Newly declassified testimony obtained by Fox News makes it clear that top military officials considered the deadly Sept. 11, 2012, assault on the U.S. outpost in Benghazi, Libya, a terrorist attack. From its outset. And just why the Obama administration publicly insisted for weeks that the attack was a protest over an obscure, U.S.-made anti-Muslim video no longer is murky.
Gen. Carter Ham, then head of the Defense Department command covering Libya, told the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigation that he learned of the Benghazi assault that left U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three others dead within 15 minutes after it began. He immediately informed then-Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who were headed for a previously scheduled session with President Obama.
Mr. Ham said he and Messrs. Panetta and Dempsey discussed the incident as a terrorist attack, not as a demonstration turned violent. Panetta even told the Senate Armed Services Committee there was “no question ... that this was a terrorist attack” — yet has resisted testifying for the House subcommittee.
Clearly, the false “protest” story was concocted for political cover during the home stretch of the 2012 presidential campaign. And with Ham's testimony yet to be contradicted by Panetta or others, the lie of Benghazi has been laid bare:
The Obama White House put politics first and truth last.
