A closer look at the Benghazi lie -- By Tom Fitton, The Washington Times

(Illustration by Alexander Hunter, The Washington Times)

New photos confirm the attack’s coordination and its cover-up

The Obama State Department has finally released a second round of photos revealing the harrowing devastation wrought by a terrorist attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi on Sept. 11, 2012.

The new photographs depict rampant damage to the consulate. They show charred walls, smoldering fires, Arabic graffiti defacing exterior walls, and scattered debris throughout. The extent of the damage would lead any reasonably serious person to conclude that this was a cold, calculated attack, carefully coordinated to mark the 11th anniversary of Sept. 11, 2001. Unfortunately for the American people, the Obama-Clinton-Rice cabal that led to the Benghazi cover-up was far more interested in political-damage control than serious damage assessment.

Let's be clear: The photos clearly reveal that the terrorist attack on the Benghazi consulate was not some spur-of-the-moment prank pulled by a couple of hyped-up Libyans coming off a YouTube binge, as top Obama administration officials led the American people to believe. It was most certainly not, as President Obama himself suggested to the entire world via the United Nations, the result of "a crude and disgusting video [that] sparked outrage throughout the Muslim world."

Hyped-up hotheads are not normally armed with rocket-propelled grenades, hand grenades, AK-47s, FN F2000 NATO assault rifles, gun trucks and mortars. They don't launch carefully staged five-hour assaults on well-fortified compounds surrounded by a 9-foot outer wall topped by barbed wire and augmented by barriers, steel drop bars and other security upgrades. They rarely leave behind the kind of devastation depicted in the photos Judicial Watch has obtained.

In short, the newly released photos, along with those released last June, reveal not only a massive attack — they reveal the big lie as well. There is no other way to put it: When Mr. Obama, Secretary of then-State Hillary Rodham Clinton and then-U.N. Ambassador Susan E. Rice launched their Benghazi cover-up tour in the hours, weeks and months after the attack, they knew they were lying. They had received firsthand reports as the assault was underway. They had been given continual updates by top military brass asking for guidance from the Oval Office. They had also seen the revealing photos Judicial Watch obtained, along with "hours of video" the Obama State Department's own Accountability Review Board has acknowledged having watched.

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