Exclusive: Dozens of CIA Operatives On the Ground During Benghazi Attack

[applegrove]

Exclusive: Dozens of CIA Operatives On the Ground During Benghazi Attack

The Lead With Jake Tapper, CNN

http://thelead.blogs.cnn.com/2013/08/01/exclusive-dozens-of-cia-operatives-on-the-ground-during-benghazi-attack/

"SNIP......................................


Four Americans, including Ambassador Christopher Stevens, were killed in the assault by armed militants last September 11 in eastern Libya.

Sources now tell CNN dozens of people working for the CIA were on the ground that night, and that the agency is going to great lengths to make sure whatever it was doing, remains a secret.

CNN has learned the CIA is involved in what one source calls an unprecedented attempt to keep the spy agency's Benghazi secrets from ever leaking out.

Read: Analysis: CIA role in Benghazi underreported

Since January, some CIA operatives involved in the agency's missions in Libya, have been subjected to frequent, even monthly polygraph examinations, according to a source with deep inside knowledge of the agency's workings.


.....................................SNIP"

[Comrade Grumpy]

1. Now the real Benghazi scandal rears its head.

I've been asking what the spooks were up to for months. The FOX/Issa Benghazigate bullshit totally obliterated whatever was really going on there. Hmmm....

[brush]

28. Since when is what the CIA up to supposed to be open info for everyone?

They're spies, covert operatives. It's what they do and it's classified info, secret info, whatever you want to call it.

All countries that can afford them have them working to find out what other countries are up to and it's not shared with the media and discussed in TV hearings chaired by assholes like Issa.

Issa and McCain and Graham carried on for weeks about this and got the mileage, headlines and screen time they're so addicted to while dragging Susan Rice's name through the mud, and I'm sure someone told them there was a covert operation going on but they, in their nasty repug way, were out to damage the President so they continued on with their fake outrage and charade over Benghazi.

[razorman]

31. I'm torn over this. On one hand, the American people have the right

to know the truth about what happened that night, and why those men died. On the other hand, there is a chance that whatever the CIA was doing there might actually have been good for the U.S. If so, then exposing it might cause more problems. Also, throw in the fact that we seem to have a choice to either believe the media or the government. I am not sure what to think.

[pinboy3niner]

2. I always thought he was underrated as an actor

Ben Gazzara

[madrchsod]

17. yup..he is under rated compared to a lot of them

[WinkyDink]

20. I always adored him.

[applegrove]

3. Watch all the GOP all of sudden go mysteriously silent on Benghazi. It was a special ops.

[Scuba]

21. Ding, ding, ding. We have a winner.

[Dwayne Hicks]

4. This again?

No doubt the right wing crazies will of course try to link Obama to this somehow and call for impeachment.

Obama is right...Benghazigate is PHONY!

[applegrove]

5. I think the GOP will finally go silent on Benghazi as this was special ops and the right loves that.

They wanted something they could pin on Hillary.

[nadinbrzezinski]

7. The question is *what* followed by *why?*

We're not supposed to ask what INGSOC is doing though. I see the intel agencies as the true government in many ways at this point

[pinboy3niner]

9. They're not going silent

The 'Obama killed Chris Stevens' thing didn't work, so they're shifting to "The CIA was supplying arms to Syrian rebels!1!!" Therefore, Obama killed Chris Stevens.

[Dwayne Hicks]

12. I'm sure Issa is already slobbering all over himself thinking about this

Thinking "I got him this time!!!!!"

[truedelphi]

10. Back in the old days, someone like

Chelsea Clinton ** would be in the diplomatic services, before launching their political career.

Now the children of the Upper Class, Political "Servants' end up being hedge fund managers.

I can only think how differently this would have been handled if Cheslea Clinton had been in that diplomatic building when the attack began. I bet there would not be any general alive saying that his 'Wing Group" in Italy did not have permission, per protocol, to fly over and rescue people.

** No intent to smear Chelsea Clinton. She is simply where her parents' position placed her. And why would she, or the offspring of any politicians, go out of the way to be a diplomat, now that such service is not rewarded, or even properly protected?

[karynnj]

25. Example of a poitical son of the elite who was a diplomat first.

The ONLY one I can think of is GHWB - and one does not a trend make.

[brush]

27. What post are you responding to?

Chelsea Clinton?

[nadinbrzezinski]

6. New and interesting wrinkle

[djean111]

8. Presidents are just a blip on the CIA screen.

Doesn't matter who is president to them.
I would think the CIA would somehow pressure Congress to drop the witch hunt, because I think what happened ain't pretty, and Obama likely had no knowledge of it and had nothing to do with it. Perhaps Hillary did, dunno. But it seems to me that the CIA acts independently with no transparency or explanations given to anyone.

[malaise]

11. So who Betrayed the US?

I have been wearing my tin foil hat on this one for some time.
This was to be the 'Carterization' of Obama just before the elections and it wasn't me who was comparing Obama to Carter.

just saying!!!

[chimpymustgo]

22. It did seem Romney was quick with the denouncement, and had such a smug look on his face!

Right wing was poised and ready to pounce.

[malaise]

29. He sure did

Made some strange comment rather quickly as well

[ProSense]

13. Good grief.

Republicans are trying to revive a dead scandal, and people are already falling for it.

[bhikkhu]

14. Cool - I get to say "I told you so"

to the RW crowd at work. They were up in arms for weeks about how there was some big giant cover-up, and the "why" could only mean there was some deep dark presidency-destroying secret there.

I pointed out that the first reports included the leak about it being a CIA facility more than anything else, and that was why the secrecy. You don't get to know the truth about CIA operations until the records are unsealed 50 years later (if at all). Mostly hawks are fine with that because its a big scary world; the rest of us just have to live with it grudgingly, more or less.

[madrchsod]

15. it was reported when the attack happened that there were cia personal there

it seems the only difference is the number of cia personal.

[burnodo]

16. maybe the CIA wanted to get rid of the people who were killed

maybe they were the killers

[limpyhobbler]

18. The traitor who leaked this classified info should go to prison for life.

CNN should be investigated for aiding in the conspiracy to leak this.

[GiaGiovanni]

19. I heard that these guys got monthly lie detectors

for security clearances.

[Roselma]

23. I bet Petraeus strange resignation is related

to whatever the CIA was doing in Benghazi.

[millennialmax]

24. CNN's ratings must need a boost. eom

[blm]

26. Just as I've been saying. That annex was a CIA operation and THAT is what caused the fumbling.

Bits and pieces of this came out early, but, corpmedia ran with the GOP narrative.

[BainsBane]

30. There was some sort of secret CIA facility there

Issa let that slip during hearings.

[justiceischeap]

32. This isn't really an exclusive or news

When all this went down, there were reports that this was a CIA outpost and that CIA agents were there.

[mainer]

33. We knew this already. It's why Susan Rice was circumspect

She was probably asked by the CIA to not be forthcoming, and she took the fall.