voters reelected barack obama but they are giving him a pass on benghazi. a recent fox poll found more than 7 in 10 american voters want congress to continue investigating. congress has. and so have we. we begin with peter boyer who finds one piece of common ground between obama's supporters and critics. both agree to understand benghazi, you must go back a few years. >> any clear-eyed examination of this matter must begin with this sobering fact. benghazi joins a long list of tragedies and for america, hostages taken in tehran in 1979, our embassy and marine barracks bombed in beirut in 1983. khobar towers in 1996. >> she essentially said to understand benghazi, you have to understand the series of terror attacks that had occurred before. is she right? >> she is certainly right in terms of understanding the ideology that fuels these attacks. >> andrew mccarthy is a form he federal prosecutor who won a conviction of the blind sheikh who had plotted to bomb new york city tunnels and landmarks in the 1990s. >> islamic supreme six. >> the difference between the obama administration and its critics is the lesson each has learned. through the '70s, '80s, '90s the united states dealt with terrorism as a crime. >> i was on the front lines. >> what we found was that we were repeatedly attacked and the attacks became more audacious over time. >> and the result was the first september 11th attack. >> john bolton, u.s. ambassador under president george w. bush is a fox news contributor. >> it was that attack, tragically, that made us realize that we were in a war. and that the way to deal with international terrorism was to treat it as you would treat an act of aggression against the united states by a hostile power. >> but the rise of barack obama was an emphatic turning away from the bush foreign policies. bush's global war on terror vanished from the presidential vocabulary. the middle east and all its problems would be managed through smart diplomacy. >> thank you. obama began what his critics called an apology tour. in a june 2009 speech in cairo, he suggested that bush's freedom agenda for the muslim world had been a clumsy overreach. >> no system of government can or should be imposed by one nation, by any other. >> within weeks of that cairo speech came stirrings from the middle east that seemed to catch obama by surprise. america stood by as iran's green revolution was brutally suppressed. then an uprising in tunisia, followed by a popular revolt against the egyptian strongman, hosni mubarak. the arab spring would present with a definding crisis. in march 2011 he addressed the american people from the national defense university in washington. the president who wanted to pivot away from the middle east was now explaining why he was intervening in a civil war in libya. it was to stop a blood bath in a port city that most americans had never heard of. a place called benghazi. >> if we waited one more day, benghazi could suffer a massacre that would have reverberated across the region and stained the conscience of the world. i refused to let that happen. >> but saving benghazi from gadhafi was not the end of that story. at that moment, in a jail cell in southern california, a czech former meth cooker was working on a loopy scheme that would one day command international attention. it employed a low budget comically inept movie he called desert warrior. he produced it when he was paroled in june 2011. federal authorities would only allow us an interview with him over the phone. >> when you began to make this film, what was your intent? >> it just gives a message to the world. be careful. evil coming from the east. >> what was the nature of that evil? >> it is terrorism. >> when it peaked at the peak of obama's re-election campaign, this capitolic christian and his film became part of a smoke screen of what happened on 9/11. >> one of the principle unanswered questions is where did the story about the muhammad video come from? >> is it imaginable to you that the president of the united states having a conversation about what story are we going to concoct to explain this? >> the conduct of the top leadership of the administration during the entire attack is hard for me to understand. >> sometimes disaster strikes suddenly. benghazi gave us plenty of warning. after the break -- dad. how did you get here? i don't know. 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[ bell dings ] ♪ [ horse whinnies ] getting heartburn and then treating day after day is a thing of the past. block the acid with prilosec otc, and don't get heartburn in the first place. we've surcome a long way. ♪ [ le announcer ] one pill each morning. 24 hours. zero heartburn. welcome back to fox news reporting. we asked the white house for interviews. we were turned down. many officials have testified about the debacle or spoken publicly like the president himself. in addition the state department and congress have released unclassified reports. from these sources and our own exclusive reporting emerges a time line of disastrous decisions and deadly consequences. we resume our story in the fall of 2011. >> october 20, 2011. libya. moammar gadhafi is captured killed by rebels in his home town. the revolution is complete. the u.s. keeps its embassy in tripoli but quickly sets up a diplomatic outpost in benghazi. the rebels' strong hold president obama vowed to save. the violence continues there. says the state department's number two man in libya, greg hicks. >> you had assassinations and car bombings in benghazi. the assess many was this was libyan on libyan. >> the americans move into this villa on the west side of the city. inside its walls are four buildings including a large residence where a safe haven is built. you enter through a heavy metal grill with several locks on it. security at the u.s. benghazi compound consists of five nationalic security special agents and four members of the february sfeenlt martyrs brigade. an islamic militia group. more than a mile away is what is called the an ex. now known to be a cia facility. there's more security there. based in