"Renegade Libyan general says Parliament suspended" by Esam Mohamed | Associated Press May 19, 2014
TRIPOLI, Libya — Forces apparently loyal to a renegade Libyan general said they suspended Parliament Sunday after earlier leading a military assault against lawmakers, directly challenging the legitimacy of the country’s weak central government three years after the overthrow of dictator Moammar Khadafy.
A commander in the military police in Libya read a statement announcing the suspension on behalf of a group led by General Khalifa Hifter, a one-time rebel commander who said the United States backed his efforts to topple Khadafy in the 1990s.
Related: Third Antichrist to Come From Libya
Turns out the Nostradamus people got it wrong; as per the writing style of the day, it was an F not an S. Turns out Hitler was not one of the antichrists. JWho would have thunk it?
Hours earlier, militia members backed by truck-mounted antiaircraft guns, mortars, and rocket fire attacked Parliament, sending lawmakers fleeing for their lives as gunmen ransacked the legislature.
General Mokhtar Farnana, speaking on Libyan television on behalf of Hifter’s group, said it assigned a 60-member constituent’s assembly to take over for Parliament. Farnana, without elaborating, said Libya’s current government would act on an emergency basis.
Farnana, who is in charge of prisons operated by the military police, said forces loyal to Hifter carried out Sunday’s attack on Parliament. He also said the action was not a coup but ‘‘fighting by the people’s choice.’’
Seems like I heard that somewhere else recently.
‘‘We announce to the world that the country can’t be a breeding ground or an incubator for terrorism,’’ said Farnana, who wore a military uniform and stood in front of Libya’s flag.
Early Monday morning, Libya’s interim government condemned the attack on Parliament and said it would ignore the declaration by the general’s group.
‘‘The government condemns the expression of political opinion through the use of armed force,’’ Libyan Justice Minister Salah al-Marghani said in a statement. ‘‘It calls for an immediate end of the use of military arsenal . . . and calls on all sides to resort to dialogue and reconciliation.’’
That is how they got power.
Militias that backed the country’s interim government guarded checkpoints around the capital late Sunday. Hifter’s forces in Tripoli appeared concentrated around the road to the city’s airport and its southern outskirts.
The attack on Parliament, in which two people were killed and more than 60 wounded according to hospital officials, came after an assault Friday by Hifter’s forces on Islamist militias in the restive eastern city of Benghazi. Authorities said 70 people were killed in that attack. On Sunday, gunmen targeted the Islamist lawmakers and officials Hifter blames for allowing extremists to hold the country ransom, his spokesman Mohammed al-Hegazi told the Arabic newspaper al-Ahrar.
‘‘This Parliament is what supports these extremist Islamist entities,’’ Hegazi said. ‘‘The aim was to arrest these Islamist bodies who wear the cloak of politics.’’
The fighting spread to the capital’s southern edge Sunday night and along the airport highway.
Libya’s army and police rely on the country’s myriad of militias, the heavily armed groups formed around ethnic identity, hometowns, and religion that formed out of the rebel factions that toppled Khadafy.
Bringing them under control has been one of the greatest challenges for Libya’s successive interim governments, one they largely failed at as militias have seized oil terminals and even kidnapped a former prime minister.
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"General’s revolt threatens to start new fight in Libya" by Esam Mohamed | Associated Press May 20, 2014
TRIPOLI, Libya — A revolt by a renegade general against Islamists who dominate Libya’s politics threatened to spiral into an outright battle for power that could fragment the North African nation as the country’s numerous militias on Monday started to line up behind the rival camps.
Then Obama has lost Libya.
General Khalifa Hifter, who lived for years in exile in the United States during the rule of autocrat Moammar Khadafy, presents himself as a nationalist who is waging a war against terrorism to save Libya from Islamic extremists.
Wow!
His loyalists and allies in the past days attacked Islamist militias in the eastern city of Benghazi and on Sunday stormed the Islamist-led Parliament in Tripoli. Authorities said 70 people were killed in the Benghazi fighting.
