F
or a controversy which has played in so many committee rooms the factual narrative of events in Benghazi seems pretty hard to follow and has been largely subsumed in partisan assumptions. The State Department Accountability Review Board report gives an impressively coherent blow-by-blow of the tragic events at the Special Mission compound; though it fails to mention, by name, the CIA operation it is publicly alleged that the ‘mission’ was largely established to conceal and protect:
The U.S. effort in Benghazi was at its heart a CIA operation, according to officials briefed on the intelligence. Of the more than 30 American officials evacuated from Benghazi following the deadly assault, only seven worked for the State Department. […]
The CIA worked from a compound publicly referred to as the “annex,” which was given a State Department office name to disguise its purpose. The agency focused on countering proliferation and terrorist threats, said an American security contractor who has worked closely with CIA, the Pentagon and State. A main concern was the spread of weapons and militant influences throughout the region, including in Mali, Somalia and Syria, this person said.
Adam Entous, Siobhan Gorman and Margaret Coker – CIA Takes Heat for Role in Libya WSJ 1 Nov 12
Interestingly, if the ARB report is searched by the keyword ‘Annex’ a State Department narrative emerges which seems to confirm the primacy and the security authority of the covert operation:
On June 1, 2011, a car bomb exploded outside the Tibesti Hotel, and shortly thereafter a credible threat against the Special Envoy mission prompted [Ambassador] Stevens to move to the Annex. On June 21, 2011, he and his security contingent moved to what would become the Special Mission Benghazi compound (SMC). […]
Later that afternoon, the Ambassador visited the Annex for a briefing. […]
Later that morning they inspected the area where the individual was seen standing and informed the Annex of the incident. […]
The TDY RSO was also informed of the Cairo compound breach by his Regional Security Officer counterpart in Tripoli and shared the information with colleagues at the Annex. […]
The TDY RSO also alerted the Annex and Embassy Tripoli by cell phone. […]
ODAA Accountability Review Board Report US State Department
And so forth. One sympathises with the authors whom had to construct this and the classified version of the report, which also fails to identify the motive of the attack and cites ‘systemic failures and leadership and management deficiencies’ at the reluctant State Department.
S
o, in spite of earlier withholding information from the public, the media agrees that the CIA was a major actor in the response to the Benghazi tragedy:
WASHINGTON — Security officers from the C.I.A. played a pivotal role in combating militants who attacked the American diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, on Sept. 11, deploying a rescue party from a secret base in the city, sending reinforcements from Tripoli, and organizing an armed Libyan military convoy to escort the surviving Americans to hastily chartered planes that whisked them out of the country, senior intelligence officials said Thursday.
Eric Schmitt – C.I.A. Played Major Role Fighting Militants in Libya Attack NYT 1 Nov 12
The motive, apparently, still eludes us. OK, so what gives? Republicans, predictably, are making as much national security hay out of this as they can reap, but surely they know they are playing in a national security grey area; plenty of them are on precisely the intelligence committees and boards that should have known, and indeed may have funded, whatever it was the CIA was engaged in doing.
As for Democrats, it is pretty hard to assume there is no ‘there’ there when a significant CIA presence was so diligently engaged in some activity well below the radar of current stated policy of the administration. Either way it suggests to me that both parties are distracted in a proxy battle that leaves our foreign policy, covert or otherwise, at the mercy of domestic politics. This is no way to run a modern superpower.
If readers are interested perhaps a next instalment of this diary could explore what is known or credibly alleged about the activities of the CIA in Benghazi at the time and how that might fit in to broader contemporary regional geopolitics in the Middle East. Then it might be possible to provide some credible guesswork on the possible identity and motive of the attackers.
Cross-posted at The Motley Moose
Yes. Of course I’m handicapped by my inability to “think” like a rightwinger or a terrorist.
I too easily overlook how willing Republicans were to sacrifice some of their own during the great bj scandal. But it did set up GWB’s campaign theme to “restore honor and dignity to the White House” a couple years later. Without that would he have had a chance to steal the election?
As far as pre-planned terrorist attacks go, it was pathetic. More like what is seen in mob riots than a calculated attack. Once they breached the gate, they set fires with fuel that was on-site. The street quickly filled with more men (where they came from is undefined), but they stayed in the street and didn’t enter the compound. It did thwart the efforts to reach the compound for the Feb 17 militia that were there within a few minutes.
US SMC staff positioned themselves appropriately for a short standoff with armed terrorists. All of them would have been fine if a fire brigade had rushed to the scene.
Once on the compound, the “terrorists” caught a few of the local security staff, and then beat and released them. 35 to 45 minutes later, they were no impediment to the two vehicles carrying DS from the “annex” to enter the compound.
Have some doubts about what happened at the annex after the SMC staff got there. Firefights with “terrorists” for a few hours, and yet the reinforcements from Tripoli were able to get into the compound and the other two US fatalities occurred after that.
I agree we need to suspend our partisan instincts to proceed with this, as some of the plausible scenarios seem to lead into territory imprudently barged into by Fox when it comes to covert weapons trafficking and so forth; though they seem to have missed that the villains could just as easily have been disgruntled pro-Qaddafi loyalists perpetuating their blood feud with American power.
But as far as “pre-planned terrorist attacks” go one notes that this one seems to have had reconnaissance, taken and held at least one intended objective with locally overwhelming numbers, been supported by heavy weapons and successfully obfuscated their affiliation and identity. All of these things speak to planning, perhaps even with a better than average level of sophistication. They suggest to me tactical infantry familiarity and expertise among, at least, planners and leadership. So I disagree this is merely a ‘mob;’ it was at least led.
