A look at why the Benghazi issue keeps coming back

FILE – In this May 8, 2013, file photo House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., left, welcomes Gregory Hicks, former deputy chief of mission in Libya, number two in rank to slain U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens, as he Hicks arrives to testify about last year's deadly assault on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, on Capitol Hill in Washington. At right is Eric Nordstrom, the State Department's former regional security officer in Libya. Congressional Republicans are looking for evidence of incompetence and cover-up in the ashes of the Sept. 11 anniversary attack. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)

FILE – In this Nov. 27, 2012, file photo Senate Armed Services Committee members, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., foreground, and Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H., speak to reporters on Capitol Hill in Washington after meeting with UN Ambassador Susan Rice to discuss statements she made about the attack on the U.S. Consulate in Libya that killed four Americans. Republicans and Democrats began condemning each other's response to Benghazi within hours of the first shots fired. The issue has flared and dimmed ever since, revived by new testimony, reports or documents like newly released emails. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)

WASHINGTON (AP) — The night of smoke, chaos, gunfire and grenades that killed four Americans in Benghazi, Libya, is well-documented. Eight months later, it is the decisions made back in Washington that remain murky and in perpetual dispute.

Why were a diplomatic outpost and the visiting U.S. ambassador left so poorly protected? Should the Pentagon have rushed jets or special forces to the rescue when the assault began? Did PresidentBarack Obama's administration obscure the true nature of the terrorist attack to help him get re-elected?

Congressional Republicans are poking for evidence of incompetence and cover-up in the ashes of the Sept. 11 anniversary attack. Obama dismisses their probes as a politically driven "sideshow."

The release this past week of 100 pages of government emails and notes is the latest fodder, as numerous Benghazi investigations continue.

A look at the issue:

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WHY NOW?

Republicans and Democrats began condemning each other's response to Benghazi within hours of the first shots fired. The issue has flared and dimmed ever since, revived by new testimony, reports or documents like the newly released emails.

Republican lawmakers say they won't stop until they get their questions answered.

Democrats accuse the GOP of flogging the issue for partisan gain.

The focus on Benghazi and other controversies makes it harder for Obama to press his second-term agenda. Emphasizing the State Department's failings during her tenure could be especially damaging to former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, the early favorite among Democrats who might seek the presidency in 2016.

Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, a possible Republican presidential candidate, already is arguing that the attack "precludes Hillary Clinton from ever holding office."

The controversy also helps Republicans raise money and fire up their conservative base heading into next year's congressional elections.

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SEPT. 11, 2012

The night of the attack, as described by the State Department's review board and other accounts:

Seven Americans are at State's temporary residential compound in Benghazi that night: U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens, visiting from the embassy in Tripoli; computer specialist Sean Smith and five diplomatic security officers. They are a minority among U.S. personnel in Benghazi; most work for the CIA, which operates a secret "annex" about a mile away.

Egyptian demonstrators had scaled the walls of the U.S. Embassy in Cairo hours earlier to protest an American amateur filmmaker's video mocking the Prophet Muhammad. But there were no demonstrations that day in Benghazi. The attack begins suddenly around 9:40 p.m. - gunfire, explosions, sounds of chanting and then dozens of armed men swarming through the compound's main entrance. Libyans hired to guard the compound flee.

A security officer hustles Stevens and Smith into a fortified "safe room." It fills with blinding smoke when the attackers set the building on fire with diesel fuel, and the two men become separated from the security officer.

A CIA team from the annex arrives about 25 minutes into the attack and helps search for the two diplomats inside the smoke-filled room, while gunfire continues outside. Only Smith's body is found. Eventually the U.S. personnel escape in armored vehicles, plowing through gunfire and grenade blasts to the CIA annex across town. Rocket-propelled grenades and mortar fire target the annex intermittently for an hour after midnight.

A team of six security officials summoned from Tripoli arrives around 5 a.m. Soon after, another assault on the annex begins. A mortar blast kills CIA security contractors Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty. About an hour later, a Libyan military unit arrives to help evacuate the U.S. personnel.

After the Americans fled the diplomatic compound, Benghazi civilians found Ambassador Stevens in the wreckage and drove him to a hospital, but he couldn't be saved. Like Smith, he died of smoke inhalation.

Stevens is the first U.S. ambassador killed by militants since 1979.