Hifter’s opponents accuse him of seeking to grab power, acting on behalf of former regime figures in exile by orchestrating an Egyptian-style military overthrow of Islamists that would wreck attempts at democracy.
Since Khadafy’s ouster and death in a 2011 civil war, Libya has been in chaos. The central government has almost no authority. The military and police, shattered during the civil war, have never recovered and remain in disarray.
Filling the void are hundreds of militias around the country. Many of them are locally based, rooted in specific cities or neighborhoods. Others are based on ethnic allegiances. Some have embraced Al Qaeda-inspired extremism.
Translation: anyone who doesn't agree with U.S. foreign policy is an Al Qaeda.
The country has held several elections, including ones that created a new Parliament. But administrations have been paralyzed by the competition between Islamist parties and their rivals, each of which are backed by militias. Islamist lawmakers who dominate Parliament removed the Western-backed prime minister earlier this year and named an Islamist-leaning figure Ahmed Maiteg to replace him in a vote their opponents say was illegal.
Well, there you go! Now you know why Hifter was given his orders.
In response to the Parliament attack, the Islamist-leaning head of the Legislature, Nouri Abu Sahmein, ordered militias backing his camp to deploy in Tripoli on Monday to resist what he called ‘‘the attempt to wreck the path of democracy and take power.’’
The pro-Parliament militias are largely from Libya’s third-largest city of Misrata, one of the Islamists’ biggest constituencies. Footage posted online by Misrata forces showed hundreds of pickup trucks mounted with antiaircraft guns, tanks, and armored vehicles it said were ready to move into the capital.
But backing for Parliament seemed to be fading, including within the interim government installed by lawmakers after the prime minister’s removal.
The government, led by the defense minister, put forward a proposal for resolving the conflict. It said Parliament should hold a new vote on a prime minister, pass a budget, and then halt work to allow new Parliament elections. Parliament’s mandate expired earlier this year, and Islamists’ opponents have held protests demanding it be dissolved.
Units of the weak military on Monday began splitting from their top generals to support Hifter.
The commander of an elite army unit in Benghazi, the Special Forces, announced his support for Hifter and his National Libyan Army, as he has called his loyalists. The unit is the only real state force in Benghazi, Libya’s second-largest city, where it has been fighting militants for months.
Three years of hell so they could go back to what they had?
‘‘Anyone who hurts the nation will be smashed. We are with the will of the people alongside the National Libyan Army in the battle of dignity,’’ the commander, Wanis Abu Khamada, said in a televised address.
Also, troops at a military air base in the eastern city of Tobruk joined Hifter’s forces, his spokesman Mohammed Hegazi said. The claim was quickly challenged by deputy Defense Minister Khaled el-Sherif.
It does have parallels with Nazi Germany. Many initially joined up with Hitler.
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Rather light treatment for a coup and new junta, huh?
"Libya: Election set for June in bid to ease crisis" by Esam Mohamed | Associated Press May 21, 2014
TRIPOLI, Libya — Libya’s election commission set new parliamentary elections for next month, trying on Tuesday to find a peaceful resolution to a crisis triggered by a renegade general’s efforts to crush Islamist militias and his demand that the Islamist-led Legislature disband for allegedly supporting extremism.
The announcement of a nationwide June 25 vote came after Parliament met in what lawmakers had hoped would be a secret location. A missile was fired at the hotel where the session was taking place, causing panic but no injuries.
The general, Khalifa Hifter, has launched an armed campaign he says is aimed at imposing stability after three years of chaos since the ouster and death of dictator Moammar Khadafy in 2011. He says he wants to break the power of Islamists.
Hifter denies seeking power but indicated Tuesday that he would be interested in running for president — an office that has remained vacant since the revolution, pending the drafting of a new constitution.
This guy doesn't have a short mustache under his nose, does he?
Leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood group, one of the biggest factions in Parliament, denounced Hifter as ‘‘a counter-revolutionary allying with remnants of Khadafy’s forces.’’
Mohammed Gair, a leading group member, called for dialogue to avert a struggle in which ‘‘no one is a winner and the only loser is the Libyan people.’’
The standoff has developed into a potential battle for power as many of Libya’s militias line up behind either of the two camps.
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V for victory?
"Libya’s renegade general gains new allies" by Esam Mohamed and Bradley Klapper | Associated Press May 22, 2014
TRIPOLI, Libya — General Khalifa Hifter has been waiting decades for his moment.
Oddly similar to another guy from Germa.... oh, never mind.
A top general under Moammar Khadafy, he was tainted by a disastrous defeat in a war against neighboring Chad. Exiled in the United States, he helped lead the opposition and vowed to return one day. Since Khadafy’s 2011 ouster he has struggled for a role, distrusted by other generals.
The Libyan MacArthur, distrusted because the other generals know he is an AmeriKan agent.
Now his time may have come. He is presenting himself as Libya’s potential savior after nearly two years of chaos in which unruly militias are exercising power over elected officials and assassinating dozens of soldiers and police.
This is way, way too similar!
In less than a week since Hifter surfaced, supporters flocked to his self-professed campaign to crush Islamist militias and their backers in Parliament and to bring stability to the country.
But there are fears his ultimate goal is to make himself into a new Khadafy, and his democratic credentials are far from established.
‘‘If Hifter wants to put the country on the right path then leave, he is welcome, but if he wants to take over power, we won’t accept more coups,’’ said Abdullah Banoun, a prominent lawyer in Tripoli. ‘‘Khadafy terrorized us for 42 years. The alternative to Khadafy is a civilian rule, nothing less than that.’’
Since Friday, Hifter has been leading an armed revolt in perhaps the biggest challenge yet to the country’s weak central government and fledgling security forces. He says his campaign, dubbed ‘‘Operation Dignity,’’ aims to break the power of Islamists who lead Parliament. He accuses the Islamists of fueling Libya’s chaos and opening the door to extremism.
They even gave it a name.
In a further boost for Hifter, Libya’s UN envoy, Ambassador Ibrahim al-Dabashi, announced his support Wednesday.
That pretty much confirms my suspicions.
He backed Hifter’s demands for the suspension of Parliament and for the transfer of all powers to a caretaker government, and he called for Libya to be purged of militias. He urged Hifter and his loyalists not to interfere in politics but to restrict themselves to building cohesive military forces.
The general’s campaign is ‘‘not a coup,’’ the ambassador said, ‘‘but a nationalist move.’’
Hifter, a 70-year-old military officer, helped Khadafy in his 1969 coup against the Libyan monarchy by taking control over Tripoli’s Matiga airbase, according to his son. He then rose through the ranks of the Libyan army until he was named the military chief, and led Libyan forces alongside Egyptian forces in the 1973 Arab war against Israel.
But Libya’s disastrous defeat in its decade-long war in Chad did not help Hifter’s reputation.
Hifter was among those captured, and he defected from the Khadafy regime in 1987 as the war ended.
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V for victory?
"Islamist-led militias deploy in Libya’s capital" Associated Press May 23, 2014
TRIPOLI, Libya — Islamist-led militias streamed into the Libyan capital Thursday amid a standoff with fighters loyal to a renegade general whose offensive has won support from officials, diplomats, and army units, but has also threatened to fragment the country further.
The militias, known as Libya Central Shield, comprise groups from the western city of Misrata. They are under the command of the country’s chief of staff, who answers to Parliament.
The force was deployed by an order from the head of Parliament to protect the capital, after the council came under attack by forces allied with General Khalifa Hifter. The Islamist-dominated legislature has described Hifter’s campaign as a coup.
But, reflecting Libya’s deep divisions, the government condemned Parliament’s move to deploy militias, saying it ‘‘endangers the city and the safety of its residents.’’