However, I would really like to look in to some of those aspects in greater detail and with an open mind. Thanks also for the ARB link; reading the unclassified version is what inspired this diary.
If they had an objective, either to kill US personnel or take them as hostages, they failed. If it was to create havoc and destroy two buildings they succeeded.
Was the departure of both the SMC and CIA staff a goal or just a fortuitous outcome?
I suppose. If they were planning to assassinate the ambassador, say, you’d have to admit they succeeded. Although one would also wonder in that instance how he so narrowly missed rescue. That’s the problem though, unless we have a ‘working’ motive it is problematic analysing the attack and vice versa.
For the assassination scenario I would point out that the Ambassador had only arrived the previous day after a long absence and that his presence was inadvertently revealed at a Council dinner the previous evening. If one was targeting the Ambassador, the only apparent motive that implicates pro-Qaddafi loyalists as perpetrators, than the significance of the date is mere opportunism. The ruse of an anti-American demonstration seems to be a minor theme in a number of the more plausible scenarios.
I think we really need to identify what the CIA was doing as well; in all but the assassination scenario they figure as the more credible target. As you pointed out, their operation was shut down. That is perhaps the most significant outcome and one which should be causing sincere Republicans fitful sleep.
If assassinating the Ambassador had been the objective, wouldn’t they have torched all the buildings as they couldn’t have known which one he would be in? If only to smoke him out as they couldn’t have relied on them to die from smoke inhalation. That scenario also suggests that they wouldn’t have wasted time and fuel torching the security barracks. And if pre-planned wouldn’t they have had some knowledge of the compound layout? At eight acres it was large but there were only four buildings.
That’s a bottom that the rightwingers have no intention of getting to or getting anywhere near. However, it occurs to me that what they could be looking for is evidence that the State/Clinton/Obama screw-up at the SMC led the “terrorists” to the “annex.” So far their battle cry has been four American deaths in Benghazi, leaving the impression that all the deaths occurred at the SMC and not at two different locations and separated by a number of hours.
Consider this: what if SMC security plan included reliance on the deployment of a rapid rescue response team from the annex. One that would be there within ten to fifteen minutes and shoot its way in if need be. Recall the TDY RSO alerted the Annex within a couple of minutes of the breach at the gate. That would have been at approximately 9:45. The TDY RSO saw smoke from the Villa C shortly after 10:00. The team left the Annex at 10:05. The State Dept report doesn’t say when they arrived at the SMC only that they were delayed as they tried to get friendly forces to accompany them. It also doesn’t state when the vehicle carrying the SMC staff left and arrived at the Annex. Only that the Annex team arrived back at the Annex shortly before midnight.
— pause — Isn’t it somewhat extraordinary that State issued such a detailed report on the actions and movements of CIA staff? —
That Time World report has the CIA team arriving 45 minutes (mid-way through their claimed 90 minute firefight) after the Feb 17 Brigade that claimed to have left their compound in five minutes and were at the site within a few minutes. This reported arrival time for the Annex team has credibility because otherwise there is too much time unaccounted for from the Annex departure and return times. (The two compounds were only approximately a mile apart.) So, that means the Annex team didn’t get on the compound until 11:00 give or take ten minutes.
One other thing to note is that while both State and Time reported heavy firefighting throughout most of the attack and rescue, the Time report added:
(Not surprising for those of us the followed in real time the Boston firefights.)
Without covering up anything, the State Department report was written to deflect attention away from the Annex rescue team. State took all the blame and Petraeus’ team was allowed to skate.
And the thanks Obama got for that was what Broadwell went out there and said. Right before the election. So, did Petraeus have to go because Obama finally saw that he is a snake?
Excellent comment on several counts. Firstly, the assassination narrative might include foreknowledge of the layout, the building torched was the one and only safe-haven which might have been known, it had only been recently reinforced and improved.
I agree that State is taking one for the team in terms of accepting responsibility in the ARB report though I am also convinced that the “SMC security plan included reliance on the deployment of a rapid rescue response team from the annex” as you suggest. But State can’t admit that, can they? They certainly go some way toward implying it as I tried to show with the selective quotations posted in the diary.
I will need to think a bit more about your suggestion that the fire-fight was overstated; always a possibility and one I will now be more alert about. It is a bit surrealistic that this all occurred in an up-market suburb; that we would have ninety minute gun battles and ranged mortar attacks seems odd, to be sure. I would be happy to discuss this further as it definitely seems part of the puzzle. That we would have failed to identify the crew doing this seems even harder to believe given a twenty-three person CIA operation in the same city. You would think that kind of thing was right in their wheelhouse.
Identifying the CIA’s mission is a sad duty, I was intending to have a tryin the next instalment of the diary, assuming there was interest but you’ve basically already opened the discussion below. Hard to steer clear of Fox’s boisterous effort as I am forced to think along similar lines.
As for Broadwell, well her statement was total bollocks and I notice it is the one thing the CIA explicitly denied. The whole Petraeus tale seems mind boggling to me as I wrote at the time. I’m going to leave that one for the historians; hard to imagine his scalp would be so easily taken, really, at face value.
Of course the CIA denied Broadwell’s statement. (Denials is what they do about all allegations concerning the agency whether true or false.) However, they were busy constructing a narrative that confirmed what she’d said. That being that the location of the Annex was compromised when the security teams aided the SMC. That the Annex came under fire for a couple of hours after the teams returned. Yet, the bombardment that led to the two DS deaths came hours later after the arrival of the eight Marines sent from Tripoli. (And those guys had a difficult time locating the Annex.) If the Annex cover had been blown earlier, why didn’t the “terrorists” ambush their convoy? Why wait until after they’d entered the compound to resume the firefight?