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POLITICAL FROM THE FIRST

The calamity in Benghazi was the kind of autumn surprise that can rock a presidential race.

The night of Sept. 11, before word of Stevens' death was out, Republican nominee Mitt Romney issued a hurried statement about violence in Egypt and Libya, criticizing the State Department as too sympathetic to Muslim protesters. Critics, even some in his own party, faulted Romney for politicizing a crisis before the facts were in.

A month later in a combative presidential debate, Romney took another tack. He jumped on Obama for being too slow to acknowledge that terrorism was committed on his watch.

"It took the president 14 days before he called the attack in Benghazi an act of terror," Romney insisted.

"Get the transcript," Obama snapped back, referring to his remarks the day after the assault.

In that Rose Garden appearance and similar words the next day, Obama had said that "acts of terror" would not shake U.S. resolve. He also condemned the violent protests that were sweeping through Muslim nations, sparked by anger over the Muhammad video.

In interviews over the next two weeks, Obama blamed the attack on extremists but steered clear of using any form of the word "terror." Other administration officials did the same and continued to conflate the Benghazi attack with the protests elsewhere.

Finally, at a Sept. 20 news briefing, White House spokesman Jay Carney said it was "self-evident that what happened in Benghazi was a terrorist attack."

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THE TALKING POINTS

The question of the moment: Were the "talking points" drawn up within days of the attack deliberately misleading?

The document, outlining the government's public message, was sent to members of Congress and toSusan Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, who made the round of Sunday morning talk shows five days after the attack.

Republicans accuse Rice of deceiving the American people. They say that, working from the talking points, she passed off an attack by heavily armed terrorists possibly linked to al-Qaida as something less damaging to Obama's terror-fighting credentials.

Rice described the attack as a "horrific incident where some mob was hijacked, ultimately, by a handful of extremists."

The White House says Rice reflected the best information available while facts were still being gathered. Republican critics say the administration should have known by then that there was no mob of protesters and the attack was a premeditated act of terrorism.

Two months after her TV interviews, the controversy ended Rice's chance of following Clinton as secretary of state.

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STILL TALKING

Those talking points from September are in the news now because of new revelations about how they were crafted.

Republicans demanded to see emails exchanged by administration officials who revised and edited the talking points. On Wednesday, the White House publicly released 100 pages of emails and notes, saying congressional Republicans had misrepresented what they say.

Most of the email back-and-forth is between the State Department and the CIA, the entities whose facilities were attacked in Benghazi. White House and FBI officials were also in the discussions.

From the first draft, the CIA described the attack in Benghazi as a spontaneous outgrowth of the movie protests that began in Egypt - which indicates that was the theory in Washington then. However, the No. 2 diplomatic official in Libya at the time says he knew immediately it wasn't true and was demoted after he questioned the version of events Rice recited on TV.

One edit especially has been criticized as political: Victoria Nuland, then State's spokeswoman, sought removal of a reference to a CIA warning about the potential for anti-American demonstrations in Cairo and jihadists trying to break into that embassy. Nuland wrote that "could be abused" by lawmakers to criticize her department for failing to take heed.

Also deleted were references to the CIA's past warnings about dangerous extremists linked to al-Qaida in Benghazi.

After many deletions, the meat of the talking points read: "The currently available information suggests that the demonstrations in Benghazi were spontaneously inspired by the protests at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo and evolved into a direct assault against the U.S. diplomatic post in Benghazi and subsequently its annex. There are indications that extremists participated in the violent demonstrations."

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UNPROTECTED

The month after Obama was re-elected, an independent review board issued its harsh verdict.

Senior officials in Washington had failed to protect the Benghazi mission, even after diplomats in Libya asked for more security, said the panel appointed by the State Department.

Since the overthrow of dictator Moammar Gadhafi, eastern Libya has been plagued by violence and awash with heavily armed militias. The U.S. compound as well as British diplomats and the Red Cross had been targeted by explosives in smaller attacks several times over the spring and summer.

The danger was obvious.

And yet security was "inadequate for Benghazi and grossly inadequate to deal with the attack that took place," the Accountability Review Board concluded.

Four State Department officials were reassigned or resigned as a result.

"We clearly fell down on the job with regard to Benghazi," Deputy Secretary of State William Burns told lawmakers.

Republicans put the focus on Clinton's responsibility. In combative congressional hearings in January, the outgoing secretary of state said the cables from Benghazi seeking help never reached her.