The statement also expressed fears over what the government described as ‘‘imposing a political decision under the rattle of gunfire.’’
The government also called on all militias to leave Tripoli.
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"Parliament backs Libyan Islamists" Associated Press May 26, 2014
TRIPOLI, Libya — The country’s embattled Parliament approved an Islamist-backed government Sunday despite boycotts from non-Islamists and threats from a renegade general who considers the chamber illegitimate.
Lawmakers said the government of Ahmed Maiteg passed with a majority vote, with 83 out of 93 present in the session voting in favor.
The Parliament session was held amid tight security in a palace east of the capital after the renegade general’s forces said that the legitimacy of the Parliament has expired. A spokesman for General Khalifa Hifter had threatened Saturday to attack the Parliament session if it convened.
Hifter has launched an armed campaign he said is aimed at imposing stability after three years of chaos since the ouster and death of dictator Moammar Khadafyi in 2011. He said he wants to break the power of Islamists who lead the Parliament.
We like to call it liberation over here.
It has been the biggest challenge yet to the country’s weak central government and fledgling security forces.
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"Jet bombs Islamists’ base in Libya’s Benghazi | Associated Press June 02, 2014
TRIPOLI, Libya — A Libyan air force jet bombed positions held by Islamic militants Sunday in the eastern city of Benghazi, a senior military official said, apparently as part of an ongoing offensive by a renegade general.
The official said the bombing targeted a base belonging to a local militia group called February 17 and the area of Sidi Faraj, where members of the extremist organization Ansar al-Shariah are located.
An official from Ansar al-Shariah said no one was hurt in the bombing and added that one of two rockets fired by the aircraft hit a car dealership.
Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to journalists.
In a separate raid, aircraft also targeted a palace that once belonged to Libya’s toppled ruling family in the western section of Benghazi, said a spokesman for forces loyal to renegade General Khalifa Hifter. The spokesman, Colonel Mohammed Hegazi, said the palace was being used by militants.
The aircraft apparently launched the attack on the behalf of Hifter, who has been leading a military campaign against Islamists dominating Libya’s political scene. He has vowed to crush the Islamists and many military units back him, a position that he stressed again in a news conference late Saturday.
‘‘We will not stop until the people’s demands are met,’’ said the 70-year-old Hifter.
Sounds very much like the other guy.
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"More aid needed in Libya, John Kerry says" by Matt Viser | Globe Staff May 22, 2014
WASHINGTON — Secretary of State John F. Kerry is warning that the United States and its allies should be doing more to stabilize Libya, saying that security remains a challenge in a country where nearly two years ago the US mission in Benghazi was attacked and four Americans were killed.
In other words, we are backing the coup.
In an interview with the Globe, Kerry questioned whether the United States was marshaling the resources needed to address the challenges in places like Libya, a country on the verge of a civil war three years after US-led airstrikes helped topple longtime dictator Moammar Khadafy.
More war? I thought we won this one? More economic aid? Sorry, we are broke.
“In Libya, we need to be able to, frankly, do more than we’re doing,” said Kerry, who has been subpoenaed to testify before Congress next week about the 2012 Benghazi attack. “We want to do more than we’re doing, but we have limits. Just plain, physical capacity limits, expense, the numbers of people it takes to provide security. Security is a huge issue.”
Good luck selling a reinvasion of Libya.
Kerry has been working with a group of allied countries to provide more help in Libya — including training Libyan security forces — but tight resources, weak political support for overseas ventures, and a volatile situation on the ground limit how much the United States can do.
“Every day I’m waking up and dealing with evaluations of our ‘x’ number of threat posts and making judgments about the numbers of people we have there versus the mission — we’re constantly balancing that,” Kerry said. “And resources would make a huge difference, and we’re not exactly in a resource-rich environment right now for these kinds of things.”
Kerry did not specify exactly what types of resources he thought were needed, and whether that meant more embassy security, humanitarian assistance, or other foreign aid.
