Ambassador sought security staffing before Benghazi attack, cable shows

Two months before the fatal 2012 terrorist attack on the U.S. compound in Benghazi, then-Ambassador Chris Stevens requested 13 security personnel to help him safely travel around Libya, according to a cable reviewed by Fox News -- but he was turned down. 
In the July 9, 2012 cable, Stevens reported that, "Overall security conditions continue to be unpredictable, with large numbers of armed groups and individuals not under control of the central government, and frequent clashes in Tripoli and other major population centers." The cable said 13 security personnel would be the "minimum" needed for "transportation security and incident response capability."
But a congressional source said Patrick Kennedy, a deputy to then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, turned down the request.
The cable sent under Stevens' electronic signature shows that he was advocating for additional security and warning that the set-up did not meet State Department standards, as conditions deteriorated in the run-up to the attack that killed Stevens and three other Americans.
Clinton, now a Democratic presidential candidate, is set to testify Thursday before the congressional Benghazi committee at a hearing where the State Department's security measures in Libya are likely to be a focal point.
In the year leading up to the 2012 attack, records show, there were 234 security incidents in Libya, 50 of which took place in Benghazi -- including a June assassination attempt on the British ambassador in which a rocket-propelled grenade struck his vehicle. The team narrowly escaped.

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This attack preceded Stevens' July cable. While this intelligence was shared with the State Department, no additional security was added. The same month the British ambassador was targeted, there also was an IED attack on the U.S. Consulate, blasting a hole in the perimeter wall -- but still, security requests were denied.
According to a congressional source, a senior State Department security officer in Libya told Senate investigators that, in September 2012, he had to choose between guarding the Tripoli airport -- their lifeline to the outside world -- and sending security with Stevens to Benghazi.
He chose to reinforce the airport.
"The system is not working well. We've seen that, not on one occasion but on many occasions," said Adam Zagorin, with the Project on Government Oversight. "I'm not aware that it's been fixed as we sit here today."
Zagorin said there is a broader pattern of mismanagement when it comes to security and outside contracts.
"Patrick Kennedy, who is the chief administrator of the department, has testified on quite a number of occasions about this," he said. "And frankly it's not clear -- he has offered assurances and reassurance to members of Congress that this is being taken care of -- and yet the pattern repeats so one has to question what is really being done."
Further, the guard force at the Benghazi consulate, run by a contractor called Blue Mountain Libya, was in such disarray on Sept. 11, 2012, that they did not have a valid license to operate in Benghazi, according to emails obtained through a federal lawsuit.
Documents first obtained by Judicial Watch and reviewed by Fox News show the partnership was dissolved after a dispute between the Libyan license holder and the parent company in Britain. After the terror attack, the Libyan company said it was willing to "put its differences with the security operators, Blue Mountain UK, to the side for the moment, and shall allow the use of its security license. ... Our prayers are with the families of the victims," according to a Sept. 12 email to the State Department.
Despite the emails, the State Department has insisted there was no problem with the license.

George W. Bush reportedly rips Ted Cruz to Jeb Bush donors

Former President George W. Bush reportedly ripped into Texas Sen. Ted Cruz at a weekend gathering of donors to his brother's presidential campaign, according to a published report Monday. 
Politico reported that Bush said of Cruz, "I just don't like the guy," at the event, which was held Sunday night in Denver.
According to the report, which cited at least six donors who were at the event, Bush said he did not like Cruz's de facto alliance with Republican front-runner Donald Trump, who has notably spared Cruz from the criticism he has ladled onto other members of the 15-candidate Republican field.
"He said he found it 'opportunistic' that Cruz was sucking up to Trump and just expecting all of his support to come to him in the end," one donor told Politico when asked to describe Bush's remarks about Cruz. The report added that the former president had been engaging with amiable discussions about the state of the GOP race when Cruz's name came up.
"I was like, 'Holy s---, did he just say that?'" the donor told Politico. "I remember looking around and seeing that other people were also looking around surprised."
The report also said that Bush warned the donors to not underestimate Cruz's strength in the South and in Texas, where his message of religious liberty is expected to play very well with voters.
Freddy Ford, a spokesman for George W. Bush, did not deny that the former president had made the disparaging remarks about Cruz when asked to comment by Politico.
"The first words out of President Bush's mouth [Sunday] were that Jeb is going to earn the nomination, win the election, and be a great President ... He does not view Senator Cruz as Governor Bush's most serious rival."
Ford denied further requests by Fox News to address Bush's reported "I just don't like the guy" remark.
Cruz joined George W. Bush's presidential campaign in 1999 as a domestic policy adviser and helped put together the legal team that argued Bush v. Gore before the Supreme Court in the aftermath of the controversial election. He later served as an associate deputy attorney general in the Justice Department before becoming Solicitor General of Texas in 2003.
Cruz issued a statement to Politico late Monday that said in part, "It's no surprise that President Bush is supporting his brother and attacking the candidates he believes pose a threat to his campaign. I have no intention of reciprocating. I met my wife Heidi working on his campaign, and so I will always be grateful to him."