"I did not see these requests. They did not come to me," she said. "I did not approve them. I did not deny them."

Obama called the poor security "a huge problem" and said changes would be made to protect risky posts.

Democrats tried to shift some blame to congressional Republicans, complaining that they cut $300 million from the Obama administration's budget request of $2.6 billion for diplomatic and embassy security in 2012.

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WHERE WAS THE CAVALRY?

Could the military have done more to help on Sept. 11? A former top diplomat thinks so.

Gregory Hicks, who was Stevens' No. 2 and monitoring the crisis from Tripoli that night, suggests that sending fighter jets or even a cargo plane overhead might have scared off the insurgents with a show of force. That might have saved the lives of the two CIA contractors by preventing the final assault on the CIA annex, which came about eight hours after the first attack on the diplomatic mission, Hicks told a House committee.

Hicks also said four members of a special forces team in Tripoli wanted to fly on a Libyan plane to Benghazi but were told to stand down. Pentagon officials said the evacuation was already beginning by then and those forces would have arrived too late.

Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the Senate there wasn't enough information about what was happening on the ground to send in aircraft. For example, for several hours officials didn't know what had happened to the ambassador.

Former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta made the same point. "You can't just willy-nilly send F-16s there and blow the hell out of a place without knowing what's taking place," Panetta told senators.

State's review board concluded the military did what it could. An unarmed Predator drone flew over the diplomatic post beginning shortly after 11 p.m. to gather information. Two military personnel were with the team from Tripoli that arrived at the CIA annex in the morning. A C-17 from Germany carried the evacuated Americans out of Tripoli. Special operations forces and other personnel who were deployed from Europe and the United States in response to the crisis didn't reach Libya in time to help.

"The interagency response was timely and appropriate," according to the review board, "but there simply was not enough time given the speed of the attacks for armed U.S. military assets to have made a difference."

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WHAT'S NEXT

The FBI is still investigating who carried out the attack, and Attorney General Eric Holder says there has been "very, very substantial progress."

Republicans on five House committees are pursuing inquiries. Many GOP lawmakers are pushing House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, to appoint a special select committee to investigate.

The leaders of the review board, veteran diplomat Thomas Pickering and former Joint Chiefs Chairman Mike Mullen, have offered to testify publicly about their findings and to answer critics who say the probe was incomplete. Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., chairman of the House Oversight committee, has issued a subpoena to compel Pickering to testify in closed session first.

And congressional Republicans say they will keep pressing for more documents, such as details of military orders during the attack.

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Associated Press writer Donna Cassata contributed to this report.

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Split-second choice ended with NY student dead

Associated Press/Sleepy Hollow High School - CORRECTS SPELLING OF LAST NAME -- In this photo copied from the 2010 Sleepy Hollow High School yearbook, high school student Andrea Rebello is shown. Police said Rebello, a junior at Hofstra University in Hempstead, N.Y., was shot and killed Friday, May 17, 2013, during a break-in near the college campus. (AP Photo/Sleepy Hollow High School)

This undated photo provided by the Nassau County Police Department shows Dalton Smith of Hempstead, N.Y. On Saturday, May 18, 2013, police identified Smith the alleged home invader involved in the fatal slaying of a New York college student early Friday morning. Police say that Smith, who was currently on parole for robbery in the first degree, was the person attempting to rob the off-campus home where Andrea Rebello was shot and killed. (AP Photo/Nassau County Police Department)

NEW YORK (AP) — The Long Island college student was being held in a headlock by a masked intruder with a loaded gun to her head, police said. Then the gunman took aim at an officer.

A moment later both Hofstra University junior Andrea Rebello and the intruder were dead— killed after a split-second decision that is perhaps the most harrowing in law enforcement: when to pull the trigger.

"The big question is, how do you know, when someone's pointing a gun at you, whether you should keep talking to them, or shoot?" said Michele Galietta, a professor of psychology at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice who helps train police officers. "That's what makes the job of an officer amazingly difficult."

She spoke Sunday as Hofstra University students honored Rebello, a popular 21-year-old public relations major, by wearing white ribbons at their graduation ceremony.

Rebello's funeral is scheduled for Wednesday in Sleepy Hollow, in Westchester County, north of New York City.

