6 Benghazi Facts

1. The State Department didn't want Al Qaeda mentioned in the press release to avoid tipping their murder investigation hand. Others on the review panel appeared to agree with that assessment. Some argue that the suggestion was politically motivated based on related emails on possible negative Congressional responses, but we cannot "X-ray" the minds of the recommendation writers to really know. Motivation guessing is pure speculation at this point.

2. The CIA signed off on the talking points, which were eventually paraphrased by Susan Rice.

3. There was no "stand down" order from the Predisent or Hillary. The commander in charge of rescue operations judged there to be insufficient info to send a landing party to a specific location, and the current position needed defending as well. Former Defense Secretary, Robert Gates, a Republican who was originally nominated to head the Pentagon by former President George W. Bush, stated "Frankly, had I been in the job at the time, I think my decisions would have been just as theirs were," Gates said during an appearance on CBS' "Face the Nation" program. "We don't have a ready force standing by in the Middle East, and so getting somebody there in a timely way would have been very difficult, if not impossible...[some have] sort of a cartoonish impression of military capabilities and military forces..."

4. The actual nature of the perpetrators is still not known. Some of them appear to have ties to Al Qaeda, but that does necessarily not mean ALL of them were Al Qaeda. The "Innocence of Muslims" video may have enlarged the attack party, similar to how it sparked protests in other cities at the same time. Until all are caught and interrogated, we won't know. Discussions on whether some or all were "terrorists" or not, or whether they were motivated by the video, can only be speculative at this point.

5. "Terrorism" is a vague and misused word.

6. There were 13 deadly diplomat attacks under Bush's watch.