Defiant Insider: Benghazi Attack Clearly Planned
Defiant Insider: Benghazi Attack Clearly Planned
The Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, was planned and “not spontaneous,” a U.S. intelligence official has told The Washington Times.
The official’s statement rebuts news reports that there is no evidence the attack was planned, even as the intelligence community says al Qaeda-linked militants carried out the deadly assault. The official, who is not authorized to talk to the news media, asked to remain anonymous.
The news reports support the Obama administration’s use of the word “spontaneous” to describe a mob assault that ended in the death of U.S. Ambassador to Libya J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans.
Republicans charge that the continual use of “spontaneous” days after the attack misled the American people about what happened and what could have been done to protect Stevens and the others.
The U.S. intelligence official, who has access to a wide swath of reporting from various spy agencies, told The Times that a few days after the attack, “We looked at it and said, ‘There is enough information here. There’s a body of evidence here that we resolvedly say, tells us, that this was not a spontaneous attack.’ We adjusted our assessment.”