tripoli but moving around the country is a department of defense sight security team with special forces capability. lieutenant colonel andrew wood takes charge of the sst on february 12th, 2012. >> the spring of 2012, there was an uptick of terror attacks in libya. >> that's true. they seemed to be targeting more toward westerners. >> despite an average of two security incidents every three days, wood and his team are slated to leave libya by summer's end. march 28th, 2012. americans in libya send a cable to secretary of state clinton requesting more security. april 6th. a bomb is tossed over the wall of the benghazi compound. no one is hurt. april 19th, a return cable signed by clinton says security would actually be scaled back. clinton will later deny he knowing about the exchange. june 6th. an ied is placed on the compound's north gate. again, no one is hurt. the next day, the newly named ambassador, christopher stevens, asks to keep two security teams the state department had ordered to be removed. his request? is denied. june 11th. a convoy transporting the united kingdom's ambassador is ambushed in benghazi. he isn't hurt but two of his security squad are. the brits decide to pull out of benghazi. >> clearly that was a terrorist attack. >> i actually conducted an investigation and it was definitely an assassination attempt by skilled operators. >> and these skilled operators, wood realizes, are an increasingly dangerous enemy to americans. >> i can see the adversary growing stronger. we were the last thing on their target list. >> june 25th, stevens sends another cable warning washington of a deteriorating situation where libyan extremists are, quote, targeting international organizations and foreign interests. >> why would state tell a special forces security team it is not needed in a place like benghazi? >> they were trying to tell a better story than was actually unfolding on the ground. >> lieutenant general william g. boykin was the united states deputy undersecretary of defense for intelligence. >> it is because they live in a fantasy world. >> which brings us back to hollywood. remember, the coptick christian who made that warrior movie? he's renamed the film innocence of bin laden. in late june, advertises a screening, a divine theater in los angeles. >> i heard about the promotion of the film which i thought was brilliant. >> steve klein is an anti-islamic activist who would become a spokesman for the film. >> the fliers were designed to get the attention of the young taliban al qaeda type kids. the wannabes here in southern california. they had been baited for lack of a better word. come watch this video about your hero. >> instead of seeing a positive film about bin laden, they would be shown one that portrays the prophet mohamed as a homicidal gay child molester. >> we anticipated they would boil out of the theater and act angry, something of that nature. >> he waited outside in the car with a video camera. >> i died my hair and my mustache black because a lot of them know who i am. we saw nobody come into the theater. i called up mikoula and said nobody showed up. it was really disappointing. >> july 2nd. a trailer for the film is uploaded retitled innocence of muslims to youtube. though he denies it, he is sam and using an alias, violates his probation. but for now, in hollywood terms, he is still a nobody who made a film no one wanted to watch. july 6th. back in libya, the americans are even more concerned about terror attacks. but the deputy of security tells them they should not make a formal request for an extension of the security teams set to leave in august. >> lamb was discouraging, to put it mildly. why do you keep raising these issues? why do you keep putting this forward? >> august 8th. ambassador stevens sends another cable to washington. quote, what we have seen are not random crimes of opportunity but rather, targeted and self-incrimination national attacks. less than a week after that cable, alone colonel wood and his military sight security team leave the country. >> how did you feel about the security situation when you left? >> i didn't like it. i said as much. and my concerns were specifically for benghazi. >> still, stevens is being pushed to increas the diplomatic presence in that city and soon, says hicks. >> according to chris, secretary clinton wanted benghazi converted into a permanent constituent post. timing for this decision was important. chris needed to report before september 30th, the end of the fiscal year. >> september 6th. charlotte, north carolina. the democrats' national convention. >> today without a single american casualty, moammar gadhafi is gone and the people of libya are free. >> the same day, an egyptian american coptic christian, koran burning pastor terry jones. the e-mail includes a link to the you tube trailer. september 8th. cairo. a popular islamic broadcaster airs portions of that trailer. outrage ensues. cement 9th. as ambassador stevens gets toward leave tripoli for benghazi, alec henderson, a diplomatic security officer in tripoli, warns that the february 17th martyr's brigade can't be trusted to protect it. september 10th. benghazi. ambassador stevens arrives in the city though his movements are supposed to be secret, local media are there. and that is cause for grave concern. on the eve of the anniversary of 9/11. coming up, america suffers another blow on another 9/11. after the break. spokesman i have to look my so bbest on camera.sing whether i'm telling people about how they could save money on car insurance with geico... yeah, a little bit more of the lime green love yeah... or letting them know they can reach geico 24/7 using the latest technology. go on, slather it all over. don't hold back, go on... it's these high-definition televisions, i'll tell ya, they show every wrinkle. geico. fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent or more on car insurance. in the days after september 11, in the days after september 11th, 2012, obama administration officials would claim that benghazi was a spontaneous attack carried out by a mob outraged over a youtube video. as you're about to see, nobody but nobody in libya was thinking that on this fateful day. september 11th, 2012. 