(wrt the Boston Bombers has forensics confirmed that they exploded two more bombs in the firefight that killed Tamerlan? Plenty of witnesses claimed to have seen those explosions. Also still waiting for forensic confirmation on the death of the MIT officer.)
But not sure what you mean regarding “constructing a narrative that confirmed what she’d said.” If the attackers didn’t know about the Annex how could that have been the target of their attack?
If I knew that there were CIA ops in Benghazi before the revolt, that wouldn’t have been a secret in Benghazi amongst rebels of all persuasions. It does seem that the location of the mission was a closely guarded secret. One that could have been compromised when Stevens as the special envoy relocated there when the hotel became too dangerous and likely played a part in him quickly setting up the SMC.
While not high profile like an embassy, the SMC probably wasn’t much of a secret. However, it wouldn’t have taken much time to figure out that not much was going on there beyond keeping the in person lines of communication open initially to the NTC and after the elections to the local government and there wasn’t even any semi-permanent US staff there. If there’s any validity to what one of the local hired security men told the Time reporter that the “terrorists” didn’t appear to be locals, they wouldn’t have known much at all. And only discovered the SMC late that day by trailing one of the visitors to the compound.
Though knowing there were “CIA ops” and knowing where they were based are not the same, as you point out, although you are right that Stevens himself may have blown the Annex’s cover back in 2011.
I am increasingly open to the suggestion I believe you were making recently that the intensity of the attack has been overstated; a natural reaction on the part of the responsible government agencies given they lost an ambassador. There are just a couple of things which concern me, firstly the duration of the attack. Under normal circumstances I would have expected a generic violent ‘protest’ attack to have dissipated after burning out the SMC; having killed Stevens and Smith by accident or design. And yet this incident drags on over many hours, is renewed, changes target and increases in intensity.
The second thing is the ‘mortar’ attack. I have been operating under the assumption witnesses of the fight where the two CIA SEALs were killed were describing a real mortar attack; with an 82mm, say. But setting up and targeting a mortar is not a trivial task, especially at night. Not saying it can’t be done quickly by experienced crew but it requires some practice and ranging in a mortar is a tricky business which requires an observer in communication. It is arguable that it is difficult in poor visibility, that an observer close enough to correct fall of shot would be at risk themselves; it could, perhaps, have been pre-arranged so that only a minimal correction was required.
But if this ‘mortar’ attack was actually RPGs or grenades a different narrative can be considered. The witnesses of the attack should have known the difference assuming that experienced veterans survived.
The Annex were attacked after the reinforcements from Tripoli reportedly arrived at approximately 5:00 am. It was that attack that killed the two former Seals.
Given the large number of people that quickly began showing up after the SMC gate was breached and I would guess a high number of them armed with guns that they couldn’t resist shooting off, the reported firefights lasting a total of ninety minutes, doesn’t seem odd to me. It’s the extended one at the Annex that is odd.
Didn’t mean to suggest that Stevens blew the cover of the Annex in June 2011 — only that it was a risk that they had to eliminate which they did with the establishment of the SMC.
Yes, I’m agreeing, it is the attack on the Annex which seems to require an explanation; hence my digression about mortars and such. So are we saying the attackers did or did not know the whereabouts of the Annex at the time of the attack on the SMC?
Are we to assume that those that attacked the SMC are the same as those that fired on the Annex the following morning?
If the report from the Annex on how and when the two ex-Seals were killed is correct (and I wouldn’t put any money on that), those attackers had not previously known of the Annex facility. Did they learn of it from being part of the SMC attack group? Observers to that attack and the rescue team? Picked up on it from the alleged midnight firefight at the Annex? Or a tip from the arrival of Marines from Tripoli?
Motive? For this attack can safely exclude protests over the video and Abel-Rahman.
Fair question; though we would be among the first if not. Still it makes sense that there would be a Venn diagram of participants. Who led the attacks seems more to the point. You are asking all the right questions about the Annex attack. I will have a look for more eyewitness accounts of that attack when next time permits.
Let’s not overlook the fact that on Sept 11, team Romney jumped on this:
That was issued seventeen minutes after Clinton’s statement:
The next day Romney was out there lying about what the administration and Cairo embassy said and when they issued statements. Almost as if they had been anticipating a mess that would blow up Obama’s re-election efforts.
It was an embarrassment to all concerned. I feel confident attributing that response merely to the voluminous and convincing catalogue of Romney campaign incompetence.
What is interesting is that so early, and this may be what you mean, the Romney campaign felt confident to take a position, as if someone had said “this is a secret little business they must cover up.” It strikes me as high irony that one plausible activity would be the procurement of heavy weapons and/or ManPADS to entice Syrian insurrectionists away from the jihadi factions. Heaven forfend that Congressional Republicans would be institutionally goading an administration they knew would have to deny such activity while there firebrands line up to demand exactly the same overt policy on the front steps.
It is so them; discouragingly bad faith if not borderline treason. On the other hand I don’t understand the confident expectation of progressives that this is all just going to blow over either.
Whatever the CIA station in Benghazi was up to, I’d put arming Syrian rebels below about a hundred other possibilities.
Weird that Romney’s focus on 9/12 was the statement from the Cairo embassy denouncing the anti-Muslim video.
“…I’d put arming Syrian rebels below about a hundred other possibilities,” from the citation in the diary with emphasis:
Outside of the generic ‘countering threats’ mission the anonymous source is suggesting we were collecting weapons; what are the other ninety-nine problems and this ain’t one?
