I’m quite critical of these partisan House hearings and I can’t grasp the errors made in the testimony by Gregory Hicks. I hate it when a guy gets so emotional he chokes up and tears while giving testimony about the attacks. He refers to twitter accounts as a claim he knew that night it was a terror attack executed by Ansar Al-Sharia. He also stated the [El Jala] hospital where Ambassador Stevens was take was run by this terror group. This is not the information I wrote about in the days after the attacks on our Benghazi mission. The district in Benghazi where the mission was located and the responsibility for the local hospital was a militant group 17th February Martyrs Brigade. Fighters from this group were also hired by Amb. Stevens to protect the US Consulate. On essentials, the testimony by Hicks is lacking insight and facts about the mission. Highly contentious, serving a partisan debate.
Former US official describes Libya attack
WASHINGTON (AP) — A former top diplomat in Libya described a 2 a.m. call from Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton during the deadly assault on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, and amid confusion about the fate of U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and fears about the safety of additional American personnel.
“She asked me what was going on and I briefed her on developments. Most of the conversation was about the search for Ambassador Stevens,” Gregory Hicks, the former deputy chief of mission in Libya, told the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. “It was also about what we were going to do with our personnel in Benghazi [Hicks misspoke here as he was busy evacuating his personnel in Tripoli – Oui] and I told her we would need to evacuate and she said that was the right thing to do.”
“About 12:30 at the same time that we see the Twitter feeds that are asserting that Ansar Sharia is responsible for the attack, we also see a call for an attack on the embassy in Tripoli. And so we begin to – we — we had always thought that we were in — under threat, that we now have to take care of ourselves and we began planning to evacuate our facility. When I say our facility, I mean the State Department residential compound in Tripoli, and to consolidate all of our personnel in — at the annex in Tripoli. We have about 55 diplomatic personnel in the two annexes.”
Haltingly, Hicks recounted “the saddest phone call in my life” — getting word from a Libyan official that Stevens had been killed.
The politically charged hearing on the Sept. 11, 2012 attack is the latest in a long-running and bitter dispute between the administration and congressional Republicans who have challenged the White House’s actions before and after the deadly assault, in which Stevens and three other Americans died.
Lawmakers partisan, witnesses emotional in Benghazi hearing
(Yahoo – The Ticket) – His voice choked to a hoarse whisper, a former top diplomat in Libya walked lawmakers step by step through the harrowing Sept. 11, 2012, terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya, and the moment he learned the extremists had killed U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens.
Stevens had gone missing and was thought to be in a hospital held by extremists hostile to the United States, Gregory Hicks, the former deputy chief of mission in Libya, told the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
At 3 a.m., according to Hicks, Libya’s prime minister called. “I think it’s the saddest phone call I’ve ever had in my life,” Hicks said softly but clearly. “He told me that Ambassador Stevens had passed away. I immediately telephoned Washington that news afterwards.”
Hick’s recollections were not the only emotional moment in the early part of the hearing. Eric Nordstrom, a former regional security officer in Libya, teared up and his voice broke as he told the packed committee room that he wants the full story to come out. “It matters,” he said. “It matters.”
Lawmakers holding the contentious session listened quietly. But in the opening moments of the hearing, they had wasted no time before trading partisan barbs–accusing each other of dark political motives, bad faith and just plain making stuff up.
Whistle-blower: Special forces could have saved Americans in Benghazi
Republicans have an issue, fabricated or otherwise, that pushes all the right buttons and not only implicates the incumbent but the presumed nominee. To Obama’s credit he has leveraged Bush’s Iraq debacle into a general revival of Democratic foreign affairs and national security chops; that Republicans would cling grimly to whatever opportunities they have to reverse this trend is predictable.
Your comments regarding the accuracy of Hicks account is interesting; on the other hand I fail to hear anything scandalous in his testimony either. So if that’s the best they’ve got it is back to stem-winding the issue on Fox.
Having said that, this quote from the citation in Booman’s front-page diary seems suggestive, “[The U.S. intelligence community] came up with the best assessment without compromising classified information or source or methods. So changes were made to protect classified information.”
Right. Partisan preferences aside it has always struck me that Republicans were playing with fire here; that the presence of the CIA, the weapon ‘buy back’ scheme, the meetings with the Turkish ambassador and even Stevens presence at the Benghazi consular office all concurring creates some doubt there isn’t more to this story.
I realise this assumption runs exactly counter to my comments regarding the Hariri assassination, where I asserted that motive was insufficient to overcome reasonable doubt, but in this case it seems, from the statement quoted above, that there was something going on that remains off the public record.
Perhaps some covert arms deal for Syrian insurrectionists, Libya abounds with untraceable weapons and shifting them to rebels could have been seen as a ‘win-win.’ Or it may be some more prosaic intelligence catastrophe; with the ambassador as unintended collateral damage. In a less partisan atmosphere we may have been told by now; as it is Republicans are preventing any rational assessment of the circumstances or policy, if any, underlying the incident.
Here’s an article from the Times which alleges complicity of the US government in arms shipments of heavy weapons to Syrian insurrectionists but stops just short of saying the CIA actually provided or sold the weapons:
It even asserts that the shipments “expanded into a steady and much heavier flow late last year, the data shows.” Was the CIA directly involved in arms trafficking? Well, that’s a matter of the fine print, isn’t it? I realise this suggestion puts me in the same category as Rand Paul and Glenn Beck but there it is.
“The C.I.A. declined to comment on the shipments or its role in them!!!???”
This is a “C.I.A.-approved ” comment. Were it not so, either the Times would not print it and/or the source would be permanently silenced posthaste.
