We believe based on currently available information that the attacks in Benghazi were spontaneously by the protests at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo and evolved into a direct assault against the U.S. Consulate and subsequently its annex.
I have very severe doubts about any report written under the aegis of Rep. Darrell “Lyin’ Darrell” Issa, whom I can throw much further than I can trust. However, the testimony of Greg Hicks, former U.S. Embassy Tripoli deputy chief of mission in Libya, is surely not welcome to the White House ear.
“I think everybody in the mission thought it was a terrorist attack from the beginning,” Hicks told CBS news, even though he wasn’t in Benghazi at the time of the assault. According to Hicks, he was shocked by the language used by Ambassador Rice, because it contradicted an earlier statement by the new President of Libya, Mohammed al-Magariaf, who said his government had “no doubt that this was preplanned, predetermined.”
“…I’ve never been as embarrassed in my life, in my career, as on that day,” Hicks is quoted as saying in a CBS News article. “The net impact of what has transpired is, [Rice,] the spokesperson of the most powerful country in the world, has basically said that the president of Libya is either a liar of doesn’t know what he’s talking about. ….My jaw hit the floor as I watched this.”
The article continues as follows:
Though the White House has said it was in contact with officials in Libya the night of the attack, Hicks said in the days following, he was never consulted about the talking points. One day after Rice’s Sunday show blitz, Hicks said he called Beth Jones, acting assistant secretary for near eastern affairs at the State Department, and asked, “Why did Ambassador Rice say that?” The tone of her answer —“I don’t know,” he said—indicated that “I perhaps asked a question that I should not have asked.”
The net impact of Rice’s statements, Hicks said, was “immeasurable.” On top of his personal belief that “the reason it took us so long to get the FBI to Benghazi is because of those Sunday talk shows,” he said, Magariaf lost face “in front of not only his own people, but the world” at a time of democratic transition in his country. He added, “I have heard from a friend who had dinner with President Magariaf in New York City that he was still angry at Ambassador Rice well after the incident.”
