Benghazi, the attack and the scandal, explained

You may have heard the word 'Benghazi' a few times are few thousand times in the past few years – "Benghazi" – – "Probes about Benghazi" – – "Benghazi committee" – – "You wouldn't have had your Benghazi situation" – Whether from Fox News and Republicans in Congress who insist it's a major scandal or some liberals joking about it on Twitter, it all has to do with Republicans' deeper beliefs about Barack Obama's presidency and with the politics surrounding Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign. But to see how Benghazi fits into all of that you need to know exactly what happened in Benghazi, in the first place. On the night of September 11th 2012 a group of Islamist militia members attacked a US diplomatic outpost in Benghazi Libya. They killed four Americans including the US ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens who was visiting from Tripoli that week. The city was a centre of the US-backed rebellion that toppled Muammar Qaddafi the year before, and a number of armed groups had emerged in the aftermath. It was a dangerous environment. However, the US had no intelligence suggesting a specific attack was imminent. At 9:42 pm, the the militiamen easily breached the gates of the compound and set fire to the building. A subsequent State Department review blamed systemic failures at the department's senior levels for the mission's poor security. Stevens had previously requested more security and not gotten it. In the chaos of the attack US security officers were separated from Stevens and Sean Smith, another State Department official. The two men died of smoke inhalation later that night A team from the nearby CIA annex arrived and engaged militants before taking survivors back to the extra mile away at 11:15PM. 40 minutes later the attackers laid siege to the annex as well. resumed around 5:15 a.m. with two more Americans security agents Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty killed by mortars firing on the annex. This later became a big controversy. Republicans accused Obama of withholding further military support that might have saved the day. But there were simply no military assets that could have gotten there in time. Starting around 7 a.m. the Americans were able to escape the compound and leave the country. The CIA initially blamed the attack on a mob protesting an anti-Islam movie which had sparked protests elsewhere in the middle east. Then UN Ambassador Susan Rice made this claim on several Sunday talk shows RICE: it began spontaneously in Benghazi as a reaction to what had transpired some RICE:hours earlier in cairo. That turned out to be mostly wrong. The attackers were members of Islamist militias we now know; not random mob. Republicans accuse the Obama administration of campaign with intelligence specifically in races talking points for the sunday shows to hide the fact there was a terrorist attack. WALLACE: Did the Obama administration play down what happened in Libya what WALLACE: happened in cairo because it would make Obama foreign policy look better? But later investigation showed that she'd honestly repeated CIA analysis rather than deliberately lying. Still, amidst the controversy, Rice withdrew herself from consideration to become the next Secretary of State There have been eight official investigations into Benghazi mostly involving or led by congressional Republicans and none has found any real evidence of a cover-up, or wrongdoing by the administration with the exception of the state department's internal report blaming its own incompetence for failing to provide sufficient security. So why are republicans still investigating? Partly out of a certainty that something was wrong stemming from deep-seated Republican beliefs that Obama is both week on terror in corruptly authoritarian, enough to hide the truth. But this is also about politics. Republicans want to embarrass Obama and damage Hillary Clinton who was then Secretary of State the time of the attack. House majority leader Kevin McCarthy admitted as much on national television. MCCARTHY: Everybody thought Hillary Clinton was unbeatable right? but we put together MCCARTHY: a Benghazi special committee. A select committee. What are her numbers today? Her MCCARTHY: numbers are dropping. Why? Cause she's untrustable. And its kind of worked. The Clinton email scandal rose from one of the Benghazi investigations. So you can bet we'll be hearing about Benghazi well into the presidential election.

Channel: Vox

Views: 1,013,780

Keywords: vox, news, current events, world, cnn, vice, fox, msnbc, breakdown, eli5, 2012 Benghazi Attack (Disaster), Politics (TV Genre), bengazi, Fox News Channel (TV Network), Hillary Rodham Clinton (U.S. Congressperson), christopher stevens, chris stevens, libya, tripoli, gaddafi, Muammar Al-Gaddafi (Politician), qaddafi, benghazi, United States Congress (Governmental Body)

Id: vxhyzPUHQQw

Length: 4min 14sec (254 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 16 2015