Friday, December 21, 2012

Abayomi Azikiwe, PANW Editor, Featured on Press TV World News: 'US Covers Up Facts About Attack on Consulate in Benghazi'

US covers up facts about attack on consulate in Benghazi: Abayomi Azikiwe

Thu Dec 20, 2012 12:36PM GMT

To watch this Press TV World News interview with Abayomi Azikiwe, editor of the Pan-African News Wire and a political commentator, just click on the URL below:
http://www.presstv.com/detail/2012/12/20/279161/us-hiding-truth-about-consulate-attack/

"Obviously, this report by the Accountability Review Board [ARB] illustrates that there is clearly a cover-up by the White House surrounding the attacks on the US consulate in Benghazi that resulted in the death of Ambassador [Chris] Stevens.”

A prominent political commentator tells Press TV that the recent report released by the Accountability Review Board regarding the US States Department’s failure in investigating the death of the US Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans in Benghazi on September, 11, 2012, illustrates that ‘there is clearly a cover-up by the White House’ regarding the incident.

The US State Department failed to provide its mission in Benghazi with adequate professional security personnel, leading to the deadly September 11 attack, an independent inquiry shows. The "Accountability Review Board" report released on Tuesday sharply criticized the US State Department for its failure to deal with the September 11, 2012 attack that killed US Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans in Libya.

The report went on to condemn the “leadership and management” over its "real confusion" in Washington and on the ground, affecting decision-making that involved policy and security concerns.

Press TV talks with Abayomi Azikiwe, editor of the Pan-African News Wire and political commentator in Detroit, regarding the issue. What follows is an approximate transcript of the interview.

Press TV: The US State Department is now being blasted for their lack of security. The other consequence of course is Susan Rice withdrawing her bid for becoming the Secretary of State. What does this scenario involving Libya and the compound and the attack prove in terms of the US and how it handled it?

Azikiwe: Obviously this report by the Accountability Review Board [ARB] illustrates that there is clearly a cover-up by the White House surrounding the attacks on the US consulate in Benghazi that resulted in the death of Ambassador [Chris] Stevens. Now the cover-up stems from several factors, the most significant of which was the role of Ambassador Stevens on behalf of the United States government in Libya.

You know he was brought to Benghazi during the early phase of the insurgency in 2011. Several weeks after his brutal assassination, The New York Times noted that the incident was the most severe blow to the Central Intelligence Agency [CIA] in over 3 decades.

So there has never been any evidence presented to the public by the corporate media or the government-controlled media here in the United States regarding the culpability for the attacks.

Now the initial reports said it was the Gaddafi loyalists; then later they said it was the Ansar al-Sharia group; then later they said it was al-Qaeda. The Marines, the FBI, Special Forces are all in Libya supposedly investigating the deaths of Ambassador Stevens and the others, yet there is almost no information on the investigation.

So this raises even more questions about what the underlying reasons were behind this incident on September 11.

Press TV: But they are not going to come out of this report, are they and make the revelations behind the al-Nusra Front which is blamed for this of being a group that the US supported that is responsible, it is said, for the attack. This shows the duplicity involved here; this shows of course one reason perhaps why it was listed as a terrorist organization recently regarding their involvement in Syria.

Azikiwe: Yes, but this is being done retroactively. A lot of these militias that are operating in Libya and in other countries in North Africa and the Middle East have had relationships with the United States. We follow developments in Syria; we can see clearly that some of these organizations that today may be cooperating with the United States tomorrow may be labeled as terrorists.

The report reflected poorly on the US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. The State Department was guilty of gross negligence related to intelligence as well as security in regard to US interests.

However, they never questioned the actual role of the United States in the war last year that brought about the toppling of the Gaddafi government. The impact of this situation that has been created by the Pentagon, the CIA and the State Department is the basis for this overall lawless atmosphere that exists in many parts of Libya today.

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