Secret phone recordings have revealed that a Democratic member of Congress and top Pentagon leaders went around then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to negotiate with the Libyan regime of Muammar Gadhafi because they were convinced she was hell-bent on taking the U.S. to war. America's intelligence community was conerned that Clinton was sanitizing their reports to make the case for military intervention on the basis of an impending genocide in the port city of Benghazi, even though there was scant evidence that Gadhafi's military was prepared to massacre rebel groups. The U.S. military's Joint Chiefs of Staff dispatched a middle-man in July 2011 to tell the dictator's son, Seif Gadhafi, that internal State Department reports sent to members of Congress were 'just full of stupid, stupid facts.' The younger Gadaffi, later captured after his father's summary execution and now in a prison cell, told the Americans who phoned him behind Clinton's back that many U.S.-supported armed rebel groups were 'gangsters and terrorists,' and 'not freedom fighters.' 'STUPID, STUPID FACTS': Hillary Clinton allegedly had blinders on about Libya, prompting generals and a member of Congress to conduct their own secret talks with the Gadhafi regime . Libyan dictator Muammar Gadhafi was captured and killed by rebel leaders backed by the US after Clinton persuaded NATO allies and the UN to suppoort military intervention . COMING UP SHORT: Ohio Democrat Dennis Kucinich was a US congressman when he went ehind Hillary CLinton's back to try to avert military intervention in Libya . 'And now you have NATO supporting them with ships, with airplanes, helicopters, arms, training, communication,' he said in one recorded conversation with U.S. officials. 'We ask the American government send a fact-finding mission to Libya. I want you to see everything with your own eyes.' The stunning story was uncovered by The Washington Times, and fleshed out by interviews with former congressman Dennis Kucinich, the Ohio Democrat who spearheaded the back-channel talks. Seif told Kucinich in one taped call in May 2011 that Clinton's march to war 'was like the WMDs in Iraq. It was based on a false report.' 'Libyan airplanes bombing demonstrators, Libyan airplanes bombing districts in Tripoli, Libyan army killed thousands, etc., etc.,' he said then, 'and now the whole world found there is no single evidence that such things happened in Libya.' Clinton ultimately convinced President Barack Obama, the United Nations and America's NATO allies to green-light military action on the basis of a humanitarian crisis that never materialized, the Times reported Thursday. James Baker, a secretary of state under Presdient George W. Bush, told the newspaper that 'if this story is true, it would be highly unusual for the Pentagon to conduct a separate set of diplomatic negotiations.' Kucinich is a dovish anti-nuclear liberal who never voted in favor of military action during his three terms in Congress, opposed the USA PATRIOT ACT, and once signed a letter of solidarity with Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez. The remarkable thing about his attempts to avert U.S. military action in Libya is the division it indicated in the Obama administration. It also suggests that Clinton was the primary driving force behind America's war footing and later intervention there. 'There was a distortion of events that were occurring in Libya to justify an intervention which was essentially wrong and illegal,' he said. Libya was the one place where Clinton advocated the U.S. bring military muscle to isolate and depose a foreign leader. France's then-president Nicolas Sarkozy, Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain, and current Secretary of State John Kerry have shared that view. Then-Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Joint Chiefs Chairman Admiral Mike Mullen both disagreed since they couldn't confirm what Clinton was telling Congress about conditions on the ground. Clinton is widely expected to enter the 2016 presidential race by the end of the spring. If she runs, her foreign policy record as the United States' top diplomat will make the Benghazi case fair came for attack ads and debate questions . The Times also faults UN Ambassador Samantha Power and National Security Adviser Susan Rice for supporting Clinton by erring on the side of preventing a genocide rather than confirming one was imminent before making the case for war. NO CLEAR POLICY: Former Virginia Sen. Jim Webb criticized the Clinton-Obama Libya policy in 2011, and may run against Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination . GUILT COMPLEX? UN ambassador Samantha Power allegedly was wracked with guilt over the Rwandan genocide and determined to help Hillary Clinton stop another one in Libya – despite the lack of evidence for concern . GRUESOME: Gadhafi was captured, beaten and killed by rebels in his home town of Sirte, Liyba in October 2011 . 'Susan Rice was involved in the Rwanda crisis in 1994, Samantha Power wrote very moving books about what happened in Rwanda, and Hillary Clinton was also in the background of that crisis as well,' University of Virginia international relations professor Allen Lynch told the Times. 'I think they have all carried this with them as a kind of guilt complex.'. The secret recordings also show that on the day the United Nations passed a resolution supporting the use of military force against muammar Ghadafi, Clinton ordered a military general to refuse to take a call with Seif Gadhafi and other high-level regime officials. The call was intended to help negotiate a resolution and avoid bloodshed. Gadhafi called for a cease-fire a day later, but the Obama administration waved it off. Jim Webb, a military veteran and then a Democratic U.S. senator from Virginia, questioned the use of force at the time. 'We have a military operation that's been put to play, but we do not have a clear diplomatic policy or clear statement of foreign policy,' he said then. 'We know we don't like the Gadhafi regime, but we do not have a picture of who the opposition movement really is. We got a vote from the Security Council but we had five key abstentions in that vote.' Webb has been mentioned as possibly preparign to challenge Clinton for the Democrats' 2016 presdiential nomination.
Clinton will face tough questions about her march to war against Muammar Ghadafi if she runs for president .
Phone calls were recorde between Ghadafi's son and US officials, including Rep. Dennis Kucinich, complaining that Clinton's State Dept. was sanitizing intelligence reports to make her case .
She ultimately convinced the UN and NATO allies to back military intervention there, and persuaded President Obama to go along .