6:43 a.m., benghazi. a libyan police officer atop a building next door is caught photographing the inside of the american mission. the idea that a libyan cop might be casing the case rattles information management officer shawn smith. around noontime, he messages a friend on the internet. quote, assuming we don't die tonight, we saw one of our police that guard the compound taking pictures. 12:11 p.m., cairo. u.s. embassy staffers release a statement about the video which has been shown on egyptian tv. quote, we firmly reject the actions by those who abuse the universal right of free speech to hurt the religious beliefs of others. by late afternoon, the cairo embassy is surrounded by protesters. voicing a variety of grievances, says andrew mccarthy. >> the video was part of a much larger demonstration that featured open brandishing of the al qaeda flag, a chant of obama, obama. >> 6:45 p.m. the egyptian crowd storms the embassy. watching from tripoli, greg hicks, america's number two man in libya reaches out to his boss, ambassador chris stevens, in benghazi. >> chris, are you aware of what's going on in cairo? and he said, no. so i told him that the embassy had been stormed. they were trying to tear down our flag. and he said thanks very much. >> no sign in benghazi of protests. over the video or anything else. 9:00 p.m. ambassador stevens and shawn smith retire for the evening in the main residence. four diplomatic security officers joined them including lead officer scott wickland. another officer, alec henderson is at the nearby tactical operations center. >> was there any awareness of the youtube video? >> the you tube video was a nonevent. >> 9:42 p.m. agent henderson hears shots and an explosion. he yell into his radio and sounds an alarm. it is 3:42 p.m. in washington. charlene lamb is on duty at the state department. >> he also alerted the quick reaction security team stationed nearby. the libyan's 17th brigade, the embassy in tripoli and the diplomatic security command center in washington. >> the armed attackers enter the main gate. without warning or resistance from the february 17th martyrs brigade. in tripoli, a diplomatic security officer runs into hicks' villa yelling. >> greg, greg, the consulate is under attack. >> he calls stevens who is hiding with shawn smith in the safe haven. >> we said greg, we're under attack and the line cut. >> the attackers set the main residence ablaze and the safe haven fills with thick, dark smoke. more than a mile away, at the cia annex, the former navy s.e.a.l. tyrone woods get their weapon ready. >> they were mobilizing a response team there to go to our facility and provide reinforcements to repel the attacks. >> 9:59 p.m. as an unarmed surveillance drone heads toward the compound, hicks places a call to washington where it is just turning 4:00 in the afternoon. >> i called the operations center at the state department to report the attack. >> did you report to anyone in washington that there was a protest in connection to a youtube video? >> no. the only report that our mission made through every channel was that there had been an attack on a consulate. >> 4:05 p.m. washington time. an internal state department ops alert reports that the benghazi special mission is under attack. >> i was notified of the attack shortly after 4:00 p.m. i spoke to the national security adviser, tom donlan. he was my first call. i instructed our senior department officials to consider every option to just break down the doors of the libyan officials to get as much security support as we possibly could. >> state department counter terrorism official mark thompson wants to immediately dispatch the u.s. foreign emergency support team called fest. >> it is on alert to do just this mission. i notified the white house of my idea. we needed to act now and not wait. >> at the annex, they said they told them to stand down twice. while an independent accountability review board pointed by the state department concluded the cia officers were, quote, not delayed by orders from superiors. either way, 10:07 p.m. benghazi time, the cia team leaves the annex bound for the compound. what about help from the pentagon? 10:45 p.m. >> i asked the defense attache if anything was coming. >> the short answer, no. >> i said thank you very much and we went on with our work. >> 10:54 p.m., benghazi. the six-man response team from the annex drives the attackers out of the compound. by that time, shawn smith is confirmed dead. but nobody can find ambassador stevens. it is now 5:00 p.m. in washington. defense secretary leon panetta attends his weekly meeting with the president. >> he ordered all available d.o.d. assets to respond. >> but none outside libya will. >> the quickest response option available was a security team that was located at the embassy in tripoli. >> but the americans have no plane in tripoli. >> we agreed that we would move forward with chartering a plane to fly a response team to benghazi to provide additional reinforcements. >> 11:10 p.m. benghazi. a u.s. drone armed only with cameras begins circling above the compound. five minutes later, a second wave of attackers arrives. >> the annex team with drew from the facility and the second wave of attackers took it over. >> did anybody leave any base anywhere to go to the aid of the people under attack in benghazi, libya, before the attack ended? >> no. because the attack ended before they could get off the ground. >> okay. >> as senator graham pointed out, this is an attack that lasted nearly eight hours from start to finish. >> there was this initial attack on the facility at benghazi. er frankly, we thought that was the end of what had occurred there and we had no intelligence that a second attack take place at the annex two miles away. >> coming up, the obama administration is tragically wrong about what's happening on the ground. and more american blood will spill in benghazi. 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