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Cover-up

WASHINGTON — We all know about the notorious Obama "kill list." CIA Director John Brennan proudly told us about that last year when he described how the O-Team decides which Americans should be executed by Hellfire missiles fired from remotely piloted aircraft. Why hasn't the White House used this capability to take out those who killed our diplomats in Benghazi, Libya, last year?

Clip and save this column. Herein are some important events, names, places — facts your children and grandchildren will need to know about these perilous times:

—Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2012. The U.S. Consulate in Benghazi and a diplomatic annex in this city on the Mediterranean coast are assaulted and destroyed by radical Islamic terrorists. Four American citizens — U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens, foreign service officer Sean Smith and two former Navy SEALs, Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods — are killed during two attacks over a seven-hour period. Officials in Washington take no action to stop the attacks or save lives.

—Wednesday, Sept. 12. President Barack Obama, standing beside Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, describes what happened in Benghazi as "an outrageous attack" and promises, "We will not waver in our commitment to see that justice is done for this terrible act. And make no mistake; justice will be done." For weeks thereafter, White House officials, the secretary of state and lesser government functionaries reiterate Obama's claim that the attack was fomented by a crude anti-Islam video posted on the Internet. It's not true.

—Thursday, Oct. 4. Thirty-two days before the presidential election, desperate to preserve the fiction that "al-Qaida is on the ropes" because "Osama bin Laden is dead," the State Department announces the formation of an independent panel headed by former U.S. Ambassador Tom Pickering and a recently retired Joint Chiefs chairman. Though the Reagan White House provided Pickering with extraordinary additional security when he was threatened by terrorists in El Salvador, the panel's report, delivered Dec. 20, found that midlevel State Department officials were responsible for security lapses in Benghazi.

—Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2013. Clinton testifies under oath before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. In response to questions posed by Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., about those who attacked the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi and why, she explodes: "What difference, at this point, does it make?"

—Wednesday, May 8.

Three brave men testify before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee about the lies, misfeasance and incompetence in the Obama administration's handling of the jihadi attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi. Gregory N. Hicks, deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Libya and the highest-ranking American diplomat in the country during the attacks, Mark I. Thompson, a former U.S. Marine and operations coordinator for the State Department's counterterrorism bureau, and Eric Nordstrom, formerly the senior diplomatic security officer in Libya, all testify about what really happened Sept. 11, 2012. To avail themselves of legal protections against retribution, all three claim status as whistle-blowers.

Their testimony indicts the president, the secretary of state and administration minions of incompetence and lying to the public about what happened before, during and after the Benghazi attacks. Supporters of the Obama regime describe the three as "politically motivated" and claim there is "nothing new" in what they said. That's not true, either. Herewith, a few important facts we now know thanks to the courage of these three men:

Though radical Islamists routinely use anniversaries to motivate adherents to violence, the Obama administration did absolutely nothing to anticipate such a possibility by prepositioning quick-reaction military forces in the Middle East prior to the attacks. Worse, instead of granting Ambassador Stevens' repeated requests for additional security assets, the O-Team actually reduced U.S. security personnel in Libya. This abysmal failure reflects, inter alia, a nearly total deficit of human intelligence. The ambassador and three other Americans paid for this misfeasance with their lives.

In the midst of the deadly attacks in Benghazi, bureaucratic inertia and infighting in Washington prevented any response that might have saved lives. In the aftermath, the Obama administration insulted the Libyan government by rebutting its assertion that the perpetrators were radical Islamists. The result: More than two weeks passed before FBI agents could visit the scene of the crime.

Since the attacks, they have been probed by five separate committees of Congress. The State Department's Accountability Review Board is, at best, a whitewash. Rep. Frank Wolf, R-Va., and more than 140 of his colleagues have called for a bipartisan select committee of both houses to fully investigate the matter. Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham support the proposal. It's time — unless Congress wants to participate in a cover-up.

Oliver North is the host of "War Stories" on Fox News Channel, the author of the New York Times best-seller "Heroes Proved" and a co-founder of Freedom Alliance, an organization that provides college scholarships to the children of U.S. military personnel killed or permanently disabled in the line of duty. To find out more about Oliver North and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.