The Wrongologist

What’s Wrong Today:

As the
Wrongologist outlined, on Wednesday, the House Oversight and Government Reform
Committee held hearings on the mess in
Benghazi.

During the
open hearing, as members of the State Department were briefing the Committee, they
were showing commercially available satellite images of the area of the attack.

Suddenly,
Republican Jason Chaffetz suggested that the images showed classified
information that could endanger current ongoing operations in the area.  

As The
Washington Post’s Dana Milbank described it:

Rep. Jason
Chaffetz (R-Utah) was the first to unmask the spooks. “Point of order! Point of
order!” he called out as a State Department security official, seated in front
of an aerial photo of the U.S. facilities in Benghazi, described the chaotic
night of the attack. Chaffetz says:

“We’re getting into
classified issues that deal with sources and methods that would be totally
inappropriate in an open forum such as this.”

A State
Department official assured him that the material was “entirely unclassified”
and that the photo was from a commercial satellite. Chaffetz continued:

“I totally object
to the use of that photo… I was told specifically while I was in Libya I could
not and should not ever talk about what you’re showing here today.”

As Milbank
points out, Chaffetz’ outburst confirmed two things: first, that the picture was apparently of a CIA base
and second, that the base might still
be in operation even after the attack that killed our ambassador.

That the
Benghazi compound included a large CIA
presence had been reported but not confirmed. The New York Times, for example, had reported that among those
evacuated were “about a dozen CIA operatives and contractors.” The Times withheld locations and details
of the facilities at the administration’s request.

But on Wednesday, all withholding was on
hold.

So,
What’s Wrong?

Oops. While
attempting to use the death of American government officials in Libya to further
Mitt Romney’s election bid, fellow Republican Jason Chaffetz and his House
Republican colleagues on the House Oversight and Government Reform
Committee, outed a classified CIA
operation and on C-SPAN no
less. In a nutshell, Chaffetz’ outbursts ensured that every
terrorist in the world would now be
checking C-SPAN to figure out what the CIA was doing in Benghazi.

Heckuva
job, Jason.

After it
became clear that Issa, Chaffetz and the Republicans hoped to use the Benghazi
attack to turn Obama into Jimmy Carter, it was likely that there could be
trouble with the classified information.

Deputy
Assistant Secretary of State Charlene Lamb puts up a satellite image that
showed both US Benghazi locations (see c-span after
55:00),
and later in her testimony, she implied there were other security resources on the ground that were not being
discussed in the hearing.

The satellite image was commercially
available to anyone, including al Qaeda as readily as the Congress or the State
Department. Chaffetz was attempting to keep hidden a safe house that had already been compromised, either by poor spy craft or espionage.

In
addition, in her testimony, Lamb
implied that another video exists, which shows the attack. It is being withheld
by CIA.

Understand what this means: The Republican lawmakers
created the security breach after ordering a public hearing for political
reasons on a matter that belonged
behind closed doors.

In any
case, this demonstrates that if Republicans wanted to conduct their own
investigation of this attack (and there’s no reason why they shouldn’t), they should have done it in the security-savvy
House Intelligence Committee. Here’s Dana Milbank again:

“Republicans were
aiming to embarrass the Obama administration over State Department security
lapses. But they inadvertently caused a different picture to emerge than the
one that has been publicly known: that the victims may have been let
down not by the State Department but by the CIA. If the CIA
was playing such a major role in these events, which was the unmistakable impression
left by Wednesday’s hearing, having a televised probe of the matter was absurd.”

Another
point: The question of how much obvious
security there should have been at the Benghazi compound becomes an interesting
question now that Chaffetz has informed the world that this was actually a CIA station.

Think a
minute: The CIA might not have wanted
a large contingent of Marines based at the “Special Mission” and
“annex,” since it would signal the bad guys that this was not simply a backwater “Special Mission and annex.”

But the
administration can’t give that response while Mitt Romney and the House
Republicans are berating them up for supposedly not having more security at the
station.

They couldn’t explain that maybe we didn’t
want the extra security because it would signal that there was actually a CIA
operation underway.

And think
about this: Romney has been getting
security briefings from the Administration since the Republican convention. He
likely knows all about the CIA station in Benghazi. But, the political
theater rolls on.

Sounds like it’s time for a hearing about
the hearing.

The congress’ cavalier
treatment of classified information often results in selective declassification
of things hidden to keep us safer.

This time around,
Republicans went out of their way to hide
unclassified information.