Her life ended in the seconds that forced the veteran police officerto make a fatal decision, but the questions surrounding the student's death are just beginning, along with an internal investigation by the Nassau County Police Department.

The bare facts are simple. Rebello and the intruder, Dalton Smith, died early Friday when the officer fired eight shots, hitting him seven times, with one bullet striking Rebello once in the head, according to county homicide squad Lt. John Azzata.

With a gun pointed at her, Smith "kept saying, 'I'm going to kill her,' and then he pointed the gun at the police officer," according to Azzata.

The officer acted quickly, saying later that he believed his and Rebello's life were in danger, according to authorities.

No doubt, he was acting to try to save lives — his own and that of the young woman, Galietta said.

"What we're asking the cop to anticipate is, 'What is going on in the suspect's mind at the moment?'" she said. "We're always trying to de-escalate, to contain a situation, but the issue of safety comes in first, and that's the evaluation the officer has to make."

Eugene O'Donnell, a former New York City police officer and professor of law and police studies at John Jay College, said the crucial issue may be whether or not police had deemed it a hostage situation. If so, he said, there are protocols police follow to buy time, slow down, isolate and assess.

But O'Donnell said the officers may have had few options because of "an eyeball to eyeball confrontation between the officer and the offender."

"It may have been too fluid to deteriorate for the officers to do anything else," O'Donnell said. "It underscores that there's no two of these that are exactly alike."

Police tactical manuals are meant to assist officers in making the best decision possible, but in the end, "they're not 100 percent foolproof," Galietta said. "In a situation like that, you can follow procedure, and it doesn't mean it comes out perfectly."

Hofstra student John Kourtessis told the New York Post that he'd gone to a bar with Rebello and a few other friends to celebrate the end of school. When they got back to Rebello's house, she asked him to move his car and he went upstairs to get his keys.

When he came back down, he said, Smith was there. He said Smith kept talking about "the Russian guy," insisting the house's residents owed a Russian man money and that he was outside waiting.

"He was saying . . . that he just needed us to cooperate. I said, 'Listen, we have all this money here.'"

Kourtessis said the students offered Smith computers, jewelry and other items from the house but that Smith kept demanding more money.

The officer who fired the shots is an eight-year NYPD veteran and has been with Nassau County police for 12 years.

He is now out on sick leave, Azzata said.

Procedurally, the Nassau County district attorney's office would determine whether an officer's use of deadly force was justified, O'Donnell said. A spokesman for the district attorney's office did not respond to a request for comment Saturday night.

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Associated Press writers Frank Eltman in Mineola, N.Y., and Jake Pearson in New York City contributed to this report.

More bodies recovered in collapsed Indonesia mine

More bodies recovered in collapsed Indonesia mine where 28 workers are believed to have died

Associated Press -

Syrian troops push into strategic rebel-held town

In this Saturday, May 18, 2013 citizen journalism image provided by Qusair Lens which has been authenticated based on its contents and other AP reporting, shows Syrians inspecting the rubble of damaged buildings due to government airstrikes, in Qusair, Homs province, Syria. The town of Qusair has been besieged for weeks by regime troops and pro-government gunmen backed by the Lebanese militant Hezbollah group. The siege is part of a withering offensives forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar Assad have been pushing in recent weeks to regain control of the towns and villages along the Lebanese frontier. (AP Photo/Qusair Lens)

ALTERNATE CROP -- Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, center, attends the weekly cabinet meeting in Jerusalem, Israel, May 19, 2013. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose air force struck suspected weapons shipments to Hezbollah from Damascus twice this month, warned at a weekly Cabinet meeting Sunday that Israel is prepared for any eventuality in Syria. (AP Photo/Ronen Zvulun)

BEIRUT (AP) — Syrian troops pushed into a rebel-held town near the Lebanese border on Sunday, fighting house-to-house and bombing from the air as President Bashar Assad tried to strengthen his grip on a strategic strip of land running from the capital to the Mediterranean coast.

With the regime scoring gains on the battlefield, the U.S. and Russiacould face an even tougher task persuading Assad and his opponents to attend talks on ending Syria's 26-month-old conflict. Washington and Moscow hope to start talks with an international conference as early as next month, though no date has been set.

Government forces launched the offensive on the town of Qusair just hours after Assad said in a newspaper interview that he'll stay in his job until elections — effectively rejecting an opposition demand that any talks on a political transition lead to his ouster.

