It looks like the Benghazi cover-up is unwinding, item by item, day by day — most recently, according to Newsday — “Benghazi attack: Libya claims put White House on defensive”

Amid claims that the White House failed to send help quickly enough as militants overran the consular mission, several of the highest officials in the Obama administration have attempted to defend the Administration as a whole, as well as stand up for their individual agencies’ responses to the 9/11 attacks in Benghazi, Libya.

The Newsday article demonstrates that the drip, drip, drip of Benghazi leaks and disclosures are getting recognized in the main stream media ( “Benghazi attack: Libya claims put White House on defensive” AP Report in Newsday, October 27, 2012).  Newsday’s coverage is based upon several of the disclosures aired on Fox News during this last week.  Although Fox has been a stalwart on the Benghazi story, it is not the only news operation staying on top of the various developments coming out of Libya and Washington.

First, there has been a disclosure that before the Benghazi attack Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had specifically “ordered” additional security and that somebody at the White House had denied or failed to implement that “request.” Another breaking story, involved what happened during the attack on the Benghazi “mission” was in progress. According to assets on the ground at the “safe house,” CIA operatives had repeatedly called for authorization to assist those under attack at the consulate and for military backup for those threatened in Benghazi. The response from those somewhere higher up in the command structure was to was to specifically and repeatedly deny the CIA assets at the “safe house” permission to assist those at the “consulate” and also not to authorize the dispatch of the nearest rapid reaction force to Benghazi.

For a few days there have been reports that someone in the private (outside the Administration) legal team for Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has leaked to reporter Ed Klein that Secretary Clinton had ordered more security at the U.S. mission in Benghazi before it had been attacked,  but that President Obama denied the request  — and all of this was before four Americans, including U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens had been killed there by Al-Qaeda  (“Clinton asked for more security in Benghazi, Obama said no”  posted on 10/25/12 in “examiner.com” by Christopher Ciollins).  This story first broke during a Tuesday night interview of Klein by Andrew Wilkow at The BlazeTV ( “Ed Klein: Obama’s Libya Lie?” 10/24/12 at //video.theblaze.com/media/video.jsp?content_id=25445923&source=THEBLAZE//);

As has been posted here earlier, according to Ed Klein, the Clintons are not happy with the “Chicago gang” in the White House that is trying desperately to assure that no blame for the Benghazi disaster falls on President Obama. Realizing that the Chicago forces were looking to place the blame on Hillary, Klein has reported that Bill Clinton set up a personal legal team for the Secretary of State earlier in the development of the Benghazi story. Klein’s new revelation to Andrew Wilkow on his Tuesday show was  that the Clinton legal team had looked through cable traffic between the Benghazi mission/consulate and State Department, and the record of cable traffic supports the claim that Secretary Clinton actually had asked for security to be beefed up and “somewhere in the Obama Administration that order wasn’t carried out” ( “ED KLEIN: CLINTON LEGAL TEAM REVIEWS CABLES — CLAIM HILLARY REQUEST FOR BENGHAZI SECURITY ‘WASN’T CARRIED OUT’” posted on “TheBlaze” October 23, 2012 by Christopher Santarelli ). A follow-up piece in The Blaze went further and said that former President Bill Clinton was urging Secretary of State Clinton to come forward with the full record of those requests  (“ED KLEIN: BILL CLINTON ‘URGING’ HILLARY TO RELEASE BENGHAZI DOCUMENTS THAT WOULD ‘EXONERATE’ HER, DESTROY OBAMA’S RE-ELECTION HOPES” posted by Jason Howerton in The Blaze on October 25, 2012). Also according to that follow-up piece, any request by Secretary of State Clinton would have gone through CIA Special Ops and/or the Pentagon, requiring the National Security Advisor to the President of the United States Tom Donilon to report on that to President Obama, who would have conferred with Valerie Jarrett and key members of the Obama Campaign in Chicago.

Another unraveling thread in the blanket being thrown over the whole Benghazi affair by the Obama Administration involves a story that was broken yesterday by Fox News, that CIA operatives at the so-called “safe house” had twice sought permission to assist the “consulate compound” after it had come under attack and twice had been ordered to “stand down.” In addition, the report indicated that those on the ground at the safe house had called for additional military backup at that time (“EXCLUSIVE: CIA operators were denied request for help during Benghazi attack, sources say” by Jennifer Griffin, October 26, 2012 at FoxNews.com
//....foxnews.com/politics/2012/10/26/cia-operators-were-denied-request-for-help-during-benghazi-attack-sources-say/#ixzz2AXHLFS48 //).  According to the Griffin/Fox report, former Navy SEAL Tyrone Woods [who was killed later on in the fighting] and at least two others ignored those orders and made their way to the consulate/mission compound   “... which at that point was on fire. Shots were exchanged. The rescue team from the CIA annex evacuated those who remained at the consulate and Sean Smith, who had been killed in the initial attack. They could not find the ambassador and returned to the CIA annex at about midnight.

At that point, they called again for military support and help because they were taking fire at the CIA safe house, or annex. The request was denied. There were no communications problems at the annex, according those present at the compound. The team was in constant radio contact with their headquarters. In fact, at least one member of the team was on the roof of the annex manning a heavy machine gun when mortars were fired at the CIA compound. The security officer had a laser on the target that was firing and repeatedly requested back-up support from a Spectre gunship, which is commonly used by U.S. Special Operations forces to provide support to Special Operations teams on the ground involved in intense firefights.”

According to Jennifer Griffin, “CIA spokeswoman Jennifer Youngblood, though, denied the claims that requests for support were turned down.”  However later Fox News reports and commentary have made the specific observation that the CIA denials are quite carefully parsed and specifically state that the CIA did not turn down any requests for additional support to Benghazi.

Perhaps in anticipation of a bombshell like the Griffin/Fox report, on Thursday Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta had indicated  U.S. military assets did not quickly intervene during the attack on the U.S. Consulate in Libya because military leaders did not have adequate intelligence information and felt they should not put American forces at risk ( “Panetta: Military lacked enough information to intervene during Benghazi attack” posted on FoxNews.com. October 26, 2012, from Associated Press  //....foxnews.com/politics/2012/10/26/panetta-military-lacked-enough-information-to-intervene-during-benghazi-attack/#ixzz2AXMod5rt // ).

Fox characterized the Secretary of Defense’s Thursday comments as, “...His most extensive comments to date on the unfolding controversy surrounding the attack in Benghazi.” In those remarks, “Panetta said U.S. forces were on heightened alert because of the anniversary of 9/11 and prepared to respond. But, he said, the attack happened over a few hours and was over before the U.S. had the chance to know what was really happening. ***  "(The) basic principle is that you don't deploy forces into harm's way without knowing what's going on; without having some real-time information about what's taking place," Panetta told Pentagon reporters. "And as a result of not having that kind of information, the commander who was on the ground in that area, Gen. Ham, Gen. Dempsey and I felt very strongly that we could not put forces at risk in that situation.”  Other Fox commentators have criticized the SecDef Panetta’s remarks as a reiteration of other Obama Administration talking points, inconsistent with many of the facts already disclosed, and generally lacking substance and candor.