“American officials speaking on the condition of anonymity?”
Riiiiight…
And the Game Of Thrones continues.
AG
So why did the CIA approve that comment?
It’s a game of mirrors, Shaun. “Why” is out of reach short of sheer guesswork. What we must understand just for starters is that nothing we are told about anything having to do with real power is true. Nothing whatsoever. Not regarding politics, not regarding foreign affairs, not regarding the financial world, not even regarding the culture. The people occupy the lowest rung of the information scam, and I can tell you “why” about that.
Control.
Pure and simple.
Control.
Now…the controllers have many different reasons for their need to control, if indeed any of us actually possess what we laughingly call “reason.” There are many views of the human being that revolve around the idea that we are all asleep; that we can actually “do” nothing whatsoever; that we are are operating totally on automatic….the controlled and the almost all of the controllers as well. Evidence of this? Sure. How many major controllers get caught with their pants down and bust out of the control sphere? Think Bill Clinton for a truly famous example of this. Out of control of his own dick. Anthony Wiener. John Edwards. Eliot Spitzer. The list is endless. The best of the control types believe that human beings must be “controlled” in some way; that civilization itself would collapse without some sort of control mechanism. The worst of them? Simple greed. Greed for power, for wealth…for control.
Whatever the reasons…the fact remains that secrecy at the top of the control pyramid has been a fact of human existence over the entire history of humanity. Secrecy enforced by lies. Apes don’t lie and neither do any other animals. They just go out and get food and sex any way they can manage to get them. But humans? Civilization itself is our greatest lie. We are “civilized?” Sure….unless there’s a war or we want to make some easy money. And there are always wars. The firebombing of Dresden? Auschwitz? The Japanese in China? Human slavery? “Civilization?” I don’t think so.
Almost the entire oeuvre of William Burroughs is about this control thing. How it’s done; how it works and how to free oneself from its grasp.
Control.
It’s what’s for dinner.
Bet on it.
Unless of course we refuse the invitation.
And then we are really in a fight.
Bet on that as well.
Later…
AG
As I ignored the Benghazi attacked in real time in favor of what seemed far more interesting to me at the time and still does – the fake filmmaker and Romney’s immediate politicization of the Cairo protest and Benghazi attack – missed what is known about prisoners that were held at the “Annex” and speculations on groups other than the one Hicks named that could have been behind the SMC attack. Any speculation that the SMC wasn’t the real target?
The “annex” was occupied by CIA staff who outnumbered State at the whole site:
It’s hard to find a reference to the “proliferation” mission which doesn’t have Fox News’ fingerprints on it but if you fossick around it seems apparent there was indeed some sort of weapon collection mission. Of course there was also Ms Broadwell’s startling admission:
Take your pick. Either way we are getting into Breitbart territory. Notwithstanding there seems no cogent explanation for why there was twenty-three CIA personnel under diplomatic cover at the time. Clearly this has a lot to do with the botched security responsibility and shifting stories soon after the attack.
The Broadwell story and Fox embellishments were strongly rebutted. I tend to believe everything that the CIA categorically denies in this case; the weapon de-proliferation mission I haven’t seen disputed, however.
Prior to October 26, 2012 when Broadwell and Fox made their claim of CIA held prisoners in Benghazi, were there any news reports that identified the “Annex” as a CIA complex?
From World-Time 10/21/2012:
Note the consistent use of the term “annex” when officials publicly identify that compound suggesting something small, minor and attached to the SMC when the staffing was a multiple of that at the SMC, it was established prior to the SMC, and most likely the assignments to the “annex” were of some duration unlike rotations at the SMC that were limited to a few days.
The information was apparently withheld by news organizations at the request of the CIA.
So we have Petraeus busy covering up that detail and his former lover and #1 promoter out there spilling the beans. A woman scorned?
The McClatchy piece:
The WSJ and McClatchy articles are the sum total of credible reporting on the CIA Benghazi mission that I have encountered.
Hicks isn’t a John Dean or even Alexander Butterfield. He said nothing new — merely recounted the accepted narrative, but with himself playing a central role.
The real story at the mission — the one the rightwingers in their hatred for Obama and Clinton will never get to — may be closer to the hundred BPD cops firing at the unarmed Dzhokhar hiding in that boat.
Has anyone commented on the fact that this “well planned terrorist attack” didn’t result in a single shooting death of the mission staff including the rent-a-guards?
The State Department Report on the Benghazi Mission is worth reading. Essentially corroborates news reports of the events of 11-12 Sept 2012. Also recommend World article that includes interviews with the local security staff.
Note: The SMC was established November 2011 even though Stevens moved to the compound June 21, 2011.
The issue is, the people responsible belong to a terror group of extremist Islam. It’s of no importance to define a group by it’s name, when their fighters are fluid to participate in any military action they are paid for. Same goes for Syria, the FSA fighters are joining the Al Nusra Front because this group has the funds, social action for civilian population, best arms, better planning and jihadists who prefer death (paradise) through suicide blasts against other muslims: Shia and Alawites.
The fanatic bunch in Benghazi belong to the Wahhabist or Salafists extreme groups and their attacks are not at all random. The CIA annex was revealed when US special forces tried to give support to Amb. Chris Stevens. The militants retreated for a few hours and returned to attack the annex.
From your CNN article, the loosely knit group apparently does have an official HQ in Benghazi. I understood the meeting between militant group and Amb. Stevens a few days before the attack … was canceled.
From my diary on Sept. 15, 2012 – US Consulate in Benghazi attack: What happened, and why?.
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 and 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.