Probably misinterpreted your comment as referring to the CIA Benghazi station as engaged in securing and shipping arms to Syrian rebels which some seem to think was going on.
My “hundred possibilities” was hyperbole.
Top of my list would be disbursing cash to friendlies and buying back weapons that they distributed early in the rebellion.
Totally agree that “disbursing cash to friendlies and buying back weapons” was top of my list too, though I’m guessing most of the stuff originated in Qaddafi’s own arsenals. But it really isn’t too much of a stretch to imagine those weapons then disappearing into the substantial supply chain of the Syrian rebels; seems to me the burden of proof would be on how they didn’t end up there, under the circumstances.
I’m not saying the CIA was the actually agency of fulfilment, either, though it seems that their ‘arms length’ was pretty short. We do know, however, that there were SA-7s showing up in Syria around that time, by the State Department’s own admission. And according to the NYT article linked to earlier:
Like, right around that time. From there, sadly, we are into the Fox narrative of the Maltese cargo vessel showing up in Turkey and yada-yada. Which, however, it seems actually did happen.
I’m not saying that this is a bad thing, geopolitically, just that progressives may be a little overconfident that there is nothing uncomfortable here for the Obama administration. As I’ve already mentioned I think it is hypocritical in the extreme for Republicans to be making partisan drama out of this. But it doesn’t mean we weren’t doing it either.
Why would they need to route weapons through the Benghazi mission when they have plenty of other installations they can use — many in far less vulnerable locations? Plus it’s not as if there is a shortage of hand-held/carry weapons in the world these days.
For virtually untraceable weapons of all types, including SA-7s and heavy weapons which were in great demand elsewhere. Interestingly, we have the State Department confirming SA-7s were seen in the hands of Syrian rebels in October, though no mention of their origin:
Spokesperson Nuland also, to be fair, explicitly denied that any lethal assistance was provided to Syrian rebels by the US. I would agree there is no definitive proof of this, or even credible specific allegations, beyond the circumstantial evidence offered by Fox. So I appreciate your scepticism in this regard; it is certainly possible weapons rounded up in Libya were sent elsewhere or destroyed.
or Libyan rebels took their weapons with them as they joined up for the fight in Syria.
“Excuse me sir is your SAM check-in or carry-on?” Sorry.
My assumption has always been that such an operation would procure heavy and exotic weapons; if small arms than tons of the stuff not just handfuls. This is what a ‘proliferation’ sensitive scheme would target, at the supply end. It seems to me that we have long since given up on the proliferation of shoulder and side-arms.
I’ve been discounting the arms from Libya facilitated by the CIA to Syrian rebels because it seems to be a hot topic among rightwingers. Leading me to wonder why people that would approve of such an activity be focused on it as a scandal?
Then I stumbled onto this. I’m not familiar with the “Global Research” web publication, but based on a quick check wouldn’t put it on my list for quality reporting. In its favor, it’s not a rightwing CT site. That said, the linked article is curious because it principally relies on a 9/14/2012 Times of London article on arms shipments from Libya to Syria and less importantly a few later WSJ articles. So, it appears that a Murdoch owned paper originated the story. And another Murdoch publication, WSJ, has been keeping it alive. (Oh for the days when the WSJ performed first rate journalism (the opinion section was always a corporate rag).
The timing of that article causes me further doubts as to its veracity.
We are on the same trail. Sadly the trail through the 14th September article, which is behind a pay-wall, leads to the Fox 26 Oct piece which led to a lawsuit against Fox by IHH, a Muslim charity and operator of the named vessel.
Needless to say the IHH is the organisation which organised the Gaza flotilla and has been accused of any number of associations, not least of which with al-Qaeda moneybags, arming Muslims in the Balkans and so forth. So while plausible, again no proof and IHH bona fides largely obscured by overreaction in Congress and US government circles over the Gaza flotilla incident.
So a big question mark there; the compelling evidence seems to be the NYT article from last March which as Arthur pointed out sounded very much like a CIA ‘for the record’ admission. “So we were directing traffic and setting up deals for much of the arms movement while basically staying, slenderly, within the letter of administration policy,” it seemed to admit, “Sue us.”
Why would they do that?
This has a different tone and feel from that of more usual (and despicable) US covert operations. Operations that neither US political party exposes.
I keep getting the nagging feeling that much of this was political and manufactured to discredit Obama just enough to result in an Romney win. 2012 was the first election year when the GOP didn’t overtly pull out the National Security card on 9/11. Finally recognizing that it had quit working for them after 2004. What they needed/wanted was something like Carter’s Tehran hostage crisis. Naive as voters didn’t respond negatively and quickly to Carter over that situation and Carter didn’t exactly mount a robust re-election campaign.
Imagine if that anti-Muslim video had had the same impact as that Danish cartoon. hmm.
This “political and manufactured to discredit Obama” part of the story is worthy of a whole new look, isn’t it? I can’t help but assume that there was leaks to Republicans of aspects of the story which were classified as a strategy for painting the administration into a corner; though it back-fired.
I also can’t help but wonder if the Petraeus story is related somehow; the Empty Wheel article you cited raises a lot of interesting questions. We know from the e-mail leak that Republicans are happy, almost eager, to sacrifice confidentiality for political point scoring.
Great for links and leads but not so good for analysis; sometimes they are on the money but never miss a chance to have a swing at Western imperialism.
The really important milestones this week were on Wall St. with the DOW surpassing 15,000 and CO2 reaching 400. (It was less than 320 back in 1960). The first number guarantees that the second number will continue to rise, how fast and how high are the known unknowns.
Great diary Shaun and same for comments from both!
