Benghazi Controversies
The attack on the US Mission in Benghazi was striking for a number of reasons: the date, 11 September, the toll – four diplomats killed, including an ambassador – and the conflicting reports by senior American politicians like the House of Representatives, the Senate, the Department of State, the White House, the FBI, and the CIA.
Talking Points
If you think my version of this is inconsistent, just follow with the versions that came out of the many different government and media reports. The US government version of events compared with those of witnesses and the facts on the ground document the discrepancies. Four years later, there remain pressing questions about what happened that night – and what the Americans say happened.
Susan Rice, U. S. Ambassador to the UN was appointed to deliver our government’s rendition of the attack on the Sunday talk shows September 16, 2012. She appeared on five shows and used a set of talking points to guide her answers to questions. This became a huge controversy as the events went on.
Rice would spend much time on the Sunday talk shows pointing to Utube video Innocence of Muslims, as the trigger of the chaos in Benghazi.“
The revelations about exactly how the talking points were written, revised, and then embellished come amid renewed scrutiny of the administration’s handling of Benghazi.
President Obama spoke several times about the Benghazi attack:
The full statement is below.
“I strongly condemn the outrageous attack on our diplomatic facility in Benghazi, which took the lives of four Americans, including Ambassador Chris Stevens. Right now, the American people have the families of those we lost in our thoughts and prayers. They exemplified America’s commitment to freedom, justice, and partnership with nations and people around the globe, and stand in stark contrast to those who callously took their lives….”
“On a personal note, Chris was a courageous and exemplary representative of the United States. Throughout the Libyan revolution, he selflessly served our country and the Libyan people at our mission in Benghazi. As Ambassador in Tripoli, he has supported Libya’s transition to democracy. His legacy will endure wherever human beings reach for liberty and justice. I am profoundly grateful for his service to my Administration, and deeply saddened by this loss.”
A challenge to official version of events
What really happened remains a mystery. Here is a summary based on eye-witness accounts, official reports, and the evidence left in the ruins of the compound.
6:43am, September 11, 2012
Staff at the US mission in Benghazi woke on 11 September to the sight of a Libyan policeman, deployed to guard them, filming the compound from a neighboring rooftop. When challenged, he vanished. Later, an unmarked car made lazy circles around the compound, a walled redoubt rented in the southern suburbs of the Libyan city.
Staff members reported that no unusual events occurred that day. Ambassador Stevens met with a Turkish visitor at the end of the day, 8:30 pm and said that no unusual activity was apparent at that time, which was 42 minutes prior to the initial assault.
Earlier in the day, news came in of attacks on the US embassy in Cairo, a response to a film, the Innocence of Muslims, released in America which mocked Muhammad. The CIA sent a cable to its foreign stations warning of possible copycat incidents.
The anniversary of the 9/11 attacks also preyed on the minds of compound staff in Benghazi. At least one man inside the compound was anxious. Sean Smith, the information management officer killed in the attack who was accompanying the ambassador on the Benghazi visit from Tripoli, emailed a friend: “Assuming we don’t die tonight. We saw one of our ‘police’ that guard the compound taking pictures.” Hours later, he was dead.
9:30 pm September 11, 1012
Witnesses in a restaurant across from the main gate of the mission, reported that two militia jeeps parked near the gate bore the black banner of a local Islamist militia, Ansar al-Sharia. The militiamen made no attempt to hide. Neighbors reported the presence of two 4X4s blocking streets leading to the compound.
“There were eight to twelve guys, just hanging around, by the gate,” one diner said. “They had guns and appeared to be just waiting. About ten minutes later there were these booms from over the other side (of the compound). The gate came open and this guy put his head out and they shouted at him, get back inside.”
Most of the wall running around the compound was 8ft. high. The rear wall had no wire. Two days after the attack the landlord showed the Guardian where attackers had scrambled over. “It was easy for them,” he said.
9.42
The diners across from the main gate heard muffled explosions from the far side of the compound. The militiamen outside readied their weapons. The metal gate opened and an unarmed Libyan guard put his head out. One of the militiamen ordered him back inside. The guard pulled the door closed. After a few moments, the militiamen opened fire.
Gunmen got into the compound by walking up to a small guard’s cabin by the front gate, jamming a gun in the face of an unarmed Libyan guard and demanding he open up.
On the monitor at the communications hub known as the tactical operations center (TOC), an agent from diplomatic security service (DSS), the state department’s security force, saw the front gate open, armed men streaming through, and Libyan guards running for their lives. He activated the alarm.
Five DSS agents (security) were in place, more than the recommended three. Another five unarmed Libyan guards and three armed militiamen from the February 17 brigade were also on duty.
In the preceding months Ambassador Stevens had cabled three times (7 June, 9 July, and 15 August) asking for more protection or that plans to draw down security be halted, according to the House oversight report. The US mission had been struck twice by homemade bombs thrown at the outside wall. The State Department had rejected the request.