Secret phone recordings have revealed that a Democratic member of Congress and top Pentagon leaders went around then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to negotiate with the Libyan regime of Muammar Gadhafi because they were convinced she was hell-bent on taking the U.S. to war. America's intelligence community was conerned that Clinton was sanitizing their reports to make the case for military intervention on the basis of an impending genocide in the port city of Benghazi, even though there was scant evidence that Gadhafi's military was prepared to massacre rebel groups. The U.S. military's Joint Chiefs of Staff dispatched a middle-man in July 2011 to tell the dictator's son, Seif Gadhafi, that internal State Department reports sent to members of Congress were 'just full of stupid, stupid facts.' The younger Gadaffi, later captured after his father's summary execution and now in a prison cell, told the Americans who phoned him behind Clinton's back that many U.S.-supported armed rebel groups were 'gangsters and terrorists,' and 'not freedom fighters.' 'STUPID, STUPID FACTS': Hillary Clinton allegedly had blinders on about Libya, prompting generals and a member of Congress to conduct their own secret talks with the Gadhafi regime . Libyan dictator Muammar Gadhafi was captured and killed by rebel leaders backed by the US after Clinton persuaded NATO allies and the UN to suppoort military intervention . COMING UP SHORT: Ohio Democrat Dennis Kucinich was a US congressman when he went ehind Hillary CLinton's back to try to avert military intervention in Libya . 'And now you have NATO supporting them with ships, with airplanes, helicopters, arms, training, communication,' he said in one recorded conversation with U.S. officials. 'We ask the American government send a fact-finding mission to Libya. I want you to see everything with your own eyes.' The stunning story was uncovered by The Washington Times, and fleshed out by interviews with former congressman Dennis Kucinich, the Ohio Democrat who spearheaded the back-channel talks. Seif told Kucinich in one taped call in May 2011 that Clinton's march to war 'was like the WMDs in Iraq. It was based on a false report.' 'Libyan airplanes bombing demonstrators, Libyan airplanes bombing districts in Tripoli, Libyan army killed thousands, etc., etc.,' he said then, 'and now the whole world found there is no single evidence that such things happened in Libya.' Clinton ultimately convinced President Barack Obama, the United Nations and America's NATO allies to green-light military action on the basis of a humanitarian crisis that never materialized, the Times reported Thursday. James Baker, a secretary of state under Presdient George W. Bush, told the newspaper that 'if this story is true, it would be highly unusual for the Pentagon to conduct a separate set of diplomatic negotiations.' Kucinich is a dovish anti-nuclear liberal who never voted in favor of military action during his three terms in Congress, opposed the USA PATRIOT ACT, and once signed a letter of solidarity with Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez. The remarkable thing about his attempts to avert U.S. military action in Libya is the division it indicated in the Obama administration. It also suggests that Clinton was the primary driving force behind America's war footing and later intervention there. 'There was a distortion of events that were occurring in Libya to justify an intervention which was essentially wrong and illegal,' he said. Libya was the one place where Clinton advocated the U.S. bring military muscle to isolate and depose a foreign leader. France's then-president Nicolas Sarkozy, Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain, and current Secretary of State John Kerry have shared that view. Then-Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Joint Chiefs Chairman Admiral Mike Mullen both disagreed since they couldn't confirm what Clinton was telling Congress about conditions on the ground. Clinton is widely expected to enter the 2016 presidential race by the end of the spring. If she runs, her foreign policy record as the United States' top diplomat will make the Benghazi case fair came for attack ads and debate questions . The Times also faults UN Ambassador Samantha Power and National Security Adviser Susan Rice for supporting Clinton by erring on the side of preventing a genocide rather than confirming one was imminent before making the case for war. NO CLEAR POLICY: Former Virginia Sen. Jim Webb criticized the Clinton-Obama Libya policy in 2011, and may run against Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination . GUILT COMPLEX? UN ambassador Samantha Power allegedly was wracked with guilt over the Rwandan genocide and determined to help Hillary Clinton stop another one in Libya – despite the lack of evidence for concern . GRUESOME: Gadhafi was captured, beaten and killed by rebels in his home town of Sirte, Liyba in October 2011 . 'Susan Rice was involved in the Rwanda crisis in 1994, Samantha Power wrote very moving books about what happened in Rwanda, and Hillary Clinton was also in the background of that crisis as well,' University of Virginia international relations professor Allen Lynch told the Times. 'I think they have all carried this with them as a kind of guilt complex.'. The secret recordings also show that on the day the United Nations passed a resolution supporting the use of military force against muammar Ghadafi, Clinton ordered a military general to refuse to take a call with Seif Gadhafi and other high-level regime officials. The call was intended to help negotiate a resolution and avoid bloodshed. Gadhafi called for a cease-fire a day later, but the Obama administration waved it off. Jim Webb, a military veteran and then a Democratic U.S. senator from Virginia, questioned the use of force at the time. 'We have a military operation that's been put to play, but we do not have a clear diplomatic policy or clear statement of foreign policy,' he said then. 'We know we don't like the Gadhafi regime, but we do not have a picture of who the opposition movement really is. We got a vote from the Security Council but we had five key abstentions in that vote.' Webb has been mentioned as possibly preparign to challenge Clinton for the Democrats' 2016 presdiential nomination.
war. America's intelligence community was conerned that Clinton was sanitizing their reports to make the case for military allies and the UN to suppoort military Dennis Kucinich was a US congressman when he went taped call in May 2011 that Clinton's march to convinced President Barack Obama, the United Nations and America's NATO allies to green-light intervention there. 'There was a distortion of spring. If she runs, her foreign policy record as against muammar Ghadafi, Clinton ordered a