Commentary | The Benghazi scandal has everyone speculating who did what and where, and who is to blame. As previously reported by The Inquisitr, Charlene Lamb was among the three State Department officials who recently turned in their resignation. If this is political theater it's almost like those three are hoping to quietly avoid the limelight and quietly slip out the door. While Hillary Clinton has taken the spotlight by having a "diplomatic illness" that allows her to avoid giving Congressional testimony someone must wonder why those three chose to resign. But we do already know, and it's only after all the facts have to come to light that we now know the terrible responsibility that follows Charlene Lamb.
Way back in October the official State Department line agreed upon with the White White was that the Benghazi attacks were not related to terrorism, the attacks could not have been predicted, an anti-Muslim YouTube video sparked a spontaneous demonstration, and that everything was somehow tied into recent protests in Cairo. We now know this all not true but that was the narrative being fed to the American public. The dam only broke when ex-CIA Director David Petraeus bluntly claimed our government knew from the beginning it was a terrorist attack.
But in October the House of Representatives formed an Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing to look into the Benghazi incident. Here are the facts as we know them:
1. The first fact is that Charlene Lamb, who as the State Department official stationed in Washington, was allegedly monitoring electronically from that post what was happening in real time in Benghazi, Libya. This means she would have been intimately aware of what was really going on.
2. Despite having first hand knowledge, Charlene Lamb would not answer the question of Representative Dan Burton (R-IN):
“You Miss Lamb…have described these attackers in a number of ways but you don’t mention terrorist at all. Why is that? I mean the compound had been attacked once before and breached. And these people had all these weapons; projectiles, grenades, all kinds of weapons. Why would you call this anything other than a terrorist attack? And why do you call them attackers?”
“I have just presented the facts as they have come across. I am not making any judgement on my own and I am leaving that to others."
3. Charlene Lamb was allegedly directly responsible for lowering security by first pushing for requests for help to not be made, claiming there were political reasons for this decision. Then, when continued levels of high protection were requested in spite of her demands, she ignored them anyway. Her lack of action may have contributed to the deaths of Ambassador Chris Stevens,Sean Smith, Glen Doherty, and Tyrone Woods.
House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA) released unclassified cables from March and July that the State Department had refused to release. These cables detailed requests from the US Embassy in Libya for an extension of temporary security forces that were withdrawn in the months prior to the attack.
According to Lt. Col. Andrew Wood, the blame for denying these requests lies squarely with Charlene Lamb. The top regional security officer in Libya over the summer, Eric Nordstrom, said Charlene Lamb demanded over the phone that the requests for more security should not be made, but those stationed in Benghazi wisely did so anyway:
"All of us at post were in sync that we wanted these resources. In those conversations, I was specifically told [by Lamb] ‘You cannot request an [Site Security Team] SST extension.' I determined I was told that because there would be too much political cost. We went ahead and requested it anyway. Once the first team of [temporary personnel] expired, there was a complete and total lack of planning for what was going to happen next. There was no plan, there was just hope that everything would get better."
"We had the correct number of assets in Benghazi on the night of 9/11."
"Nordstrom said that Lamb never responded to the Tripoli embassy's request for continued security resources in what he considered a rejection, even if Lamb never issued a written objection. Lamb said that the U.S. mission in Libya had not been specific enough in its requests for forces, but Nordstrom pointed to the cables as evidence that was simply not true."
