Alright, I am an analyst, but damned happy I don’t work for Mike Morrell, who was the ‘acting’ director at the CIA at the time of the Benghazi murders. I have worked this event since the moment it happened and have published my reports in various locations on the web. But today (April 2, 2014), Mike Morrell appeared before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence chaired by Mike Rogers.
Okay, so here goes what was said by Morrell in sworn testimony along with a few, snotty but hard comments by me. This covers Morrell’s opening statement and his responses to questions.
In Morrell’s opening statement, I came away with a few questions.
1. The White House used Morrell’s talking points, which were in fact wrong and he knew it, as he and a handful of others changed the talking points several times, so why did Morrell and others allow the lies?
2. Morrell and the rest took out all references to a terror attack and to any al Qaeda involvement, so they all obscured the threat and the risks to the CIA and all Americans stationed abroad, why?
3. Susan Rice, you know on those 5 Sunday talk shows said. ‘the best information at the time’, well yeah sure since all the truth was stripped out by Morrell, ‘his’ analysts and then those pesky types in the inter-agency.
4. Did ‘his’ analysts bother to include the information of the 200+ prior attacks in Libya, any interviews with the February 17th Brigade, Blue Mountain, any of the Brits that were there or any of the 30+ CIA’ers at the annex at the time? Nah, nor did Hillary’s assigned clan that authored the Accountability Review Board summary. Oh, one more thing, how about the live video stream that was fed back to DC? Was that included by ‘his’ analysts? Nah, again.
5. No one has been brought to justice for these murders, why? Well many answers, least o which JC Martin Dempsey said he was never given authorization. Well, was authorization given to anyone? Admiral McRaven at JSOC? General Ham? General Austin? General Odierno? Anyone?
6. How come no one on the panel of the ARB included ANY testimony of the Red Cross, the Brits much less those at the CIA annex that fateful night who filed OIG complaints?
7. Mike Morrell included in his opening statement that he submitted a 23 page document for the record and requesting it also be published on the web for public view. This is where it gets jiggy, as there is a classified version and an un-classified version, where he makes the distinction that the difference is only that all reference to al Qaeda has been stripped as it would reveal sources and methods….ah what? Just how exactly? Then what Susan Rice had and for public consumption was the un-classified version….sigh.
8. Also in Morrell’s opening statement he offered that he handled the analysis and the talking points with total objectivity and the matter of policy and politics was ‘never’ included in his assessment….yeah okay, sure dude. He also offered the notion that he worked to alter the talking points and he did not deliberately downplay the events, he admits mistakes and could have tendered better performance. Really?
9. There were three key points he wanted to ensure got on the record today. 1. His CIA analysts are the most talented in the agency and they concluded this event was due to protests with good reason, there was no outside input or any coordinated collaboration across the intelligence community. (sheesh) 2. His senior analysts wrote the first draft of the un-classified talking points and many changes were made by the CIA and other agencies but NOT the White House and the protests were consistent with the intelligence. (ah jeez, that is kinda opposed to #1 eh?) 3. Morrell also worked to get the analysis right and he did in fact have the CIA Chief of Station’s emails (2) but they did not matter to his final analysis. Let us remember here that the Chief of Station had an estimated 30+ assigned at the annex at the time. (head-desk).
10. Oh, Mike Morrell also mentioned that he did not know that the mission post relied on and looked to the CIA annex for additional security given the fact that all previous requests for additional security was rejected. Okay, so one must assume then that Morrell’s Station Chief did not have a good relation at all with CIA headquarters or for sure with anyone at the State Department either.
11. On 9-11, when AQ attacked three locations in the United States, Morrell was in fact with GW Bush in Sarasota at the moment the first attack occurred. Morrell was asked for his thoughts on who did this and Morrell immediately told President Bush it was bin Ladin. So, Morrell clearly understands the threats and gets reports on the threat chatters, but he could not bring himself to pony up the real deal on the matter in Benghazi. (shaking my head again).
12. Oh, ‘his’ analysts also use press reports for their assessments, which Morrell admitted today. Really the press? Whose in the press? No slight meant to on the ground journalists who often do stellar work, but by the time many of their items are filed and published, heh the core of the story is edited for political correctness…. (moving on).
13. The Chief of Station, Benghazi sent two emails (one on the 15th and his last one on the 16th) with facts and judgments to Morrell but ‘his’ analysts thousands of miles away trumped and Morrell admitted too that he was the one who sorted out the press reports, clues and intelligence. (raised eyebrow now).
