The Real Questions Are Still About Benghazi, Not the Petraeus Sex Scandal

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Written by Monica Crowley at The Blaze.

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The sex scandal is merely the diversion. Of course, everyone is fascinated by the salacious details and intriguing personalities involved in the latest scandal involving sex. In this case, people are riveted by the extramarital affair between America’s once-golden General, David Petraeus, and his biographer, Paula Broadwell. Since that story exploded last Friday afternoon, there has been a steady drip-drip-drip of new allegations involving another woman (Jill Kelley), an FBI agent who was reportedly thrown off the original case for “growing obsessed” with Kelley and sending her “shirtless” photos of himself to her, and the Commander of U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan, General John Allen, who reportedly sent Kelley tens of thousands of “potentially inappropriate” emails. He is now under investigation as well.

Wonder why we’re getting a drip-drip-drip of wild new details every day? To keep us distracted. The sex scandal is a mess, but it’s not the mess that matters.

What matters is what happened in Benghazi, Libya on September 11 that resulted in the deaths of four Americans, including two Navy SEALS, a longtime foreign service officer, and the personal representative of the President of the United States, U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens.

Here are a few of the critical questions that REALLY matter:

1. As has been reported by Aaron Klein and others, the U.S. compound in Benghazi was NOT a consulate.  It was a “mission” of some sort, and it looks increasingly likely that the CIA was running the show there.  What was the CIA doing in Benghazi?

2. What were Stevens and the others doing at that CIA mission late into the evening?

3. Before he was killed that fateful night, Navy SEAL Tyrone Woods rescued scores of Americans from the compound. Who were they?  What were they doing in Benghazi?

4.  Woods sprung into action to try to save the Ambassador and others despite being given the order to “stand down.” Who gave the “stand down” order? Did Obama approve it?

5.  Who repeatedly denied their requests for help as they were under attack? Who was watching the attack unfold in real time back in Washington?

6. Who dreamt up the fiction that the attack was inspired by some obscure video? And who sent out top administration officials, including U.S. Ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and CIA Director David Petraeus, among others, to spin and perpetuate the fiction-for weeks?

7.  MOST IMPORTANTLY: What is this administration REALLY covering up?

A)  Did this administration secretly sell or give weapons to al Qaeda and other Islamists operating under the “Libyan rebel” banner?

B) Was Stevens running a CIA operation to reacquire those weapons from al Qaeda for two purposes: to prevent it from being known that the U.S. was arming our mortal terrorist enemy, and/or to transfer those weapons to the equally odious al Qaeda, Muslim Brotherhood, and other Islamist “rebels” in Syria?

C) Jennifer Griffin of Fox News-who has done outstanding investigative work on this story-reported yesterday that part of the CIA mission in Benghazi was actually a detention facility in which scores of prisoners were being kept from all across the Middle East and Africa. She reported that it was the “largest” such facility the CIA was operating. The CIA immediately issued a denial, saying that it has not operated such a detention facility since January 2009, when newly sworn-in President Obama signed an executive order outlawing such facilities. Did Benghazi, in fact, house a terrorist prison?

D)  If Griffin’s reporting is correct and Benghazi WAS a detention facility, did Obama know about/sign off on it?  Or was this a rogue CIA operation?

E)  Griffin also reported that the prisoners held there were moved 2 weeks before the attack on September 11.  Did the CIA get a sense an attack was
coming to try to free the prisoners there?

F)  In a public speech on October 26, Paula Broadwell stated that the Benghazi mission WAS, in fact, holding prisoners.  How did she get that information?  It seems to back up Griffin’s reporting.

G) If it WERE, in fact, a detention facility, were interrogations occurring? If so, what was the nature of those interrogations?

This is just the starting point for the REAL questions that MUST be asked-and answered-by this administration.

It’s not about the sex. It’s about what was REALLY going on in Benghazi and what Team Obama is REALLY covering up. If Benghazi were a terrorist detention facility-and possibly engaging in enhanced interrogation techniques (EITs)-then Obama has quite the policy scandal on his hands.

After all, Obama retained most of President Bush’s counter-terrorism programs….with the exception of detention and EITs. Could it be that Obama and/or the CIA were still carrying out those policies?

This is just the beginning. Get ready for a roller-coaster ride of epic proportions. The families of Chris Stevens, Glen Doherty, Tyrone Woods, and Sean Smith deserve the TRUTH….and so do we

Center for Security Policy

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