You know I have been very critical of both Hillary Clinton and Susan Rice throughout Obama’s first term of 4 years. I know it’s hard to change policy on the Hill, but Hillary’s choice of advisors was thoroughbred right-wing.
The early press releases were just stupid as I have written in the days after the attack. Knowing what we know now, the Benghazi compound was not attacked because of Ambassador Chris Stevens. The jihadists of Ansar Al-Sharia knew of the CIA presence and wanted to destroy their influence in Libyan domestic politics.
There are similarities to the Iranian Islamic Revolution in 1979 and the hostage taking of the US Embassy in Teheran, also a CIA intelligence nest.
In the absence of finding the culprits of the attack, it confirms Libya is run by rebel factions according to tribal lines and the central government lacks the capability and power to change that in the short term.
Which card was Hillary Clinton playing by editing the original CIA version of the talking points for Susan Rice. I believe Clinton was willing to take the loss of US lives in Benghazi and not upset the newly elected Libyan leaders. She was way too optimistic in supporting jihadists groups in the overthrow of Gaddafi and wanted to use the same blueprint for Syria and regime change. How stupid can one get after the US support for Afghan muhajideen, Pakistan’s ISI and the Croatian arms pipeline establishing Al Qaeda in Bosnia.
France24 and Libyan witness account of the Benghazi attack
Look, Hillary is not my favourite foreign policy hand either but she seems a decent administrator; I don’t see that she had anything to do with a cover up beyond typical inter-agency ass-covering; which is a solemn duty among career professionals. Seems to me State was ‘taking one for the team’ as far as the CIA is concerned.
But whether you think she is extremely right-wing or not she was merely providing input and administering executive branch policy if and when it came to arming Syrian rebels, if indeed that’s what was going on.
As for Ansar Al-Sharia, it’s clear that is the group most witnesses identified as perpetrating the attack but thereafter it gets a little less obvious just which faction or fraction one is discussing; the Derna mob or the local Benghazi one, whose barracks was subsequently trashed by an angry mob. Looked at in the immediate aftermath there was plenty of conflicting evidence and one became less convinced that the identification was useful or definitive. It is certainly an angle worthy of investigation and there was a recent failed assassination attempt on their leadership. The Derna crew is a nasty piece of work with ties to both Libyan and external al-Qaeda leadership.
But if Fox news is right, let’s say, at face value, and the CIA was facilitating the movement of recovered Libyan weapons to Syria than that could be a motive for a salafist attack only if they were being cut out of the deal at the other end; which ironically aligns them with Saudi and Gulf state aspirations. It’s a messy little business. I have a sneaking suspicion we will only hear about potential suspects post mortem if at all.
Just to expand on my Ansar al-Sharia comments; have a read of this, in which the two leaders of Katibat Ansar al-Sharia in Benghazi (ASB) calmly dispute the accusations:
It seems compelling to me that the leadership of this ‘terrorist’ organisation gave interviews to the Western media (this is just one example) less than a week after the attack. Somehow these don’t seem to be the jihadists we are looking for…
From my France24 link on 12 September 2012!! (see above comment)
“I was out with a few friends yesterday evening around 9 or 10 p.m., when we drove into the area where the consulate is located. All of a sudden, we were caught in a huge crowd, with people seemingly shooting on both sides – at the consulate and from the consulate. But it was hard to tell exactly who was shooting. We quickly managed to get to safety, to an area about 200 metres away from the consulate. My friends and I – who were all Freedom Fighters, or rebels, during the war – wanted to go back and see exactly what the trouble was, so I took my AK-47 from my car. (Today, I remain part of a volunteer brigade that ensures security in Benghazi.)
However, when we tried to get closer to the consulate, we realised that armed Islamist extremists had blocked off the streets. They had automatic rifles, RPGs, and big machine guns mounted on cars. It was obvious they were Islamists due to their long beards. I told them I was part of a security brigade, and asked them to let me through – they refused. A large crowd of civilians had gathered, and many people tried to persuade the Islamists to stop. The Islamists were yelling that they wanted to kill everyone in the consulate. We said, “You know, there are Libyans working in there, too,” but they didn’t care – they said those Libyans should never have agreed to work with Americans. They also claimed that the consulate security fired at them first [Editor’s Note: we are unable to idependently verify this claim] – and I said, well, did you really think it was a good idea to show up to `protest’ with RPGs and automatic rifles?
“This is not what we fought the war for”
We stayed there until the Islamists left, at around midnight. Usually, when any big incident happens in Benghazi, those who are members of brigades receive orders over our talkie walkies from a main call centre. We received no orders. In fact, there was a brigade just down the street, but they stayed away. I was very distraught. This is not what we fought the war for. While I think the video is insulting, and should never have been made, I don’t think violence is the solution.”
Later accounts by Ansar Al-Sharia leaders are deceitful as they won’t volunteer to be targets of US drone attacks.
I’m sure the leaders quoted had their hidden agendas; it seemed to me they even tacitly admitted that some of their rank and file might have participated while betting no one could prove they had. But it didn’t strike me that they had a compelling motive for a premeditated attack; certainly not one that killed a US ambassador.
But I think you may be missing the larger point that Ansar al-Sharia is not a useful identification of the perpetrators in any meaningful sense. Have a read of this and this and see if you feel as confident that identifying the attackers as merely Ansar al-Sharia achieves much in unravelling the motive of the attack.
Incidentally that is an interesting eyewitness account you quoted, though it has me thinking the original notion that the attack was related to the video might have merit. But why attack the special mission compound if not targeting the ambassador? It is a remarkable coincidence that the attack follows so closely on his return to Benghazi after a considerable absence.
