We now know where Obama was during Benghazi attack

by: Anthony Martin
As the House gears up for a special select committee on Benghazi under the direction of U.S. Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., information has been uncovered that will point the committee in the right direction when it seeks evidence on where Barack Obama was on the night of the attack. For eight months no one at the White House, or the State Dept., or the Defense Dept. has gone on the record to state what the president was doing as his Libyan ambassador and three other Americans were being slaughtered by terrorists. Obama himself has also managed to avoid answering that question.

But the evidence tells the tale. It all started last week when former National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor told Bret Baier of Fox News that Obama was never in the Situation Room at the White House at all that horrific afternoon and evening. But he was, indeed, in the White House during the entire massacre. Where was he, then, if he was in the White House but was not engaged with military brass in the Situation Room attempting to figure out how the ambassador and others could be rescued?
Normally presidents go immediately to the Situation Room for briefings, updates, and strategy sessions with military and senior administration officials when there is a direct attack against Americans, particularly an American ambassador or other members of the U.S. government. The question is what military action, if any, would be an appropriate response to the situation at hand.

In the case of Benghazi, the major focus would be on rescue. After all, there was plenty of time to do so. The siege against the Libyan consulate lasted for at least nine hours. U.S. fighter jets could have been present on the scene flying over the consulate within three hours. Even if the ambassador himself could not have been saved, there was a chance at the very least. And the others, perhaps, could have been rescued before being killed. At least we would have tried.
But Obama was not a part of these discussions at all, at least not in the Situation Room. So, where was he and what was he doing? It is to be remembered that according to decades of White House protocol, military strategy and not politics are discussed in the Situation Room. Political strategy is conducted elsewhere, often in the family quarters.
At 3:40 p.m., Washington time, the number two man at the American embassy, who was in Tripoli at the time, was notified by Ambassador Stevens that the consulate was under attack. Shortly thereafter, the State Dept. was notified. By 4:05 p.m. the State Dept. issued an alert to all American embassies around the world that the Benghazi consulate was under attack. The Pentagon was also notified.

It so happened that the Commander of U.S. Africa Command, Gen. Carter Ham, was at the Pentagon when the news came in. Ham immediately notified the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Gen. Martin Dempsey. At that point both Ham and Dempsey personally shared the information with Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta.
At 5 p.m. both Panetta and Dempsey met with Obama at the White House for a meeting that had already been scheduled in advance. But the Libyan attacks took center stage, and Obama authorized Panetta and Dempsey to "take appropriate steps" to handle the situation. This would be the only time the two would have contact with Obama during the entire evening. They never spoke to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at all.
By 7 p.m. EST the protracted attacks at the Benghazi consulate were still ongoing. And where was Obama? He was in the White House, for sure, but holed up in the family quarters where he then stayed for the rest of the night.

How do we know this information? Because at 7 p.m., according to White House phone logs, Obama called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from a phone in the family quarters. Obama was concerned about reports that Netanyahu felt snubbed by Obama, particularly given that it was so close to the presidential election, and Obama desperately needed to count on the Jewish vote.
At 10 p.m. Obama made another call from the family quarters at the White House. But no one was willing to admit that he did so. For five months there had been multiple denials that Obama made any more calls after his conversation with Netanyahu. Even Chuck Hagel denied flatly that Obama made this 10 p.m. call when asked about it during Senate confirmation hearings on Hagel's nomination to become Defense Secretary. Further, the White House had sent an official letter to the Senate stating that Obama had made no phone calls at all the night of Sept. 11, 2012.

But it would be none other than White House Chief Spokesman Jay Carney who would later let the cat out of the bag. During a news conference Carney stated that Obama was in touch with his national security team constantly throughout the night, and that he had called Secretary Clinton at 10 p.m. to "get an update."
Thus, the truth finally came out about the 10 p.m. conversation between Hillary and Obama. And why is that significant? Because shortly after that call, at roughly 10:30 p.m., Hillary issued a news memo on the attack which specifically blamed the massacre on an anti-Islamic film, an Internet video, made in the United States. She claimed that the inflammatory nature of the Internet video sparked outrage and spontaneous protests around the Muslim world. It was here, therefore, that the meme began that the consulate attack was spontaneous and perpetrated by protesters who had been offended by the film.
Yet no one at the Defense Dept., or the U.S. military, nor anyone on the ground in Libya had mentioned anything at all about a supposed violent spontaneous protest at the Libyan consulate. The CIA, which had operatives in the region, also confirmed that there had been no such protest in Benghazi against the film.

One thing, however, could be confirmed as early as 7 p.m. EST. The CIA and the U.S. military knew that this was a terrorist attack, pure and simple. And the group that claimed responsibility for it, Anshar al-Sharia, had direct connections to al Qaeda, which had not been decimated at all as Obama claimed but was still very much alive and well, operating through various and sundry localized terrorist groups going by various names. No one outside of Hillary and Obama had mentioned a single word about an inflammatory film in connection with the attacks. It was rank terrorism, period.
So, what was Obama doing throughout the night of Sept. 11, 2012 and likely into the wee hours of the morning on Sept. 12? He was developing campaign strategy in the family quarters of the White House, desperately attempting to figure out how to deflect attention away from his failed foreign policy and directing that attention sqarely to an obscure Internet video that no one had even heard about in Libya, much less seen.