E-mails: White House knew of extremist claims in Benghazi attack
Editor's note: Anderson Cooper spoke with Bob, Baer, Fran Townsend, and Suzanne Kelly about the e-mail, and the suspect in the consulate attack currently being held in Tunisia.
Two hours after first being notified of an attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, a government e-mail to the White House, the State Department and the FBI said an Islamist group had claimed credit, according to a copy obtained by CNN.
An initial e-mail was sent while the attack was still underway, and another that arrived two hours later - sent from a State Department address to various government agencies including the executive office of the president - identified Ansar al-Sharia as claiming responsibility for the attack on its Facebook page and on Twitter.
The group denied responsibility the next day.
However, the e-mails raise further questions about the seeming confusion on the part of the Obama administration to determine the nature of the September 11 attack that left U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans dead.
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Post by: Anderson Cooper, Elise Labott Filed under: Libya |
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Very sad that four Americans lost life and Obama took 14 days to get facts from Benghazi, but got them right.
Bush took more than 14 months to link Iraq to 9/11, and still got them wrong, costing thousands of lives and Trillions of dollars. Some business certainly profited.
Romney is essentially asking us to prepare for a new war, spend a few more Trillions. For whose economy?
Can we stop politicizing the tragedies, please? I am not suggesting Obama administration to be condoned but let us keep the response proportional to the action or lack of it. There have been LOTS of other actions, even terrorism related, in the last four years. Let us keep one incident to overshadow the whole picture. Let us not be penny wise pound foolish.