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W. House sat on Benghazi terror e-mails

Chris Stevens

Chris Stevens

FURY: The administration knew within hours that terrorists had taken credit for the attack that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens (inset). (
)

WASHINGTON — Republicans renewed their attacks on the Obama administration yesterday after newly revealed e-mails showed the White House was told within hours that the attack on the consulate in Benghazi was the work of organized terrorists.

The e-mails from security officials in Libya went to the State Department and the White House Situation Room, and reported that al Qaeda-linked Ansar al-Sharia was taking credit for the attack on Facebook and Twitter.

But for five days, US Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice insisted the attack that killed four Americans, including Ambassador Christopher Stevens, was prompted by a spontaneous protest over an anti-Islam video.

“I don’t know exactly why the administration is engaging in this cover-up,” former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani said before speaking to the US Chamber of Commerce in Washington. “I think they were playing election-year politics, rather than thinking about the national security of the United States, and for that, they should be ashamed.”

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton downplayed the importance of the e-mails, saying they were just a part of the intelligence being gathered.

“You know posting something on Facebook is not in and of itself evidence,” Clinton told reporters yesterday. “I think it just underscores how fluid the reporting was at the time, and continued for some time to be.”

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) said yesterday the e-mails continued to undermine the administration’s initial stance.

“Decisions were made, big policy decisions, including elevating the video — if you read those e-mails, nothing about the video — it elevated the video, and actually caused more protests across the Middle East,” Rogers told CNN.

Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) sits on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee and has been helping to lead a congressional investigation into the attack. The e-mails and what the administration knew will be part of an upcoming hearing, Chaffetz said.

“They were so definitive, they were crystal clear that it was a protest and a video,” Chaffetz said. “Come on, two hours after the first e-mail goes out, you’ve got a terrorist group taking responsibility. That has to be taken into real consideration.”

Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.), vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, also called for a hearing into the e-mails.

“I don’t know what the White House’s problem has been through this whole thing,” Chambliss said on “Fox and Friends.”

“Here’s what really concerns me, you’ve got four Americans dead, you’ve got an ambassador, a very important person in any administration dead and you don’t have the president out there getting briefed on a regular basis, you don’t have the president informing the public about what happened to four key Americans,” Chambliss said on “Fox and Friends.”

The White House yesterday stood by its handling of the incident.

“There was a variety of information coming in, the whole point of an intelligence community and what they do is to assess strands of information and make judgments about what happened and who was responsible,” White House Spokesman Jay Carney said.