Israel arrests Hamas co-founder, accusing him of inciting recent violence

Israeli forces arrested one of the co-founders of the Hamas militant group Tuesday, accusing him of inciting recent violence that has resulted in the deaths of nine Israelis, many in stabbing attacks. 
The military said Hassan Yousef was arrested near Ramallah. It marks the most high-profile arrest since a wave of unrest swept through the region a month ago.
The military said Yousef had been "actively instigating and inciting terrorism" by encouraging attacks against Israelis. Military spokesman Lt. Col. Peter Lerner told the Associated Press, "Hamas' leaders cannot expect to propagate violence and terror from the comfort of their living rooms and pulpits of their mosques."
Yousef's eldest son, Mosab, spied for Israel between 1997 and 2007.
Over the past month, nine Israelis have been killed in Palestinian attacks, most of them stabbings. In that time, 41 Palestinians were killed by Israeli fire, including 20 labeled by Israel as attackers, and the rest in clashes with Israeli troops. An Eritrean migrant died after being shot and beaten by a mob that mistakenly believed he was a Palestinian attacker.
Also Tuesday, Israeli forces demolished the Hebron home of Maher Hashlamoun, a Palestinian who rammed his car into 25-year-old Dalia Lemkus in the West Bank and stabbed her several times last year Hashlamon was shot and killed.

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Hashlamoun's wife told Palestinian radio that soldiers evacuated their three story building and demolished the third floor apartment where her family lived. Such demolitions are often carried out by Israeli forces with the aim of deterring future attacks.
Lerner said the demolition "sends a clear message that there is a personal price to pay when you are involved in terror."
Meanwhile, Palestinan Foreign Minister Riyad Malki told Palestinian radio that United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon would arrive in the region later Tuesday to meet with both Israeli and Palestinian leaders.
Ban has issued a video message ahead of the visit calling for calm on both sides. He said he understood the Palestinian frustration but that violence would only harm their legitimate aspirations. He said to the Israelis that he understood their concerns and fears due to the security deterioration, but added there was no military solution to the situation.
"When children are afraid to go to school, when anyone on the street is a potential victim, security is rightly your immediate priority," Ban said, addressing Israelis. "But walls, checkpoints, harsh responses by the security forces and house demolitions cannot sustain the peace and safety that you need and must have."

Iran Nuclear Cartoon

Obama puts nuclear deal into effect, but Iran still likely months away from sanction relief