More broadly, the State Department has been pushing Congress to provide more funding for security of US embassies around the world, but Congress for years has not authorized the full amount.
In Fiscal Year 2013, for example, the department requested $4.9 billion but received $4.4 billion. The administration often does not receive its full request, but the gulf between what it asks for and what it receives from Congress has grown wider in recent years, according to a Congressional Research Service report.
Kerry’s comments, made during an interview at the State Department last week, come as Libya has grown increasingly unstable. Saudi Arabia on Monday shut down its embassy and evacuated its diplomats. The US military is reportedly sending more aircraft to Italy in case they need to evacuate the US Embassy in Tripoli. Fighting in Libya escalated on Sunday, when armed militiamen stormed Parliament and later called on the government to hand over power to the country’s top judges. Libya’s central government announced elections in June, which some are hoping could help defuse the tensions.
The violent episodes are among the worst since 2011, when longtime leader Khadafy was overthrown and killed.
There are a range of steps that could be taken with more resources, including training police and military forces, helping build a civilian government, and disarming militias. Given the current volatility in Libya, adding more personnel would also require more security.
“Both from a human resources and financial resources perspective, you have a starved State Department in terms of that kind of assistance — and a pretty dicey environment on the ground,” said Michele Flournoy, the undersecretary of defense for policy during Obama’s first term who now leads the Center for a New American Security. “That’s the combination that makes it very hard to make progress.”
Top Republicans agree with Kerry that stabilizing the country is vitally important, and they say they could be open to providing more funding.
“If the existing State Department infrastructure is lacking when it comes to trying to stabilize Libya, I would be in the camp of providing more resources if you showed me a plan,” Senator Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican, said in an interview. “If I were John, that’s what I would do. Because Libya is very close to becoming a failed state, if not already a failed state. And that’s a shame.
Yeah, what a shame after all the destruction and murder.
“I don’t know if you could secure our people if you had a battalion of Marines around it right now,” he added. “I’m very worried about the security environment, because the country is coming apart.”
Most of the discussion on Capitol Hill has been related to the 2012 attacks in Benghazi, where a US mission was attacked and four Americans were killed. The topic has become a bitterly partisan one. House Speaker John Boehner has formed a select committee to further investigate the attacks. House Democrats, who had considered boycotting the investigation, appointed five members to the panel on Wednesday.
Related: Boehner to Appoint Benghazi Panel
They won't be impeaching him over it though.
In addition, Representative Darrell Issa, the chairman of the House Oversight Committee, initially subpoenaed Kerry to testify on Wednesday. With Kerry traveling to Mexico, Issa lifted the subpoena. There were negotiations with the State Department about a different date and, possibly, a different official to testify.
But last week, Issa issued a new subpoena for Kerry to testify May 29, complaining that the State Department had backtracked.
It has put Kerry at the center of a conflict that Republicans have seized upon over the past two years: whether the attacks in Benghazi could have been prevented — and whether the Obama administration was misleading about the reasons for the attack.
They won't be getting to the bottom of the bulls***.
Democrats have said that numerous investigations have not turned up any significant wrongdoing, while Republicans continue to search for evidence that would damage Kerry’s predecessor, Hillary Clinton, politically. Clinton was secretary of state when the US ambassador, J. Christopher Stevens, and three other Americans were killed in an attack on the Benghazi mission on Sept. 11, 2012.
Just before he was sworn in as secretary of state 15 months ago, Kerry told the Globe in an interview that embassy security and Benghazi were among the top issues he wanted to tackle early in his tenure.
Last week, Kerry met with various foreign ministers in London to discuss better support for Libya through the international community, partly through training efforts so that Libyan security forces are better equipped to fight various militia groups.
State Department aides emphasized that Kerry was not blaming Congress. But in the aftermath of the Benghazi attacks, several reports concluded that Congress needed to do more.