If you are confident that they were “knew of the CIA presence and wanted to destroy their influence in Libyan domestic politics” why did they initially attack the special mission compound at all? Was the ‘annex’ known to the militias beforehand? It has been suggested that it was only revealed to them after State Department personnel fell back there, one of the criticisms levelled at the whole operation. These are unanswered questions which relate directly to the question of motive and opportunity.
Sometimes I worry that the critics of American foreign policy are as easily satisfied by banal narratives as the notoriously gullible American public.
From my earlier diary – What’s In A Name?.
Includes the location map of US Mission and the CIA annex.
If you factor in that protests in Cairo for 9/11/2012 were called for by Muhammad Zawahiri in support Abdel-Rahman before the anti-Muslim video surfaced but by 9/11 the rallying cry became the video and not Abdel-Rahman, is it such a stretch that those in Benghazi with ties to Zawahiri wouldn’t respond to the same call? Particularly after the modest success in Cairo.
Your map of the SMC is incomplete — doesn’t include about three acres and two buildings.
It’s in the small print – click on map for version with CIA annex. The photo shown in comment is the Washington Post version.
You write:
I will keep saying this until it finally sinks in around here.
Most “critics of American foreign policy” are part of the notoriously gullible American public. This cannot be stated often enough. Certainly there are some people…yourself , Oui and a few others here, people like Noam Chomsky, etc..who do not swallow whole the pronouncements of most of the leftiness media. We must remember that the CIA…and the entire PermaGov/UniParty system of which it is either a part or actually the boss…is an equal opportunity employer. An equal opportunity owner, in point of fact. Fox News and MSNBC? The Wall Street Journal and the NY Times? The Drudge Report and the Huffington Post? Even centrist entities like CNN and Time Magazine? All owned lock, stock and rotten barrel by various factions of the PermaGov. Think of it as a huge version of the Mafia. There are competing gangs, but they are all engaged in the same sorts of criminal acts, and they cooperate with each other in terms of opposing any attempts at reining them in.
Hell…they have the various mafias beat by a country mile. They’re actually in charge of writing and enforcing the laws that are ostensibly aimed at stopping the criminality in which they are massively engaged.
Station WTFU signing off again.
Sigh.
We do keep trying.
Sigh.
Later…
AG
P.S. By the way…this is not a new paradigm by any means. Monarchies, theocracies, dictatorships, so-called “democracies”…pretty much every governmental system from tribalism on up eventually ends up in the same place. Vast criminal enterprises operating under cover of “legalities” of one kind or another. The only difference here is one of scale. Scale and enforcement methods. The technocracy under which we all now live has found itself in a place where it can simultaneously engage in massive mind-control activities through the media and massive surveillance systems to catch the ones who slip through the smoke and mirrors into a No Lies Zone. Scary, ain’t it? Scary like a motherfucker!!!
But never fear.
The chickens always come home to roost.
Always.
It’s just a matter of time.
The size and scale of what is up here?
Them chickens got a long way to fly.
But they on the way.
Always.
What goes around comes around.
Always and forever.
It’s just a matter of time.
Bet on it.
You had a run-in with his holiness on a few occasions, didn’t you?
Not worth the bother. Too stupid. Or…a troll/mole. Either way…still too stupid. He has the reading comprehension level of a goat.
AG
Eyewitness accounts are rarely accurate. In the broadest outlines, this guy offers nothing new and that he could have easily have heard from others and those wouldn’t have needed to be there. What makes his comments highly suspect is the claim that “Islamists” on the street were armed and wanted to kill all those in the compound. If they were so determined, why weren’t they in the compound firing away? None of the SMC Libyan guards were killed. A few were captured and claimed to have been beaten, but they also claimed to have returned to the compound to assist with the rescue.
I’m also questioning why the CIA was so eager to name Ansar Al-Sharia as the perps and State was reluctant to do so. Given the track record of CIA, it’s best not to rely much on their pronouncements.
Of that particular account is that is was so soon after the attack. I tend to credit it, frankly, and it strongly implicates Ansar al-Sharia personnel in the attack; the notion that the rank-and-file of the Benghazi Ansar al-Sharia may have participated in an attack agitated for by outsiders or a minority should probably be considered. I am also open to suggestions that the Ayman al-Zawahiri call of revenge for the death of Abu Yahya al-Libi was a factor. Or that the infamous film created opportunities for those agitating for violence.
Frankly the whole point of the diary is that the ‘truth’ has been subsumed in domestic politics; no partisan seems to give a fig any more what actually happened.
I don’t.
Until 9:42 there weren’t any people in the street. It wasn’t a “consulate.” And until approximately 11:00 when the Annex team along with their Feb 17 ushers entered the compound, there was no “side” in the compound that was shooting into the crowd.
Yes. Good thing you, Oui, and I are here and not at dKos where they’re busy Glenn Greenwald for supporting a Benghazi investigation. Sometimes the people there are as kneejerk as the baggers.
OK, though he did say “seemingly shooting on both sides” and “consulate” is what it was almost universally called for the first fortnight of coverage. I found the spectator casualness of the whole event interesting, “A large crowd of civilians had gathered, and many people tried to persuade the Islamists to stop.”
At least it gives us a definite time for the first attack to break up, “We stayed there until the Islamists left, at around midnight.” And it establishes another compelling fact, if accurate, that response to and discussion of the attack was absent from the militia radio net at least before midnight. That’s an interesting clue which is relevant to the leadership context and the disputed mobilisation status of the 17th brigade.
