Journalist Kenneth Timmerman appeared recently in Los Angeles at an event sponsored by the David Horowitz Freedom Center to discuss his book Dark Forces: The Truth About What Happened in Benghazi.

In the first article, Timmerman described in detail how the attack on the American diplomatic compound at Benghazi unfolded on Sept. 11, 2012. This second article provides a thorough analysis of the significance of this attack for U.S. policy.

Timmerman suggested that the committee led by Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., that is investigating the Benghazi attack needs to investigate the paper trail that lies behind the 10:08 p.m. memo about a demonstration to protest a video, because the emails released so far show nothing to support this.

He called this the "original spin" of Benghazi and asked why it was employed. Timmerman's theory is that the administration didn't want to do anything weeks away from the election that would destroy the narrative that Al Qaeda had been defeated, in contrast to President George W. Bush, who had been attacked by Osama bin Laden and was able to get American troops out of Iraq, instead of into Iraq, because terrorism was now on the wane.

However, according to Timmerman, there is much more, going back to the "original sin" that goes back to the Libyan insurgency of March 2011. President Obama then signed a presidential finding authorizing the CIA and other U.S. agencies to provide covert assistance to the rebels. This included weapons and troop cutouts, the latter of which were from the Emirate of Qatar.

When it looked like the insurgency was collapsing, it was decided to add surface-to-air missiles to the aid package, and Stinger missiles were released from a stockpile in Kuwait to the Qatari troops. This has been confirmed by a Wall Street Journal reporter and by Timmerman's contacts with the government in France. The Stingers never got to the rebels, but Timmerman reported that a senior Special Forces officer on active duty told him angrily that a U.S. military helicopter in Afghanistan was brought down on July 25, 2012, by a surface-to-air missile that did not explode, but a fragment of the missile contained a serial number that tracked it back to the block of missiles released from the stockpile in Kuwait to the Qatari Special Forces.

Timmerman tied this to the fact that Ambassador Stevens had been sent to Benghazi to try to recover the remaining missiles, as announced by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton when she went to Libya in October 2011 to say, "I came, I saw, he [Ghadafi] died." A shipment of missiles intended for Syrian rebels turned up in Turkey, risking exposure of the unauthorized covert operations in Syria.

Another, "extremely important" side of Timmerman's analysis was that while the public has been told that the attack was carried out by Ansar al-Sharia, and its personnel participated, Timmerman calls them "the pickup team," the "local hires" who filled out the ranks, not the main actors, not the killers, and he argued that the mortar attack on the CIA annex was a professional one that could not have been done by the locals.

That attack, Timmerman charged, was carried out by Iranian nationals belonging to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard, and U.S. forces had observed both the Guard and Hezbollah active in Benghazi. Based on extensive interviews with defectors from Iranian intelligence, Timmerman has concluded that the Benghazi attack was an instance of state-sponsored terrorism by Iran, led by a two-star general of the Revolutionary Guard, intended to drive the United States out of Libya and to stop the arms trade to the Syrian rebels fighting the Assad regime that Iran supports.

He stated that he has traced a financial trail on the order of $50 million to $70 million through Indonesia, Malaysia, France and Algeria to Libya.

In conclusion, Timmerman referred to a case in New York for which he provided evidence that proved Iranian involvement in the 9/11 attacks and resulted in a $6 billion judgment against Iran for the victims' families. He warned that Iran has been underestimated in its ability and dedication to the destruction of America.

(Archived video can be found here.)