House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa released 166 pages of "sensitive but unclassified" State Department cables. Those cables had names of Libyans working with the United States and Issa did not even redact those names which Administration officials said:
could have "unintended consequences".
"This does damage to the individuals because they are named, danger to security cooperation because these are militias and groups that we work with and that is now well known, and danger to the investigation, because these people could help us down the road."
Kerry said:
"This is irresponsible and inexcusable, and perhaps worst of all it was entirely avoidable. It is profoundly against America's interests in a difficult region."
The explanation Issa and Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) gave for releasing the cables:
"The American people deserve nothing less than a full explanation from this administration about these events, including why the repeated warnings about a worsening security situation appear to have been ignored by this administration."
"Americans also deserve a complete explanation about your administration's decision to accelerate a normalized presence in Libya at what now appears to be at the cost of endangering American lives."
With this new information being released, Romney and the GOP's cover-up theory blows up in their faces. Once again, a very volitile situation is handled in a cool hand, cool head manner by President Obama while the GOP runs around screaming and dealing with events in a knee-jerk fashion:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
The Romney campaign may have misfired with its suggestion that statements by President Obama and U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice about the Benghazi attack last month weren’t supported by intelligence, according to documents provided by a senior U.S. intelligence official.
“Talking points” prepared by the CIA on Sept. 15, the same day that Rice taped three television appearances, support her description of the Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. Consulate as a reaction to Arab anger about an anti-Muslim video prepared in the United States. According to the CIA account, “The currently available information suggests that the demonstrations in Benghazi were spontaneously inspired 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. There are indications that extremists participated in the violent demonstrations.”
“It was a flash mob with weapons,” is how the senior official described the attackers. The mob included members of the Ansar al-Sharia militia, about four members of al-Qaeda in the Maghreb, and members of the Egypt-based Muhammad Jamal network, along with other unarmed looters.
The official said the only major change he would make now in the CIA’s Sept. 15 talking points would be to drop the word “spontaneous” and substitute “opportunistic.” He explained that there apparently was “some pre-coordination but minimal planning.”
This is a letter released by Senator John Kerry, Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, in response to the release of documents, concerning the recent events in Libya, by the House Oversight Committee.
"The wholesale release of State Department documents by the House Oversight Committee has exposed Libyan nationals working with the United States to possible danger. This is irresponsible and inexcusable, and perhaps worst of all it was entirely avoidable. It is profoundly against America's interests in a difficult region.
Oversight and investigation is the job of Congress. I know how to run a real investigation. It's a responsibility I take personally as someone who spent years in the Senate leading difficult, sensitive, and comprehensive investigations on everything from BCCI and illegal money laundering to the fate of American soldiers missing in Vietnam. I don't say casually that this release of sensitive materials was a moment of real incompetence and irresponsibility.
The Foreign Relations Committee is committed to getting all the facts about what happened, and we’ve been in regular contact with the Administration to do so. The Committee has sent two letters asking questions, including one signed by all committee members, and we will have another committee briefing as soon as we reconvene. The House committee seems to adopting a very different set of investigative techniques. It's bad enough that it's becoming a political sideshow presumably driven by the calendar of Monday's upcoming presidential debate, but even worse is that in their rush to make news they've exposed Libyans who were working side by side with America."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
http://www.rawstory.com/...
http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/...