IN BENGHAZI, THE WHITE HOUSE FINDS A TERRORIST WHO WASN’T HIDING

The Obama administration has been "dishonest" about the attack on our consulate in Benghazi, said 61 percent in a CNN/ORC poll released Monday (6/16). That’s remarkably high, considering how little coverage there’s been of this scandal.

The next day, the administration announced capture of Ahmed Abu Khattala, leader in Benghazi of an Islamist militia affiliated with al Qaida which claimed credit for the attack.

In the 22 months since Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans were killed, journalists have had little difficulty locating Mr. Khattala.

He "spent two leisurely hours on Thursday evening at a crowded luxury hotel, sipping a strawberry frappe on a patio and scoffing at the threats coming from the American and Libyan governments," said David Kirkpatrick of the New York Times in October, 2012.

"Ahmed Khattala didn’t look like a wanted man, sipping mango juice across the table from me in a Benghazi hotel," said Elizabeth Palmer of CBS News.

CNN’s Arwa Damon interviewed Mr. Khattala in the coffee shop of a luxury hotel in Benghazi last July. Anthony Loyd of the Times of London interviewed him "over tea and biscuits" in his home last October. He also gave interviews to the AP, Reuters, and Fox News.

Presumably, the CIA could have found Mr. Khattala too. Why hadn’t he been arrested sooner? Why was he scarfed up now?

Mr. Obama was delighted to have something to talk about other than his swap of five Taliban leaders for a deserter, the VA scandal, the catastrophe unfolding in Iraq.

The administration plans to try Mr. Khattala in a civilian court. Treating him as a criminal defendant will cripple our ability to get intelligence from him, and – through "discovery"  – give Mr. Khattala access to our intelligence, said Andrew McCarthy, who prosecuted the mastermind of the first World Trade Center bombing.

His arrest also keeps the garrulous Mr. Khattala from talking to reporters.

We don’t know what CIA operatives at the annex were doing. We do know extraordinary measures have been taken to keep them from talking about it.

President Obama secretly authorized the CIA to provide aid to rebels fighting Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafy, Reuters reported in March, 2011. After the dictator fell, the CIA used the annex to ship weapons to the rebels fighting in Syria, say multiple, highly varied, sources.

This would be legal, if the requisite "Gang of Eight" Congressional leaders had been notified. But since most of the arms fell into the hands of Islamists, it was unwise.

Financing for and the actual shipment of these arms was routed through the United Arab Emirates and Qatar to give the U.S. plausible deniability, sources say.

Most of the weapons, presumably, were among those looted from Mr. Gadhafy’s armories. Of chief concern are shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles, known by the acronym MANPADS (Man-portable air defense systems), of which 15,000 are missing.

News accounts often refer to these as "Stinger-type" missiles, which is unfortunate, because differences between the current model of the U.S. Stinger, the Cadillac of MANPADS, and those in Mr. Gadhafy’s arenal are more significant than differences between a 2014 Cadillac and a Model T.

ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria), the Islamist group rampaging in Iraq, and the Taliban are said to have current model Stingers. How did they get them?

ISIS may have acquired theirs when they overran former U.S. military bases in Iraq, speculated Lara Logan of CBS News. The Defense Department authorized sale of 681 Stinger missiles to Iraq last year. But these were for a truck mounted air defense system. Sale of the shoulder fired version hasn’t been approved, DoD says. It would have been madness to do so. ISIS is said to have had Stingers before these bases were overrun.

The Stinger the Taliban used to shoot down a CH-47 helicopter in Afghanistan July 25, 2012 was part of a lot intended for anti-Gadhafy forces in Libya, Kenneth Timmerman says in his book on Benghazi published this week.

If the Obama administration supplied Stingers to Islamists, this would be the Iran-Contra scandal on steroids.

As head of a prominent anti-Gadhafy militia, Mr. Khattala would have been among recipients of CIA-supplied arms. He could tell us a lot about what went down. But he won’t be talking about it now.

Jack Kelly is a former Marine and Green Beret and a former deputy assistant secretary of the Air Force in the Reagan administration. He is national security writer for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

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