President Obama on Sunday signed the Iran nuclear deal, officially putting the international agreement into effect.
The president’s signature opens the way for Iran to make major changes to an underground nuclear facility, a heavy water reactor and a site for enriching uranium.
However, the rogue nation will need months to meet those goals and get relief from the crippling economic sanction that will be lifted as part of deal, despite the pact going into effect Sunday.
The seven-nation deal, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, was reached on July 14, after roughly two years of negotiations.
The so-called “Adoption Day” on Sunday also requires the United States and other participating countries to make the necessary arrangements and preparations for implementation” of the deal, the president said.
"Today marks an important milestone toward preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon and ensuring its nuclear program is exclusively peaceful going forward," Obama said. "I welcome this important step forward. And we, together with our partners, must now focus on the critical work of fully implementing this comprehensive resolution that addresses our concerns over Iran’s nuclear program."
Senior administration officials said Saturday they understand it's in Iran's best interest to work quickly, but they are only concerned that the work is done correctly.
They insisted that no relief from the penalties will occur until the U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency has verified Iran's compliance with the terms of the agreement. They said Iran's work will almost certainly take more than the two months Iran has projected.
The administration officials spoke on a conference call with reporters, but under the condition that they not be identified by name.
As part of the nuclear agreement, Obama on Sunday also issued provisional waivers and a memorandum instructing U.S. agencies to lay the groundwork for relieving sanctions on Iran.
In Iran, Ali Akbar Velayati, a top adviser to supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei told state TV: "On implementation, all should be watchful that Westerners, particularly Americans, to keep their promises."
Velayati said Iran expects that the United States and other Western countries that negotiated the deal will show their "good will" through lifting sanctions.
Iran's atomic energy chief, Ali Akbar Salehi, told state TV that Tehran was ready to begin taking steps to comply, and awaited an order from President Hassan Rouhani. "We are hopeful to begin in the current or next week," he said.
The IAEA said Sunday that Iran has agreed to allow greater monitoring of its commitment to the deal, going beyond basic oversight provided by the safeguards agreement that IAEA member nations have with the agency. For instance, it allows short-notice inspections of sites the IAEA may suspect of undeclared nuclear activities.
Even as the terms of the deal begin taking effect, recent developments have shown the wide gulf between the U.S. and Iran on other issues.
Fighters from Iran have been working in concert with Russia in Syria, and a Revolutionary Court convicted a Washington Post reporter who has been held more than a year on charges including espionage. The court has not provided details on the verdict or sentence. Further, two other Americans are being detained, and the U.S. has asked for the Iranian government's assistance in finding a former FBI agent who disappeared in 2007 while working for the CIA on an unapproved intelligence mission.
Also, Iran successfully test-fired a guided long-range ballistic surface-to-surface missile.
But the U.S. officials asserted that those actions would be worse if they were backed up by a nation with a nuclear weapon. The officials emphasized that the seven-nation pact is focused solely on resolving the nuclear issue.
The steps being taken by the U.S. come 90 days after the U.N. Security Council endorsed the deal.

Trump suggests he might have prevented 9/11 attacks, extending feud with Bush

Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump suggested Sunday that he could have prevented the 9/11 attacks had he been president in 2001 -- escalating his feud with primary rival Jeb Bush about the fatal terror strikes.
Trump, a first-time candidate, implied his stance on immigration could have kept out the terrorists who slipped into the United States and trained in the country to hijack the four commercial airliners and kill nearly 3,000 people on American soil on Sept. 11, 2001.
“I am extremely, extremely tough on illegal immigration,” Trump told "Fox News Sunday." “I believe that if I were running things,  … I doubt that those people would have been in the country.”
The 19 hijackers crashed one airliner each into the Pentagon and the twin World Trade Center towers in New York City, roughly nine months after Bush’s older brother, President George W. Bush, took office in 2001.
Passengers in one airliner overpowered the radical Islamic hijackers, forcing the craft to crash in Shanksville, Pa., with no survivors.
The Trump-Bush feud essentially started during the second 2016 GOP presidential primary debate when Jeb Bush defended his brother against Trump’s criticism about the attacks.
“You remember the rubble at the World Trade Center? He sent a clear signal that the United States would be strong and fight Islamic terrorism, and he did keep us safe,” Bush said to huge audience applause.
Trump responded: “You feel safe right now? I don’t feel so safe.”
Bush, a former Florida governor, has since shaped his response to suggest his brother united Americans and kept then safer after the attacks.
The exchanges also have put Bush in a challenging position, defending his family while trying to distance himself from Bush political dynasty, included shortcomings in the administrations of his brother and father, George H.W. Bush.
On Friday, Trump returned to his attacks when talking on Bloomberg TV about how and why, if elected, he could best handle national emergencies.
“Blame him or don’t blame him, but (Bush) was president,” said the billionaire New York real estate mogul. “The World Trade Center came down during his reign.”
Hours later Jeb Bush tweeted, “How pathetic for @realdonaldtrump to criticize the president for 9/11. We were attacked & my brother kept us safe.”
Trump also said Sunday that during the debate he was just responding to Bush saying the country was safe under his brother’s watch.
“I'm not blaming anybody,” Trump said. “But the World Trade Center came down.  So when he said, we were safe, that's not safe.  … It was probably the greatest catastrophe ever in this country.”

Maryland gets okay to recall Confederate flag license plates; Virginia's recall meets defiance

