Fox News Obtains State Dept Emails: Al Qaeda-Linked Group Claimed Responsibility for Libya Attack Within Hours
A series of internal State Department emails obtained by Fox News shows that officials knew within hours of the Sept. 11 attack in Benghazi, Libya, that an al Qaeda-linked group had claimed responsibility.
The group, Ansar al-Sharia, has been declared by the State Department to be an affiliate of al Qaeda.
Just five days later, UN Ambassador Susan Rice went on numerous television news shows and claimed that intelligence reports led her to believe the attack on
the U.S. Consulate, which killed four Americans, was spontaneous and linked to protests over an anti-Islam film.
The emails obtained by Fox News were sent by the State Department to a variety of national security platforms, whose addresses have been redacted, including the White House Situation Room, the Pentagon, the FBI and the Director of National Intelligence.
The emails often include the subheading SBU, which is shorthand for “Sensitive But Unclassified.”
On Sept 18, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney backed up Rice, saying, "Based on information that we -- our initial information ... we saw no evidence to back up claims by others that this was a preplanned or premeditated attack; that we saw evidence that it was sparked by the reaction to this video." Carney went on to say "that is what we know" based on "concrete evidence, not supposition."
On Fox and Friends this morning, Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) weighed in on the situation, saying "this is getting uglier every day." The vice chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee said he would like to see Senate hearings held on the matter, like the House proceedings that took place earlier this month.
Read the emails, here.
Watch the full interview:
Related Stories:
Tunisian Man Arrested in Connection to the Libya Terror Attack
Judge Napolitano: Romney Should Have Challenged Obama Last Night on Response to Libya Attack