That would mean that the “Islamists” were there when the Annex team arrived, the ARSO and ROC team left, and the Annex team left. (Recall that the Annex team was the last to evacuate and were back at the Annex before midnight.) So, then just as the crowd in the street moved onto the compound and began looting, this armed casual observer leaves. Also recall that it was someone among those that moved onto the compound after the Yanks left that found Stevens’ body and had him moved to the hospital.
Should add that in a chaotic situation, I wouldn’t expect quality witness reports. However, I also wouldn’t expect that “Islamists” determined to kill or injure Americans and destroy US property to hang around outside a breached compound for a couple of hours. Shooting off their guns at what? Was anyone shot during the melee?
Whaddaya mean, “sometimes?”
AG
Others seem to have noticed that the CIA needs to answer some questions. Why did it take this long for others, who presumably have been looking at this issue for more than the past three days as I have, to notice that there were likely CIA screw-ups?
The ARB not only didn’t disclose that but accepted responsibility for not having vetted more thoroughly.
I recall reading this in the ARB too:
I have come to see the attackers as a heterogeneous group with perhaps a few core cohorts and leaders.
Don’t recall that from the ARB. Only this:
Seemed to me State was trying to make a point here:
A bad look and consistent with State’s hints they weren’t ultimately responsible for security at either site.
As I said in some other comment, the ARB is a very cleverly and well-written document. Probably worth another and more careful read.
and it’s excellent — Marcy at Empty Wheel in Benghazi Talking Points: Petraeus’ Revenge
That’s brilliant. That’s kind of what I was writing the diary about but so much better:
Exactly. I thought her further claims insightful:
Pretty much. Ironically, for all the heat it sheds not much light on what actually happened in Benghazi, besides confirming the general outlines of the ass-covering by various agencies.
Libya protests prompt U.S. to evacuate diplomats, put troops on alert
While we’re arguing over something happening last year Libya started falling apart:
Conjures up closing scenes from ‘Lawrence of Arabia’ for me; sigh. I’ve always thought disgruntled Qaddafi loyalists had a strong motive for causing angst for the US but this seems to err on the side of revolutionism.
Didn’t everyone know that the battlefield rebels were made up of Islamists, some veterans of AQ operations, and the monarchist loyalists?
An annex to me are buildings next door to main mission building which was torched and where Amb. Stevens died. From this account, there was a CIA base about a mile away as agents gathered Libyan militant fighters for a rescue mission. In the last bold phrase, this seems to be faulty: safety of their base, officials gave called an annex.
Good finds.
It’s possible the CIA mission was named “Annex” before the SMC was established.
“They rushed” is a overstatement considering that it took them at least 50 minutes from the first notification to arrive at the compound a mile away. By that time, Stevens and Smith were dead.
Curious that if they were assembling to evacuate the CIA mission as early as 2:00 am that the second evacuation plane was so slow in getting to the Benghazi airport. The first plane departed at 7:30. Amb Stevens body arrived at the airport at 8:45. No times are given for the arrival and departure of the second plane at Benghazi, only its arrival at Tripoli at 11:30.
The ARB says that the first attack on the Annex began shortly after the team returned from the SMC which was shortly before midnight. But both reports are written to make us accept that the mission location was compromised by the rescue team sent to the SMC. Yet, the attack that killed Woods and Doherty occurred after the team from Tripoli arrived at the Annex (approx 5:00 am). (The ARB places Woods and Doherty on the roof.) The claim that the attackers laid in wait before mounting the second attack grants them knowledge that they couldn’t have had — such as that the Annex was to be evacuated and a rescue team from Tripoli was on the way. Then the attackers let the Tripoli team enter the Annex unmolested. Strange.
All 30 Americans in SMC and annex where evacuated to the second compound, that’s where the 2nd attack with mortars took place that killed Doherty and Woods.
The second compound was the “Annex.”
On the night of the attack, there were only seven Americans at the SMC. Four ARSOs, one TDY TOC, Smith, and Stevens. Smith had arrived a week earlier and two of the other five arrived with Stevens. Don’t recall that a precise figure has been given for the number at the Annex but thirty seem to be a reasonable estimate.
I have no doubt!! The newspapers hid this fact from the public. Read the srticle at the whole affair of evacuation to the CIA villa “a mile” away starts to make sense. Problem is, annex and second villa are interchanged.
Don’t know about the early reporting and what bloggers were attempting to suss out from Google maps, but read the transcript from a State Department (Nuland?) public briefing to describe the compound, the speaker stressed that there was no Villa A on the compound and reporters should just deal with that. The ARB suggests where some of that initial confusion came from because there was a Villa A when the SMC was established in 2011. In January 2012 the thirteen acre compound that Stevens had leased was reduced to eight acres and Villa A was gone. (cost cutting?)
Strangely enough, the more I know the less inclined I am to see it as a pre-planned terror attack. And some of what has been disclosed sounds more like CYA for the CIA than actual events.
The ARB refers throughout to the Annex as the distant compound.
Interesting point, “both reports are written to make us accept that the mission location was compromised by the rescue team sent to the SMC.” While looking for eyewitness accounts of the Annex attacks, which are pretty thin on the ground I must say, I stumbled on this, which while hearsay, raises an interesting question:
There really isn’t much I’ve found in the way of eyewitness testimony of the Annex attacks except the tale of the two SEALs repeated endlessly and this:
That also seems to suggest that the Libyans weren’t taking this all very seriously at first, either. Does this fit into your time-line?
Inconsistent with the ARB which has the team from Tripoli arriving at the Annex at approximately 5:00 am and Woods and Doherty being shot after the Tripoli team arrived. Granted the ARB was based on what they were told by those present, but what reason would those people have for changing the timeline? Particularly when the narrative would be stronger if the shootings had taken place before the Tripoli team arrived.