Maryland got the okay from a judge to recall Confederate flag special license plates, joining Virginia -- where a similar recall effort has encountered near universal defiance from owners of the tags to return them.
Both states acted to recall the plates after a self-proclaimed white supremacist killed nine black South Carolina churchgoers in June. The gunman had taken photos of himself with guns and the Confederate flag and posted them online before the shooting.
A federal judge issued an order Thursday allowing Maryland to recall tags featuring the Confederate battle flag after Nov. 17, Reuters reported.
“I look forward to the day when these plates are no longer on the road,” Maryland Attorney General Brian Frost said in a statement. “This flag is a painful symbol that divides us, conjuring images of hate and subjugation. It has no place in any contemporary government use.”
A judge ruled in 1997 that Maryland’s Sons of Confederate Veterans license plates were protected free speech and enjoined the state from recalling them, Reuters reported.
But in June, the U.S. Supreme Court said Confederate flag license plates constituted government speech that could be subjected to regulation.
Virginia announced it would recall the plates in August and as of Oct. 4 it is illegal to drive with Confederate license plates. Violators face prosecution on a misdemeanor if stopped.
But the recall has encountered little cooperation, according to WAVY-TV.
Of 1,600 Sons of Confederate Veterans license plates on the road, only 187 have been returned, the station reported Thursday.
Kevin Collier told the station he is refusing to give up his plates. He is the commander of the Stonewall Camp of the Sons of Confederate Veterans and his great-great-great grandfather fought with the Confederacy.
“I can’t fight on the battlefield like they did, but I can fight however I can in modern times and I will not give them plates up,” he said.
The Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles asked the Sons of Confederate Veterans to help design a new plate but the organization did not respond.
“Next thing you know, they’re going to say you can’t wear blue on Monday, you know, or you can’t wear yellow on Thursday,” Collier told WAVY. “Where’s it going to end?”

Gowdy: Benghazi panel's new facts focus on 'four dead Americans,' not Clinton 2016 bid

Hillary Clinton’s upcoming testimony before Congress’ special Benghazi committee is being hyped as the biggest moment in the panel’s controversial existence. But the committee’s Republican leaders said Sunday they are equally, if not more, focused on new evidence and continued pursuit of the facts behind the fatal 2012 attacks.
“We have found new facts that have absolutely nothing to do with her,” South Carolina GOP Rep. Trey Gowdy, chairman of the House Select Committee on Benghazi, told CBS' “Face the Nation.”
“I get that people don't want to talk about that. But the seven [Republican] members of my committee are much more focused on the four dead Americans than we are anyone's presidential aspirations.”
Clinton, the 2016 Democratic presidential front-runner, is scheduled to testify Thursday about her role as secretary of state during the Sept. 11, 2012, attacks on a U.S. outpost in Benghazi, Libya, in which Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans were killed.
Gowdy said Sunday that the 12-member bipartisan committee has acquired Stephens’ emails from that time and suggested dozens more witnesses will be called.
Clinton is "an important witness, but she is one witness,” he also said. “I understand that there's more attention associated with her. But from my perspective, I am much more interested in Chris Stevens' emails, which we just received, than I am her emails, which we just received.”
He also suggested that new emails show Clinton and other members of the administration were too focused on the politics of Benghazi.
Gowdy said Stevens even joked in an email that maybe he and others at the Benghazi outpost “should ask another government to pay for our security upgrades because our government isn't willing to do it.”
“You want to know what happened in Libya, you got to look at his emails,” Gowdy continued.
The special committee discovered that Clinton as the country’s top diplomat used a private server and emails for official business. But since being formed last year, the committee has faced criticism about being a political tool for Republicans to tarnish Clinton’s 2016 campaign.
Democrats and other critics say House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., proved the argument a few weeks ago when he suggested that Clinton’s poll numbers have dropped as the committee and others investigate the email controversy.
Their argument and calls to shutter the committee have been further bolstered recently by Rep. Richard Hanna, R-N.Y., suggesting the committee is politically motivated and a fired committee investigator suggesting Republican members were overly focused on Clinton.
This weekend, Democrats also argued that the select committee probe has lasted longer than the congressional Watergate investigation.
However, Republican committee member and Rep. Mike Pompeo said Sunday that Democrats “hiding the ball” has slowed investigative efforts and that GOP leaders have no plans to close the committee.
“We’re not done,” the Kansas lawmaker told NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “We still have many witnesses and many documents. We’re just getting started.”
In addition, Gowdy on Sunday told fellow Republicans uninformed about exactly what the committee is doing to "shut up."
Maryland Rep. Elijah Cummings, the top Democrat on the committee, still thinks the panel is too focused on Clinton and a waste of taxpayer money.
“After 17 months, $4.7 million and counting of taxpayer money .. Chairman Gowdy is now saying he has another two dozen witnesses to interview,” he told CBS on Sunday.
He also said Gowdy is “now trying to shift back to where we should have been all along -- that is looking at the Benghazi incident.”
As proof, Cummings said the committee has yet to call to testify the CIA director, secretary of defense and head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the time of the attacks.