9/11/2012 - Benghazi, Libya...just the facts

On 9/11 of last year the US Mission in Benghazi, Libya, an isolated ad hoc outpost, was attacked.  The small security team from the diplomatic security service, was no match for large numbers of jihadist forces that would attack, in what has been called “a perfect worst case scenario.”

This was the first time that a US diplomat had been killed since 1988, in Pakistan. Perhaps in another time it would have brought respect for the heroics of the men who valiantly fought back to save the mission and the Ambassador.  Perhaps it would have brought a legitimate investigation of what happened and how we might learn from such attacks.

Instead, like almost everything else today, it’s simply been a catalyst for bitter partisanship, for political opportunism and the continuing efforts of some, to find anything to attack the President and the administration.

In that haze we’ve lost sight of what really happened and why it still matters. Two national security experts, Fred Burton and Samuel Katz, provide the first full scale account in their book Under Fire: The Untold Story of the Attack in Benghazi.

My conversation with Burton and Katz: