You have undoubtedly seen the latest AP story reporting that on 9/12/12 the CIA identified Islamic militants as responsible for the Benghazi attack.
The CIA station chief in Libya reported to Washington within 24 hours of last month's deadly attack on the U.S. Consulate that there was evidence it was carried out by militants, not a spontaneous mob upset about an American-made video ridiculing Islam's Prophet Muhammad, U.S. officials have told The Associated Press.
It is unclear who, if anyone, saw the cable outside the CIA at that point and how high up in the agency the information went. The Obama administration maintained publicly for a week that the attack on the diplomatic mission in Benghazi that killed US ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans was carried out by a mob similar to those that staged less-deadly protests across the Muslim world around the 11th anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks on the US.
But if you read what the NY Times was reporting on that same day (9/12/12), you will see that it was ALREADY being reported that this was undertaken by Islamic militants -- not a mob -- and that U.S. officials were already claiming that this looked like an organized, pre-planned attack.
Here what the NY Times reported on September 12, 2012 -- the day after the attacks.
CAIRO — Islamist militants armed with antiaircraft weapons and rocket-propelled grenades stormed a lightly defended United States diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, late Tuesday, killing the American ambassador and three members of his staff and raising questions about the radicalization of countries swept up in the Arab Spring.
....
American and European officials said that while many details about the attack remained unclear, the assailants seemed organized, well trained and heavily armed, and they appeared to have at least some level of advance planning. But the officials cautioned that it was too soon to tell whether the attack was related to the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks.
QUESTION: Why is the AP making it sound like ONLY the CIA knew that this was carried out by Islamic militants, when that fact was ALREADY being reported in the NY Times?
QUESTION: Why is the AP claiming that the Obama administration spent a week maintaining that the attack was undertaken by a mob, when the NY Times reported on 9/12 that American officials were claiming that the assailants were "organized, well trained and heavily armed, and they appeared to have at least some level of advance planning"?
The AP needs to stop trying to rewrite history, and instead should focus on what the facts actually were. As Obama might say, "Get the transcript."