14. Morrell said he did NOT take out the reference to al Qaeda from the talking points, his summary went to the NSC and the WH on Friday the 14th. But in the next sentence he said he took out the warning language put in by one of his analysts in deference to the State Department. (remember Morrell works at Beacon Global Strategies, a Hillary protected think tank).
15. Morrell today was presented with an email where the beginnings and the middle of the talking points began and percolated. In his own handwriting, there were many notes but he also wrote in some key names of those that needed to be included in the talking points creation and editing. (Director of OTA, Robert Cardillo, Alan Pino, Matt Olsen, Jake Sullivan, Mark Giliano, Lisa Monaco and Ben Rhodes, NSC and DI). All of these people got the emails on the talking points for approval and editing. Morrell tells us too that he never spoke to the White House or to Susan Rice on the talking points.
16. The Chief of Station’s email never went to anyone in the list above, the emails remained exclusively within the CIA that included the analysts and David Petraeus. The email did have in the text extremists (PC terminology) and there were up to three reasons for the attack in order: a) in response to the 9/11 anniversary b) calling for revenge of Ayman al Zawahiri and al Libi c) a YouTube video. So Morrell then concluded on his own, this was an attack but the matter of the reason for the attack being due to the protests/demonstrations. Morrell also tells us that part of his analysis was due in part to 12 reports of protests, press reports, the NSA, CIA and DoD. Yet, his analysts did not have ‘all’ reports for their summary as he told the committee. (But his analysts are the best in the agency?)
17. When asked the question, if you were seeking the best information on conditions or events in country, who would you go to for that? Morrell responded that he would go to his analysts and not the Chief of Station. He has one top analyst, a woman that is his ‘go-to’ person, she is his best source. (Guess his Chiefs of Station must be nothing more than WalMart greeters to Morrell)
18. Morrell also said in testimony that the CIA Public Affairs Office and the liaison to Congressional Affairs took out the AQ reference in the talking points and got a copy of the analysts reports using AQ AND the reference to attack. (ah, dude which is it now?) Sometime later the word attack was changed to demonstration. And Mike Morrell also said his analysts make judgments. (Facts be damned)
19. When asked about his threat assessment today, Morrell said that the terror threat is still robust including al Qaeda. We defeated al Qaeda leadership but the AQ ideology is still spreading. The threat of AQ is very significant and will grow. (Clapper concurs on this but Barack Obama says otherwise, feel secure yet or how about those Americans working in foreign lands?)
20. Morrell was also asked about how the CIA types that work in foreign lands feel, he responded that those working across the globe don’t feel abandoned. (Ah, just who did he ask, any of the 30 working in Libya by chance?)
21. Mike Morrell did offer this tidbit, ‘the CIA should not be in the business of creating un-classified talking points or talking to the public, this was part of the written lessons learned post the Benghazi attack’. It should also be noted that there were 2-a-day deputy meetings for several days after Benghazi. Those meetings included members from the State Department, NCTC, DoD, NSC, CIA, FBI and DoJ. These meetings mostly included what measures so be taken in the future to keep another Benghazi from happening again. (Oh, you mean, that now all the diplomatic rules and laws established after the Tehran hostage situation should now be followed?)
Well, I that is about all I could take, there are still more to learn, but really, not any different than what is written above.
In summary however, I must add this one stipulation. Congressman Ruppersburger ( Just call me Dutch) wants to move past Benghazi, but he does need to be reminded of this:
All the people assigned to Benghazi between both locations were left to perish as no one knew when the attacks would officially stop. Between the two locations, there were almost 40 people assigned in Benghazi and we cannot forget the real time communications going on including ‘critics’, critical situation reports and the real time video feeds. Oh, one last thing, we continue to hear that 4 Americans died in Benghazi, but, ah, actually there are 29 people dead of unknown work status, meaning were they too working as contractors or paid informants….
Sorry there was another Ft. Hood shooting that was going on as I was writing this but here is another update….those CIA’ers in Benghazi listened to Mike Morrell’s testimony today. To say the least they are not pleased, saying either he still does not know what happened that night or he is covering for somebody. Heck, I think it both, and more than one somebody. Ah well, read for yourself on what those on the ground had to say.
Over for now, may be another update soon.