“Congress must do its part to meet this challenge and provide necessary resources to the State Department to address security risks and meet mission imperatives,” concluded a review headed by former US ambassador Thomas Pickering.
In his recent interview with the Globe, Kerry expressed his concerns about Libya in the context of his broader view that the United States is becoming more isolationist.
Really? Where John? Were are we pulling out and not getting involved?
If anything, the U.S. is getting deeper into Africa, deeper into Ukraine, deeper into Asia....
He named several regions where young people are influenced by radical Islamists, where the United States could have a more forceful role in promoting education. One of the reasons, Kerry said, was that financial resources are tight.
Maybe if we were not bombing and killing them that would help.
“After World War II, obviously, we were greatly engaged in that kind of building and development project,” he said. “Today we’re not. So there are things we ought to be able to do that we’re very hard-pressed to do.”
A Marshall Plan for the world when we are bankrupt as a nation? Is he nuts?
He said that he had discussed the topic with President Obama, and that it is something the administration is trying to address.
“I really believe we could be doing more of those kinds of things and making ourselves safer,” he said. “American security would be better, our leadership would be perceived as being more tangible, and we’d be better off because of it. But when we’re in a frozen budget and everything else, it’s very difficult.”
Quit the whining complaining, will ya'?
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"John Kerry will testify before Congress on attack in Benghazi" by Donna Cassata | Associated Press May 24, 2014
WASHINGTON — Secretary of State John F. Kerry will testify before Congress next month about the deadly attack in Benghazi, Libya, a one-and-done appearance that the State Department insists is enough to answer questions and means he could avoid the newly formed select committee.
He doesn't get to make that call!
In a letter to the House Oversight chairman, the department said Friday that Kerry could appear on June 12 or June 20 to discuss the Obama administration’s cooperation with the panel in providing e-mails and other documents related to the Sept. 11, 2012, attack that killed US Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans.
The department said that appearance ‘‘would remove any need for the secretary to appear before the select committee to answer additional questions.’’
Well, sorry, but they have a constitutional right, indeed a duty, to call you to testify as often as they want!
In response, Frederick Hill, a spokesman for the Oversight Committee, said chairman Darrell Issa had accepted Kerry’s offer to appear June 12.
The committee had issued two subpoenas for Kerry’s testimony, an unusual step for a Cabinet member that had clearly annoyed the State Department.
Well, tooooooo f***ing bad!
The department said diplomatic responsibilities tied to Ukrainian elections, NATO meetings in Brussels, and a presidential trip to Poland prevented Kerry from testifying on May 29, the date of a committee subpoena.
I'm not interested in your lame excuses!
‘‘This second subpoena was issued despite the department having expressed a desire to accommodate your committee’s interests and, like the first, it arrived while the secretary was traveling overseas representing the United States on urgent national security issues and without confirming the secretary’s availability on that date,’’ the department said in the letter.
A copy of the department letter was also sent to Representative Trey Gowdy, Republican of South Carolina, who is heading the special, 12-member select committee and would decide on whether to seek testimony from Kerry, who was a US senator from Massachusetts when the attack occurred.
Republicans assert that the Obama administration misled the American people about the nature of the terrorist attack weeks before the presidential election and has stonewalled congressional investigators.
They misled the world.
President Obama has accused Republicans of politicizing a national tragedy.
May be, but so what in this case?
The administration and Democrats assert that after 13 public hearings, the release of 25,000 pages of documents, and 50 separate briefings over 20 months, there is no new information.
Yeah, except the Republicans just got a bunch of records that hadn't been turned over! That's why they formed another committee.
In the 20 months since the attack, multiple independent, bipartisan, and Republican-led probes have faulted the State Department for inadequate security in Benghazi, leading to four demotions. No attacker has been arrested.
The House voted largely along party lines earlier this month to establish a select committee to conduct what will be the eighth investigation into the attack, with House Speaker John Boehner, Republican of Ohio, saying it was critical to ‘‘getting to the truth.’’
