In case you haven't seen this. Regarding Republican politicization of Benghazi...

[stevenleser]

32. You do know that the CIA had been banging down Rice's door regarding this, right?

That PDB that you cited, along with all of the other warning info including what the CIA had is more than enough to know that you need to put extra security in the airports, etc. That wasn't done.

That is very different from the daily threats and warnings that are given regarding our embassies and consulates in Asia minor and north Africa.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/30/AR2006093000282.html

Two Months Before 9/11, an Urgent Warning to Rice


In 2001, then-national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, President Bush and then-CIA Director George J. Tenet ................ (By Eric Draper -- White House Via Associated Press)

Sunday, October 1, 2006
On July 10, 2001, two months before the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, then-CIA Director George J. Tenet met with his counterterrorism chief, J. Cofer Black, at CIA headquarters to review the latest on Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda terrorist organization. Black laid out the case, consisting of communications intercepts and other top-secret intelligence showing the increasing likelihood that al-Qaeda would soon attack the United States. It was a mass of fragments and dots that nonetheless made a compelling case, so compelling to Tenet that he decided he and Black should go to the White House immediately.

Tenet called Condoleezza Rice, then national security adviser, from the car and said he needed to see her right away. There was no practical way she could refuse such a request from the CIA director.

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Tenet and Black felt they were not getting through to Rice. She was polite, but they felt the brush-off. President Bush had said he didn't want to swat at flies.

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Besides, Rice seemed focused on other administration priorities, especially the ballistic missile defense system that Bush had campaigned on. She was in a different place.

Tenet left the meeting feeling frustrated. Though Rice had given them a fair hearing, no immediate action meant great risk. Black felt the decision to just keep planning was a sustained policy failure. Rice and the Bush team had been in hibernation too long. "Adults should not have a system like this," he said later.