With the ‘CIA time-line’ released to the media in November 2012:
Yet our friend Faruq seems to have been in the militia leadership; is it possible that he just was using a different time zone or setting locally than the official time-line? DST changed in Libya on 10 November 2012 and they are UTC +2.
He differs by more than an hour. See below.
Reading between the lines, would guess that Ubben was one of the two security officials that accompanied Stevens to Benghazi and was one of the three ARSOs that took cover in either Villa B or the TOC until they could get to Villa C and search for Smith and Stevens and in the first vehicle evacuated to the Annex. If he was injured after 5:00 am that meant that he’d been on high alert for over seven hours. Combining that with severe injuries, his recollections would be weak. The delay in getting medical attention was because the hospital in Benghazi wasn’t considered safe and it took time to get to Tripoli.
Looked back through the ARB and Time reports and abstracted the timelines:
Time:
ARB (reported being fired upon at the Annex beginning shortly before midnight)
Neither chose to report more complete timelines. And I clearly erred in stating the ARB had the Tripoli team arriving at Benghazi airport at 2:00. The Libyan security official’s report sounds a bit self-serving; so have to factor that in.
The C-130 seems a bit large to evacuate the remaining Americans, but perhaps that was all the Libyan government could come up with on short notice. And that suggests to me that the decision to evacuate/abandon the Annex was made after 5:00 am. Or perhaps I’m naive and it was truly impossible to get another plane to Benghazi before 10:00 with more than five hours notice. But then how to explain why the two US Air Force planes (one also a C-130) sent from Germany to Tripoli, didn’t take off with the evacuees until 7:15 pm? (Flight time from Tripoli to Ramstein was three hours and fifteen minutes.)
Not surprisingly the CIA ‘time-line’ released 1 Nov 2012 agrees almost exactly with the ARB account:
Agree that Furuq, the Libyan Shield group leader, had an agenda; though his tale isn’t very well thought out if he was trying to gloss Libyan delay and irresolution, that the Libyan militia put a stop to the whole thing within minutes makes one wonder what they were doing throughout the rest of the entire night. It also seems to imply that the attackers were on the Libyan militia radio net.
It seems that ‘who’ the attackers were is not as simple as it seems; personnel from Ansar al-Sharia, sure, but on a seemingly voluntary ad hoc basis, perhaps excluding some if not all of the formal Ansar al-Sharia leadership, as evidenced by their own denials. Denials confirmed to a degree by their remaining openly in Benghazi afterwards, giving interviews rather than on a flight to Guantánamo.
We also have witnesses of hectoring of the attackers at the SMC, Libyan rent-a-guards roughed up but surviving, the Annex rescue team reaching “a chaotic intersection” of armed militia a few blocks from the SMC where, in spite of rallying three volunteers, it is unclear if the rest are friendly, enemy or indifferent.
It all seems pretty ambiguous and unstructured to me; I can see where Ayman al-Zawahiri’s martyrdom call and even the Innocence of Muslims controversy might have been a factor in revving up some local Ansar militiamen to serious mischief. But the death of the ambassador, unless accidental, and the later attack on the Annex seem to be a different context altogether.
I’m inclined to consider the death of Ambassador Stevens accidental, at this point, but starting to think that the Annex attack was almost an entirely separate action with different motives and potentially different actors. Unless, of course, the rescue team killed some popular chap or offended the dignity of some Ansar contingent on their way in or out of the SMC. Then I could see them calling for reinforcements and following the Americans to the Annex for another wee hours attack. Do we actually know anything about casualties among the attackers? I wasn’t aware of any, frankly, which tends to cast a little shadow over the “intense fire-fight” narrative.
And where the hell was the rest of the militia this whole time? Not home in bed if they arrived with fifty vehicles worth at 6AM, surely.
Was that a CIA leak to Ignatius?
Similar but there are differences. The ARB is less definitive as to times. Probably because they were somewhat boxed in by what the CIA had released and were unable to verify/confirm the CIA times. However, the ARB is precise as to the earliest time the events could have begun – “Just prior to receiving the TDY RSO’s distress call shortly after 2142 local” — so, 10:40 is inaccurate. Not a big deal, but… “The DS vehicle then proceeded to the Annex, arriving around 2330 local” — but left the SMC at 11:15 according to the CIA timeline. Then there’s the CIA vehicle that took six minutes to travel the mile between the SMC and Annex.
The ARB has the “DCM” in the Tripoli Embassy working the phones to get a plane and response team to Benghazi – that would have been Gregory Hicks. Maybe Hicks would have been less disgruntled if the ARB had credited the actions to CIA staff instead of him.
As Doherty was a member of the Tripoli response team now get why the attack on the Annex couldn’t have happened before 5:00. Surprising that the response team was all CIA — unless the two military personnel were only assigned to the CIA that evening.
The Annex seems not to have had much more security personnel than the SMC given that the SMC ARSO guys (likely excluding ARSO 1 that had inhaled all that smoke) were used to protect the Annex. Granted the unarmed Blue Mountain guys at SMC were fairly worthless, and the three Feb 17 guys weren’t much better, but the security detail total was twelve plus the SSC police patrol.
FWIW from GQ
The CIA ‘released’ the time-line to all media outlets but none of them published it in full; Ignatius’ version was the most detailed I could find.
Say I hope you don’t mind but I intend to use some of your links for the next instalment, which I will also post elsewhere. Do you have any objection or preferences regarding acknowledgement? How would you like to be referred to elsewhere than at Booman Tribune, just a link to your user account here?
Business as usual.
This was just another reminder that effective peace-makers meet an untimely death, no matter how widely beloved.