Benghazi, Explained

AP

An investigation just released from The New York Times' David Kirkpatrick paints the best picture yet of what led to the attack on a U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya last year that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans.  

Kirkpatick concludes the explanation is not black and white. Benghazi was not completely spontaneous, but not completely planned either — a clash of anger and opportunity that boiled over and got out of hand.

Questions have swirled since news broke the consulate was under attack on September 11, 2012. Originally we were told it was a spontaneous assault over a Youtube video, then that it was planned anti-U.S. terrorist attack. On the Sunday talk shows, Susan Rice, then-U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said American intelligence officials told her the attack started over "Innocence of Muslims," an anti-Muslim short movie trailer that appeared on Youtube, and it cost her Secretary of State. The video explanation was quickly abandoned for a loved-by-Republicans conspiracy theory that says the attack was a carefully planned Al Qaeda plot to celebrate the anniversary of September 11th. 

 

But the video did play some part in fuelling the attack, according to Kirkpatrick, who spoke with dozens of U.S. officials and Libyans with intimate knowledge of the attack and subsequent investigation. No evidence suggests Al Qaeda or any other major terrorist organization played any part in the attack. A local militia, Ansar al-Shariah,