On Monday’s “Hannity” on the Fox News Channel, former Vice President Dick Cheney accused the Obama administration of launching a politically-motivated cover-up in the wake of last September’s terrorist attack at the the U.S. consulate in Benghazi.
Cheney told host Sean Hannity had the truth been revealed about the attack at the time, it would “destroyed” the image of a competent Obama that his reelection team was attempting to advance.
“I watched the Benghazi thing with great interest, Sean,” Cheney said. “I think it’s one of the worst incidents, frankly, that I can recall in my career. It put the whole capability — claiming the terrorist problem [was] solved once we got bin Laden that al Qaeda was over with. If they told the truth about Benghazi that it was a terrorist attack by an al Qaeda-affiliated group, it would have destroyed the false image of competence that was the basis of his campaign for re-election. They lied.”
“They claimed it was because of a demonstration video so they wouldn’t have to admit it was all about their incompetence — that the State Department, the White House, the NSC ignored repeated warnings from the CIA about the threat,” he continued. “They ignored messages from their own people on the ground that they needed more security. Indeed, they reduced what was already there. And the administration either had no forces ready to respond to an attack, which should have been anticipated on the anniversary of 9/11, or they refused to deploy them when our people asked for help.”
Cheney said President Barack Obama was certainly involved this alleged cover-up.
“They tried to cover it up constructing a false story, claiming there was confusion about what had happened at the Benghazi consulate,” he said. “There was no confusion. It was obvious as soon as we got the Ambassador [Christopher] Stevens on the phone that night and he said, quote, ‘We are under attack.’ The cover-up included several officials, up to and including President Obama, and the cover-up is still on-going.”
The former vice president pointed to deficiencies in the military as a possible cause for the inability to respond in a timely manner.
“I think there’s a whole set of questions that need to asked, Sean, about the military chain of command,” Cheney said. “In my past experience after we got into these situations, especially after 9/11, we were always on the stand — locked and loaded, ready to go on 9/11. We have specially-trained units that practice this sort of thing all the time. They are very good at it and they are chomping at the bit to go.”