Both Benghazi And The Petraeus Scandal Suggest US Media Is Way Too Cozy With The State

Business Insider
Geoffrey Ingersoll

If there is just one lesson to take away from the Benghazi and Petraeus affairs it's that the American media is way too cozy with heads of state.

Immediately following the Benghazi crisis, U.S. gersollmedia did its due diligence and flexed its sources, anonymous and otherwise, to uncover the truth about the attack — but then they purposely failed to report the details because of requests from the CIA and the Obama administration.

Michael Calderon of The Huffington Post reports that the AP, The New York Times and The Washington Post all withheld information at the behest of the CIA. Calderon also details how other news outlets failed to mention the true ties of CIA contractors Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods.

From his report:

ABC News, for example, reported that Doherty had been working to "round up dangerous weapons" in the country. One national security reporter told The Huffington Post that it was an "open secret" in national security circles that the former SEALs were working for the CIA.

The AP even went so far as to edit a Sept. 21 story it wrote, which revealed the employment status of Woods and Doherty; ensuring the edited version made no mention of Woods and Doherty's employment the CIA.

A statement written to HuffPo from AP spokesman Paul Colford:

"We omitted mention of the two former SEALs' CIA connection in subsequent versions of the story after CIA officials insisted that other lives would be endangered."

Another statement, from the New York Times, echoed this sentiment: "[We] agreed to withhold locations and details of these operations at the request of Obama administration officials, who said that disclosing such information could jeopardize future sensitive government activities and put at risk American personnel working in dangerous settings."

Libya mission was secret CIA operation: report

The International News

WASHINGTON: The US mission in Benghazi that came under attack by militants on September 11 was mainly a secret CIA operation, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday, shedding new light on the deadly assault.

President Barack Obama's administration has faced a storm of pre-election questions about why there was not more security at the US consulate where four Americans, including Ambassador Chris Stevens, were killed on September 11.

The Wall Street Journal said the mission was mainly a CIA operation, adding that of the 30 American officials evacuated from Benghazi following the assault, just seven worked for the State Department.

It also identified the two security contractors killed in the attack - former Navy SEALs Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty - as working for the Central Intelligence Agency and not the State Department.

In a break from tradition, it said CIA Director David Petraeus did not attend the ceremony when the coffins arrived back on American soil in order to conceal the CIA operation in eastern Libya.

It said the nearly two dozen CIA operatives secretly worked out of a separate building known as the “annex,” where officials at the consulate had retreated following the initial attack before coming under fire again.

The operation, which hit the ground shortly after the start of the February 2011 revolt that overthrew Libyan dictator Moamer Qadhafi - was aimed at counterterrorism and securing heavy weapons held by the embattled regime.

The Journal suggested that the security lapse may have been due to miscommunication between the CIA and the State Department, with the latter assuming the annex security team was a sufficient backup for its own guards. “They were the cavalry,” it quoted a senior US official as saying.