on Saddam. OIF was triggered by Saddam's failure to meet Iraq's burden of proof on a mandated standard of compliance.

Second, based on Saddam's history, track record of deception, defiance, and belligerence, established and presumed guilt, and the stakes involved, Clinton and later Bush officials with the added threat considerations in the wake of 9/11 were *obligated* to view any intelligence on Iraqi WMD in an unfavorable light for Iraq.

As such, Clinton explained his endorsement of Bush and OIF in 2004:

""That's why I supported the Iraq thing. There was a lot of stuff unaccounted for," Clinton said in reference to Iraq and the fact that U.N. weapons inspectors left the country in 1998.

"So I thought the president had an absolute responsibility to go to the U.N. and say, 'Look, guys, after 9/11, you have got to demand that Saddam Hussein lets us finish the inspection process.' You couldn't responsibly ignore [the possibility that] a tyrant had these stocks," Clinton said."

In fact, due to the established and presumed guilt and burden of proof on Iraq, our ignorance of the state of Iraq's WMD - as Clinton framed his cause for war with Iraq - was legally sufficient to trigger military enforcement. If all of our pre-war intelligence on Iraqi WMD was mistaken, then that only returned our enforcement on Iraq to the lower bar of Clinton's ignorance of unaccounted for Iraqi weapons that triggered Operation Desert Fox. Solving our ignorance about Iraq's weapons was Saddam's burden. In other words, the intelligence was irrelevant as a cause of war. The failure of Saddam to comply was the cause of war both in 1998 and 2003. And, of course, there is no disagreement that Saddam was non-compliant on the humanitarian and terrorism standards in the UNSC resolutions.

For more in-depth explanation of the Iraq intervention, I suggest the following posts from my blog:

Regime Change in Iraq from Clinton to Bush:
http://learning-curve.blogspot.com/2012/05/regime-change-in-iraq-from-clinton-to.html
A problem of definition in the Iraq controversy: Was the issue Saddam's regime or Iraq's demonstrable WMD?:
href="http://learning-curve.blogspot.com/2012/05/problem-of-definition-in-iraq.html
10 year anniversary of the start of Operation Iraqi Freedom: thoughts:
http://learning-curve.blogspot.com/2013/03/10-year-anniversary-of-start-of.html

[Eric Chen]

Professor Nacos,

My understanding of the Benghazi controversy is that its primary issue is not the fact of the attack from the terrorist perspective but rather two issues related to the Obama administration cover-up.

The first issue is the poor reaction to the attack and poor security leading up to the attack, despite warnings and other events that should have heightened the security. The implication is that both the poor security and poor reaction to the attack were deliberate choices made to uphold President Obama's policy of a low profile on the ground and selling an optimistic image of Libya. Prior to the Benghazi attack, Libya was represented as Obama's showpiece intervention in the Middle East, set in contrast to the US's higher profile role within post-war Iraq. It would seem upholding the showpiece value of Obama's Libya policy took precedent over the actual needs of the US mission in Libya.

The second issue is the Obama administration apparently knowingly misrepresented the Benghazi attack as a spontaneous reaction to an obscure video on Youtube, implicating 'Islamophobia' in America, rather than a coordinated and targeted terrorist attack. Their reflexive reaction seemed intent on covering up the actual conditions in Libya and, perhaps more importantly for the voting public, the policy-induced flaws of the US position in Libya that undermined the security for Ambassador Stevens.

The further implication is that mindful of the 2012 presidential election, the Obama administration obfuscated on the Benghazi attack in order to deter the public perception that President Obama's whole Middle East policy - with its consequential decisions - is fundamentally flawed.

Circumstantial evidence of the domestic political motivation to cover up the administration shortcomings in the Benghazi attack is the link with Susan Rice, who is famous for calculating the effect on the upcoming Congressional election when she deterred a sufficient US-led UN intervention in the Rwandan genocide. (I'll decline to implicate Secretary Clinton in her husband's decision to look the other way on Rwanda.)