On 15 August, Stevens cabled Washington to say that security in Benghazi was left dangerously exposed. He worried that February 17 (the armed militia at the Mission was becoming unreliable: a dispute over payment by the embassy meant the brigade’s militiamen no longer guarded convoys outside the compound. In addition, the police officers supposed to guard the mission were often late. “Many hours pass when we have no police support at all”, he wrote.
The Pentagon’s regional headquarters, Africa Command, based in Stuttgart, Germany, offered to send soldiers to fill the gap, but Stevens declined, according to an official review of the incident. The result was that on the night of 11 September dozens of attackers were surging through the main gates, ranged against a force of five DSS agents.
There are questions over the readiness of this small security detail. Four of the agents were with Stevens as the attack happened, while the fifth was in the TOC. In the event the outside wall was breached, the procedure was to take position at the sandbagged emplacements. But three of the four agents with Stevens had left their rifles, helmets and body armor in the accommodation block, according to the official review by the accountability review board, ordered by former secretary of state Hillary Clinton. Standard procedure for the US army in hostile deployment is for weapons to be carried at all times, even on trips to the bathroom. Why the DSS agents did not have a similar rule is unclear.
They sprinted across the compound to the accommodation block to get their weapons while the remaining agent, who had his rifle, hustled Stevens and Smith inside. By the time the other three had their weapons, attackers were around the villa blocking their path. They retreated, locking themselves into safe rooms in the barracks and TOC, along with the agent already there. With only one DSS agent at the villa, the plan for all-round defense was no longer possible.
9.50
Inside the compound, the attackers set fire to the guard house near the gate and others rushed to the villa. A rocket-propelled grenade slammed into the lintel above the front doors, jarring them open, and gunmen rushed inside. The lone DSS agent led Stevens and Smith into a final place of refuge, the “safe haven”, and locked the gate. Gunmen, unable to penetrate the refuge, dragged furniture outside and threw it into the pool. Others wrecked the villa interior, poured fuel on the floor and set it alight.
The safe haven was a walled-off section of the villa constructed with sturdy doors to provide a final refuge in the event the villa was stormed.
The safe haven, constructed in the spring, had a serious flaw. The door to the haven was not solid metal, but a gate of thick steel bars, secured by two locks. Its obvious disadvantage was that it offered no protection against smoke should the villa be set on fire.
10:15
In minutes the villa was blazing fiercely, filling the safe haven with smoke. The DSS agent led Stevens and Smith to an escape hatch in the wall. He tumbled out to the patio outside, only to find the diplomats had not followed. He returned to hunt for them, but was forced back by the smoke. Finally, gasping for breath, he clambered up a ladder to the roof where he phoned his DSS comrades.
The other DSS agents, meanwhile, were locked in the two safe rooms built in the TOC and barracks. The attackers entered the buildings, ransacked each and set them on fire, but did not penetrate the safe rooms.
On the roof of the villa, the agent, his voice hoarse from smoke inhalation, phoned his comrades and told them the situation. The four agents broke out of their safe rooms and met him. Nearby was a white armored 4X4 which the attackers had not wrecked. The location of the attackers was not clear. The agents were able to get into the vehicle, start the engine and drive the short distance across the compound to the blazing villa. Here, they too went into the safe haven to look for the diplomats, but were driven back by the smoke.
State department accounts say the agents were under prolonged fire throughout their ordeal, with battle raging in the compound grounds. “There is considerable firing going on outside,” one spokesman briefed journalists. “There are tracer bullets. There is smoke … there are explosions. I can’t tell you that they were RPGs, but I think they were RPGs. So there’s a lot of action going on.”
The testimony of heavy fighting is hard to reconcile with the lack of bullet holes in the buildings. The villa’s sandy walls are still blackened by the smoke from the fire, but there are few bullet marks here or on the other buildings, nor are there spent casings visible, at least on the paths and asphalt. The front gate has no sign of damage except two bullet holes. The only sign of heavy firing is at the rear gate, with holes from 23 rounds fired into the compound and six fired out. This gunfight is not mentioned in accounts made public. From the time of the attack to the time they were summoned, four of the five DSS agents were in hiding.
10.25
A six-strong force of Americans with 40 friendly militiamen fought their way through to the compound from a second US base (CIA annex) a mile away. At 10.50pm the message “firing has stopped” was sent to Washington.
At the villa, the new force of Americans met the five DSS agents, suffering from smoke inhalation, and got into the safe haven through the escape hatch. They found the body of Smith and dragged it out. Stevens was still missing.
The compound was now clear of attackers and the reinforcements took charge, ordering the five DSS agents to leave. Outside the compound their 4X4 was ambushed, bullets slamming into the bodywork and shredding two tyres, but they made it to the second compound. The new force spent 15 minutes hunting for Stevens before deciding they were too few of them in the event of a new attack. At 11 pm they abandoned the site with Stevens still inside the villa.
According to the Accountability Review Board report, compiled by senior intelligence and state department officials, the relief force are “US personnel” and their base an “annex” to the mission. Charlene Lamb, the state department official responsible for embassy security, testified that the reinforcements were a “quick-reaction team stationed nearby”.
