Posted on 10/08/2012 7:02:12 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
A number of media sources have fresh looks at the Obama administration's handling of security in the weeks before the terrorist attack on our consulate in Benghazi drove us out of eastern Libya and killed four Americans, including US Ambassador J. Christopher Stephens. First, Fox News reported yesterday that the State Department decided to stick to its schedule of rotating out a 16-man Special Ops team assigned to diplomatic security in Benghazi, just weeks before the attack in August. They were joined in their exit by a six-man security team from the State Department itself:
ABC News follows this up with a report this morning that Stevens himself wanted the special forces team to stay in Libya, but apparently were overruled:
U.S. Ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens wanted a Security Support Team, made up of 16 special operations soldiers, to stay with him in Libya after their deployment was scheduled to end in August, the commander of that security team told ABC News.
The embassy staff’s “first choice was for us to stay,” Lt. Col. Andrew Wood, 55, told ABC News in an interview. “That would have been the choice of the embassy people in Tripoli.” …
Asked for comment to the memo and Wood’s comments, a spokesman for the House Oversight Committee told ABC News: “Diplomats working in Libya viewed security provided by highly trained Americans as critical to their safety and mission. The Oversight Committee’s investigation continues to seek answers about why — even as threats against Americans increased — senior State Department officials erroneously decided such security was no longer needed.”
Investigators are exploring whether anyone at the State Department told the Embassy specifically not to request another extension.
The State Department responded this morning by claiming that Stevens had requested a specific level of security which matched what he already had. However, Eli Lake’s report from the Daily Beast today underscores just how fragile those security arrangements were. Thanks to Obama administration efforts in Libya, Stevens sent a cable the morning of the attack warning State that their support of a Libyan candidate for Prime Minister threatened to alienate the militias that protected the Benghazi consulate:
Just two days before the 9/11 anniversary attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, two leaders of the Libyan militias responsible for keeping order in the city threatened to withdraw their men.
The brinksmanship is detailed in a cable approved by Ambassador Chris Stevens and sent on the day he died in the attack, the worst assault on a U.S. diplomatic mission since the 1979 hostage crisis in Iran. The dispatch, which was marked “sensitive” but not “classified,” contained a number of other updates on the chaotic situation on the ground in post-Gaddafi Libya.
The cable, reviewed by The Daily Beast, recounts how the two militia leaders, Wissam bin Ahmed and Muhammad al-Gharabi, accused the United States of supporting Mahmoud Jibril, the head of the Libyan transitional government, to be the country’s first elected prime minister. Jibril’s centrist National Forces Alliance won the popular vote in Libyan elections in July, but he lost the prime minister vote in the country’s Parliament on Sept. 12 by 94 to 92. Had he won, bin Ahmed and al-Gharabi warned they “would not continue to guarantee security in Benghazi, a critical function they asserted they were currently providing,” the cable reads. The man who beat Jibril, Mustafa Abushagur, lost a vote of no-confidence Sunday, throwing Libyan politics back into further uncertainty.
The threat from the militias underscores the dangers of relying on local Libyan forces for security in the run-up to the 9/11 military-style assault. The U.S. consulate in Benghazi employed a militia called the “February 17 Martyrs Brigade” for security of the four-building compound. In addition, there were five Americans serving as diplomatic security and a group of former special operations forces that acted as a quick reaction force on the day of the 9/11 attack. Members of the militias led by bin-Ahmed and al-Gharabi overlapped with the February 17 militia, the cable says.
Lake notes that the overall tone of the cable was positive about improving security in Libya. However, it’s also rather interesting that the cable makes no mention at all of the 14-minute YouTube video that the White House insisted for more than a week was the reason for the assault on the consulate. Instead, Stevens notified Washington of a rise in Islamist forces in the region, including morality brigades enforcing sharia law at the local university. Less than 24 hours later, Stevens would be murdered while the militias turned out to be ineffective at best in the coordinated terrorist attack on the consulate.
The House Oversight Committee hearing on the attack begins on Wednesday. Will the White House story change yet again between then and now?
Chris Stephens was a fool for thinking any liberal DemoRat would have his back.
Chris Stephens was a fool...
Yeah, that's all I needed.
This situation just keeps looking worse and worse. Somebody better pay for this.
Still wondering if those two ex SEALS who were killed with him were armed (can’t imagine they were not) and if they were restrained from offering a defense. It would seem that Obama/Clinton State Department policies were a big party to this disaster. Those two brave men must have died incredibly frustrated.
I”m sure this will lead the nightly news and bring lots of attention to the situation.
Oh wait, W isn’t president anymore. So it will go unsaid.
I wonder if Romney and Ryan are aware of these developments... They should hit Obama/Biden and hit hard.
Don’t let them get away with this travesty. Force them to defend their negligence and incompetence before 70 million voters.
Watergate was NOTHING....No one died....
I agree that the only way this will get enough attention is if Romney/Ryan pound this issue repeatedly.
I’m hoping that some mid-level people tell the truth...I won’t be holding my breath though.
People are still waiting for a congressional inquiry.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton must be dismissed immediately. Her incompetence resulted in the deaths of at least six Americans in Libya. This incompetence must be corrected. THE LAW OF EFFECT shows us that incompetence that is not corrected will result in further incompetence. Hillary Clinton’s incompetence results in dead Americans, and I don’t want those dead Americans to be my family members. There are families mourning those dead Americans. Do you want to join them?
It sure is a good diversion from Iran and her nukes.
And the shameless old media keeps covering for the Democrat party by looking the other way and saying, “We didn’t kill those people or steal that money....we just covered up for those other Democrats who killed those people and stole that money.”
” negligence and incompetence :
Those are two words that should be used over and over to describe this administration.
My point is a lot of voters are unaware of this developments.
The MSM isn’t doing its job.
The only way to get them to be aware is to being this up in the debates.
Romney has a chance as the next debate will be about foreign policy.
My point is a lot of voters are unaware of these developments.
The MSM isn’t doing its job.
The only way to get them to be aware is to being this up in the debates.
Romney has a chance as the next debate will be about foreign policy.
Libya’s parliament votes to remove PM from post
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2941624/posts
Yet we're supposed to believe our border patrol agents are authorized to blaze away at unidentified targets well inside our own borders, recently resulting in death by friendly fire.
This administration lies every time they open their mouths.
FOX is going to carry Romney’s speech live at 11:20 AM Eastern.
There are plenty of folks who just go to the polls on election day and vote the same as their registration with “0” knowledge of issues and/or events...about 47%.
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