White House Linked Benghazi to Video 3 Days After CIA & State Dept. Eyewitnesses Confirmed No Protest There

From CNS News:

According to a new report by the Senate Homeland Security Committee, personnel working at the CIA "Annex" in Benghazi on Sept. 11 reported on Sept. 15 that there had been no protest in Benghazi that day [when the U.S. consulate was attacked], and State Department security personnel who survived the Benghazi attacks told FBI interviewers on Sept. 15 and Sept. 16 that they, too, had seen no evidence of any protest before the attacks.

At a White House briefing on Sept. 18, [White House Press Secretary Jay] Carney said that there was a protest in Benghazi on Sept. 11 against the anti-Muslim YouTube video and that the attacks there were "sparked" by protests. Obama, appearing on David Letterman’s show that same day, instantly referred to the video... when Letterman asked him what had happened in Benghazi.

Also, an internal State Department email exchange on Sept. 18--the same day Carney made his claim at the White House briefing and Obama made his on Letterman—shows that State Department security officers knew by that date that there had been no protest in Benghazi on Sept. 11, 2012.

Video recordings from the diplomatic mission’s closed-circuit television security system, according to the Senate Homeland Security Committee’s report, would also demonstrate that there had been no protest there before the terrorist attacks.

On September 16, one day after CIA personnel had already reported that there had been no protest at the U.S. consulate prior to the attack, U.S. ambassador to the U.N., Susan Rice, appeared on several Sunday TV talk shows, including CBS's Face the Nation, and said that that the attack started out as a spontaneous protest.

I also noted in a previous post as follows:

Sadly, the Obama administration's storyline as to why no action was taken to save the U.S. diplomats in Benghazi kept changing from day to day; it was nearly impossible to keep track of the administration's dizzying, ever-changing, vacillating narrative without getting a severe headache.

Suffice it to say that Defense Secretary, Leon Panetta, admitted to reporters, during a press briefing in October, that the U.S. military had the resources in the region to rescue the diplomats.

"We quickly responded... in terms of deploying forces to the region," Panetta said. "We had FAST platoons in the region. We had ships that we had deployed off of Libya. And we were prepared to respond to any contingency and certainly had forces in place to do that."

"But", Panetta said, "you don't deploy forces into harm's way... without having some real-time information about what's taking place.[They didn't have real time information, my foot!] And as a result of not having that kind of information, the commander who was on the ground in that area, General Ham, General Dempsey and I felt very strongly that we could not put forces at risk in that situation."

But shortly after the aforementioned briefing, the storyline changed. According to the revised version, the military didn't have the resources nearby, hence the rescue teams could not reach Benghazi in time to save the lives of the U.S. diplomats...

The administration's narative received a few additional facelifts, and twists, over the next several weeks; I'm still waiting for the final cut.

I also noted some additional inconsistencies, and prevarications, from Panetta and Company.