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A New York Times report on the September 11, 2012, attack that killed four Americans -- including Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens -- in Benghazi, Libya, calls into question much of what Republicans accusing the Obama administration of a cover-up have said about the incident.

The three main points of contention have been whether the attack was planned, whether it was sparked by an anti-Muslim video, and whether al Qaeda was involved.

However, the Times says, the administration's version, focusing on outrage over the inflammatory video, and first delivered by then-ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice on Sunday morning talk shows five days later, isn't exactly right, either.

"The reality in Benghazi was different, and murkier, than either of those story lines suggests. Benghazi was not infiltrated by Al Qaeda, but nonetheless contained grave local threats to American interests. The attack does not appear to have been meticulously planned, but neither was it spontaneous or without warning signs," according to David D. Kirkpatrick's article in the Times.

It's a conclusion that CNN has drawn in its previous reporting.

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The White House and its allies in Congress have said any confusion and conflicting information in the early hours and days after the assault stemmed from the "fog of war," not any deliberate effort to mislead the public.

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The GOP suggests the administration removed specific terror references and stuck to the explanation advanced by Rice -- later proved untrue -- that the attack was the result of spontaneous demonstrations over the U.S.-produced film "Innocence of Muslims," which contained scenes some Muslims considered blasphemous.

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Originally posted by AURaptor:

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The GOP suggests the administration removed specific terror references and stuck to the explanation advanced by Rice -- later proved untrue -- that the attack was the result of spontaneous demonstrations over the U.S.-produced film "Innocence of Muslims," which contained scenes some Muslims considered blasphemous.

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It wasn't about the video.

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And contrary to claims by some members of Congress, it was fueled in large part by anger at an American-made video denigrating Islam.

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The violence, though, also had spontaneous elements. Anger at the video motivated the initial attack. Dozens of people joined in, some of them provoked by the video and others responding to fast-spreading false rumors that guards inside the American compound had shot Libyan protesters. Looters and arsonists, without any sign of a plan, were the ones who ravaged the compound after the initial attack, according to more than a dozen Libyan witnesses as well as many American officials who have viewed the footage from security cameras.

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"The Benghazi attacks also took place in a context in which the global terrorism threat as most often represented by al Qaeda (AQ) is fragmenting and increasingly devolving to local affiliates and other actors who share many of AQ's aims, including violent anti-Americanism, without necessarily being organized or operated under direct AQ command and control," the report said.

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The Times report zeroes in on militia leader Abu Khattala as well as the like-minded Islamist militia Ansar al Sharia ...Khattala's narrative of the events that night was sometimes unclear and, at times, seemed to be contradictory, Damon said.

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What you refer to that was proven untrue was that the attack was a copy-cat of a demonstration in Egypt over the video. It was not. The attack was an entirely different animal, with different factors, different groups, and different goals, but was fomented by a typical amount of outrage and distrust on their part, and broken promises and attitudes on our part.

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That's not what the Obama admin told us though.

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Originally posted by BYTEMITE:

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That's not what the Obama admin told us though.

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Right, exactly, which is why she was wrong. But the video being a factor is not itself incorrect.

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Originally posted by BYTEMITE:

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That's not what the Obama admin told us though.

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Right, exactly, which is why she was wrong. But the video being a factor is not itself incorrect.

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