The second base was a CIA facility, according to Frank Wolf, a US congressman who represents the district that contains CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia.. It operated independently from the Mission, and its staff of between 22 and 26 agents dwarfed that of the Mission, and its normal complement of two diplomats.
It was these agents who formed the force that battled into the compound and took charge. Yet the term “CIA” did not appear once in the otherwise minutely detailed unclassified version of the accountability review board report.
The bigger question, so far unanswered, is what the CIA was doing in Benghazi. Neither the accountancy review board, the state department nor half a dozen congressional committees investigating the death of Stevens have made any public comment on the role of the CIA; nor have congressional committees tasked with performing the role of scrutinizing the government on behalf of the electorate.
00.00 September 12
Shortly after the CIA and DSS units arrived at the CIA base, it came under rocket attack. The occupants braced themselves for an assault. Meanwhile, seven embassy and CIA staff in Tripoli chartered a plane and flew to Benghazi, to be met by February 17 militia who escorted them across town to the CIA base. They arrived at 5 am.
Minutes later, the CIA annex came under mortar attack. The first bomb fell beyond the walls, but the attackers then “walked” the shells into the compound. Two shells exploded on the roof, killing two CIA security contractors, Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods. A third man was wounded.
At dawn, reinforcements from February 17 and the Libyan police arrived at the base. They escorted the Americans to the airport for evacuation to Tripoli.
The lack of bullet marks on the walls of the facility does not square with reports that it was assaulted. Rockets were fired at one wall, and mortar bombs struck the roof, suggesting the firing was opportunistic and from a distance, rather than an attempt to overrun the CIA compound.
00.15
When the CIA team abandoned the Mission, crowds of local men, who were gathered at the edge of the fighting, moved inside. The fires had died down and they gingerly explored, finding the unsecured window into the safe room. Inside they found Stevens, lying in shirtsleeves on the floor. A video, timed at quarter-past midnight, shows them carrying the ambassador outside on to the patio. Bystanders discuss getting him to hospital.
“Bystanders” put Stevens into a private car. A wounded Libyan guard was located and put into a second car. The two cars raced to the city’s main casualty hospital, Benghazi Medical Center. Medics could not imagine the ambassador would be left unguarded, nor that, if he were missing, no official would try to contact the hospital. He was taken inside and doctors worked for 90 minutes to revive him. He was then declared dead.
Only in the morning, with US officials being evacuated to the airport, did Americans go to the hospital, to be given Stevens’ body. Pictures of the dead ambassador uploaded by Libyans spread across the internet.
Conclusions
Inconsistent versions of the events of the night of September 11, 2012 became the hallmark of what is now known as the Benghazi Attack. This blog revises the events of the attack based on new information and further studies and analysis of what happened. Reports are still coming in and I intend to compare Britain Street Blog conclusions with those contained in the House of Representatives report which should come out in a month or two from May 2016. My blog will cost a lot less, like about $7 million less but it might be just as accurate. We’ll see.
The Benghazi attack soon became a political football divided along political parties, Republicans criticizing Democrats about the events leading up to the Attack, the details of the Attack and the Aftermath of the Attack.
Susan Rice was assigned to appear on TV talk shows to present the government’s view of the attacks, Sunday morning, September 16, 2012. She had a list of talking points to help her stay on five shows. These talking points became the centerpiece of controversy for the next four years.
The Attack started about 9:30 p.m. which was just about twilight in Benghazi at that time of year. Witnesses in a restaurant across the street from the main gate of the mission were watching as men with weapons began to gather outside the main gate.
The number of men in the attack was estimated at between 20 to 150. Several pickup trucks were there carrying men and blocking off the street.
The attack started at 9:42 and within a few minutes the attackers were inside the gates or over the fence and the Mission was on fire.
Ambassador Stevens and Sean Smith, an IT officer, were led into the so-called safe room where they were killed by smoke inhalation.
Officials in the CIA Annex, Tripoli, Washington, and Stuttgart, Germany were notified of the attack.
So-called “bystanders” found Stevens alive in a safe-room of the Mission. They transferred him to a trauma hospital in Benghazi where he was pronounced dead. Sean Stevens was found dead in the safe-room at the mission.
About 5 a.m. the attack began again with mortars shelling the CIA annex a mile away from the Mission. Two more Americans were killed by mortar fire.
Almost everyone agrees that security for the State Department mission was too lax. Republicans blame Secretary Clinton for the short coming. Republicans blame Clinton for not having military or other reinforcements on site to try to save the lives lost. Most people ask why the CIA was there and why the Annex was a mile away. Some people believe the U.S. was using Benghazi as headquarters to manage the distribution of weapons into Syria to support the Assad regime rebels.
My opinion is that security was too lax but the CIA was doing what it is designed to do and it may well have been appropriate for them to try to get weapons to Syria to oust Assad. Maybe not. We will look at the Accountability Review Board next.
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