Last night 60 Minutes aired a damning report from reporter Lara Logan about the details of the Benghazi attack, including an interview with "Morgan Jones," a former British soldier who spoke under a pseudonym in order to protect his identity. After witnessing the attack, Jones went looking for US Ambassador Christopher Stevens at a hospital that had been overrun by Al Qaeda terrorists. Jones found Stevens, dead.
"I dreaded seeing who it was," Jones tells CBS' Lara Logan. "I could see through the glass, I didn't even have to go into the room to see who it was. It was the Ambassador, dead."
Jones explains the lead up to the Benghazi attack on 9/11, which included seeing black Al Qaeda flags flying in the city as the terrorist group took over buildings. He talked about a militia that was openly hanging out at the consulate on a regular basis "training for consulate security." He asked for them to leave, they refused and nobody bothered forcing them to leave.
"I was saying these guys are no good, they need to get out of here," Jones says. "I got quite bored hearing my own voice say it."
Ambassador Stevens was well aware of these threats and asked multiple times for more security from Washington D.C. Those requests were repeatedly denied.
Prior to the attack, Amb Stevens approved a cable to DC that said: “The al Qaeda flag has been spotted…flying over govt bldgs”
— 60 Minutes (@60Minutes) October 27, 2013
The threats were there all along and the State Department knew all about it. Al Qaeda promised to attack the United States in Benghazi after singling out the Red Cross and British forces in warnings online.
"They made good on two of the three promises, it was a matter of time until they captured the third one," Green Beret Commander Lieutenant Colonel Andy Wood, who met with Stevens everyday, says in the piece. "They were in their final planning stages."
Benghazi whistleblower and former deputy to Ambassador Stevens Greg Hicks revealed to Logan that one hour into the attack, he had to call the CIA annex where Navy SEALs Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods and information management officer Sean Smith were fighting, to tell them help may not be coming for them.
"I made the call to the annex chief and said, 'Listen, you have to tell those guys there might not be help coming,'" Hicks said. "For us, for the people who go out onto the edge to represent our country we believe that if we get in trouble they're coming to get us, our back is covered. Too hear that it's not, it's a terrible terrible experience."
The entire piece is worth your time.
Before being caught in their lies, the Obama administration claimed the attack in Benghazi was the result of a protest over a video raging out of control when, in fact, the State Department knew for months Al Qaeda had a solid presence inside the city. The terrorist group was openly showing their strength and deadly intentions through threats and the flying of their black flag on government buildings. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton received a phone call from Benghazi whistleblower Gregory Hicks, Stevens' deputy, at 2 am on the night of the attack. She was told the consulate and annex were under attack. Unfortunately, the 60 Minutes piece is silent on Clinton's failure to act before and after the attack. Here's a reminder of Clinton's actions:
Despite knowing Benghazi was a terrorist attack from the very beginning, after all she was briefed by Hicks who was on the ground, Clinton shamelessly stood in front of the flag draped caskets of dead Americans and blamed a YouTube video anyway. Watch starting at the 6 minute mark.
"We've seen rage and violence directed at American embassies over an awful internet video that we had nothing to do with. It is hard for the American people to make sense of that, because it is senseless and totally unacceptable."
Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama let politics and a presidential campaign claiming "Al Qaeda is on the run," get in the way of security measures and addressing serious threats. The result of their actions are four dead Americans whose families still have very few answers about what exactly happened that night.