Even though the regime and the main opposition group have not yet committed to attending the conference, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said Sunday that he is hopeful it can take place "very soon," possibly in early June. In addition to the U.S. and Russia, he said he has spoken with Britain, France, China and other key parties.

Previous diplomatic initiatives have failed, in part because of divisions within the international community and because the regime and the armed opposition believed they could achieve more on the battlefield than in talks. Russia and the U.S. have backed opposite sides in Syria.

Still, neither regime forces nor rebel fighters have been able to create significant momentum since the uprising against Assad erupted in March 2011 and last year escalated into a full-fledged civil war.

The rebels control large rural areas in the north and east of the country, while Assad has successfully defended his hold on the capital, Damascus, the coastal area and parts of Aleppo, Syria's largest city.

Before Sunday's offensive, Qusair had been ringed by regime troops and fighters from the Lebanese militia Hezbollah, an Assad ally, for several weeks.

Qusair lies along a land corridor between Damascus and the Mediterranean coast, the heartland of Assad's Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam. Many rebel fighters are Sunni Muslims and Qusair, overwhelmingly Sunni, had served as a conduit for shipments of weapons and supplies smuggled from Lebanon to the rebels.

Hadi Abdullah, a Qusair activist reached by Skype, said regime troops and Hezbollah fighters began shelling the town late Saturday, followed by airstrikes early Sunday that sent residents taking cover in basements. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an activist group, said warplanes resumed bombing raids later Sunday.

By Sunday afternoon, regime forces had advanced into the town, engaging in house-to-house battles with rebel fighters, Abdullah said.

Syrian state media said Assad's troops took control of the main square, the area around the municipal building, a sports stadium and a local church. Syrian state TV said troops arrested rebel fighters who tried to flee Qusair dressed as civilians.

A government official said the regime left an escape road open to civilians, a claim denied by Abdullah, who said thousands of noncombatants were trapped in Qusair. "We tried to get civilians out four times. They are not allowing us," he said of regime forces.

The Observatory said 52 people were killed in Qusair, including 48 fighters, three women and a male civilian.

Abdullah said the air raids destroyed at least 17 houses. A field hospital was damaged last week, leaving the town with only one medical center which was unable to handle the influx of some 400 wounded Sunday, he said.

The main political opposition group, the Syrian National Coalition, said some 40,000 civilians are currently in Qusair and expressed concern for their safety. It urged the international community to step in to protect the lives of the civilians and called on the U.N. Security Council to denounce Hezbollah's involvement in the attack.

Six mortar rounds, apparently fired from Qusair, struck in nearby Lebanon, causing damage to a carpentry shop where a fire broke out, Lebanese security officials said. There were no reports of casualties.

In the northern Lebanese port city of Tripoli, clashes erupted between residents of a predominantly Alawite area and a majority Sunni neighborhood, Lebanon's National News Agency reported. It said at least five people were wounded in the fighting.

Events in Syria often raise tension among rival sects in neighboring Lebanon, particularly in Tripoli.

The Qusair offensive was just the latest indicator that the joint U.S.-Russian diplomatic initiative faces challenges.

Russia, despite its stated commitment to Syria peace talks, has reportedly delivered an advanced version of its Yakhont anti-ship cruise missiles to Syria, prompting U.S. complaints last week about an "ill-timed" step. Russia is a key political ally and arms supplier of the Assad regime, along with Iran.

The Obama administration, meanwhile, wants to avoid getting drawn into the Syria quagmire, despite pressure to find a way to end the bloodletting that has left more than 70,000 dead. U.S. concerns have been heightened by the growing dominance of Islamic militants among the fighters, including those linked to the al-Qaida terror network.

"For the U.S., (the conference) is mostly about postponing the tough decision-making Obama has been loath to get himself involved in, because he fears Syria will suck him in," said Peter Harling, a Syria expert at the International Crisis Group think tank.

In a further complication, Israel could get drawn in.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned Sunday that he is ready to act if Syria attempts to ship advanced Iranian weapons to Hezbollah, saying that "we are prepared for every scenario." Earlier this month, Israel struck twice near Damascus, to intercept purported shipments to Hezbollah.

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Associated Press writers Albert Aji in Damascus, Aron Heller in Jerusalem and Yasmine Saker in Beirut contributed reporting.