Seven Republicans, led by Gowdy, will serve on the panel.
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"House panel drops John Kerry testimony" by Donna Cassata | Associated Press May 31, 2014
WASHINGTON — The chairman of the House Oversight committee on Friday released Secretary of State John Kerry from his obligation to testify next month about the deadly Benghazi attack, allowing a newly-formed select committee to move forward in questioning the top diplomat.
In a swipe at a member of President Obama’s Cabinet, Representative Darrell Issa accused Kerry of trying to use his June 12 appearance before the oversight panel as an excuse to avoid testifying before the select House committee investigating the Sept. 11, 2012, assault on the Libyan outpost.
The State Department had said last week that the secretary would testify before Issa’s panel but that the appearance ‘‘would remove any need for the secretary to appear before the select committee to answer additional questions.’’
The California Republican said he had no choice but to reassess.
‘‘It’s been disappointing to watch a long-serving former senator, like Secretary Kerry, squirm his way to what I’m doing today — releasing him from the upcoming hearing commitment he made only after we issued him a subpoena,’’ Issa said in a statement.
Issa had twice subpoenaed Kerry to testify about e-mails and documents that the Obama administration has provided Congress about the attack. Four Americans, including US Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens, were killed. After weeks of back and forth, Kerry had told the panel he could testify next month, and Issa agreed.
State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki told reporters Friday that officials were ‘‘mystified’’ by Issa’s decision as well as his criticism that Kerry has obstructed the inquiry. It’s ‘‘hard to see how that’s accurate when we were prepared to appear,’’ Psaki said.
Republicans have accused the administration of misleading the American people about the attack, playing down a terror attack in the weeks before the 2012 presidential election, and then stonewalling congressional investigators.
It's not the only thing they have misled about.
Multiple independent, bipartisan, and Republican-led inquiries have been conducted in the nearly 20 months since the attack. Investigators have faulted the State Department for lax security at the diplomatic facility.
The House voted along party lines May 8 to establish a select committee to conduct an eighth inquiry led by Representative Trey Gowdy, a South Carolina Republian. In creating the panel, the House also required the committees involved in Benghazi investigations, including Armed Services, Intelligence, and Oversight, to turn over all their documents within 14 days to the select committee.
That leaves that panel as the main congressional investigator, essentially ending the other inquiries, including Issa’s.
In her upcoming book, former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton — a potential 2016 presidential candidate — defended her response to the attack and criticized those who politicized the assault, saying she ‘‘will not be part of a political slugfest on the backs of dead Americans.’’
See: Making Some Hard Choices
Also see:
Hillary Clinton says she’s past Lewinsky scandal
More Clinton White House papers to be released
New Clinton papers reveal aides’ advice
Hillary Clinton confidante to lead Harvard politics institute
Hillary Clinton to stop at Harvard Book Store as part of nationwide tour
It was not a hard choice to junk those articles.
At a Capitol Hill news conference, House Speaker John Boehner, a Republican from Ohio, was asked about Clinton’s complaints.
‘‘This is about one issue and one issue only, and that is getting the truth for the American people and the truth about what happened in Benghazi for the four families that lost their loved ones there. That’s why we created a select committee,’’ he said.
Boehner said it would be up to the select committee on whether it calls Clinton to testify.
The top Republican on the House Armed Services Committee said Friday that his panel’s investigation focused on several statements about Benghazi that proved wrong, and he was satisfied with the military’s response that chaotic night.
‘‘Given what the posture of the military was at the time, yes,’’ Representative Howard ‘‘Buck’’ McKeon, a California Republican and the panel chairman, said in an interview taped for C-SPAN’s ‘‘Newsmakers’’ that will air Sunday.
‘‘We are not a 7/24 rotation. We don’t have pilots sitting on the runway in their plane with the plane fully fueled and equipped with ammunition to run many different kinds of missions. We can’t afford to do that.’’
??????????
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