Dark Forces: The Truth About What Happened in Benghazi (46 page)

40
  Eric Nordstrom, the Tripoli-based RSO until July 26, 2012, said he was “awestruck” when asked by the State Department’s ARB why he never recommended putting a .50-caliber machine gun on the roof of the Benghazi compound. “I said, if we are to the point where we have to have machine gun nests at a diplomatic institution, isn’t the larger question, what are we doing? Why do we have staff there?” May 8, 2013, HOGR hearing, 65.

41
  Burton and Katz,
Under Fire
, 63–64.

42
  U.S. Embassy Tripoli, August 16, 2012 (12 TRIPOLI 55), cited in Jan. 2014 SSCI report, 15–16.

43
  House Foreign Affairs Committee, “Benghazi: Where Is the State Department Accountability,” Sept. 18, 2013, U.S. Government Printing Office Serial No. 113-93, 55.

44
  “Benghazi Weekly Report: Special Eid al-Fitr Edition,” Aug 20, 2012 (12TRIPOLI 1020), included in Issa and Chaffetz to Obama, 55.

45
  Cited in Jan. 2014 SSCI report, 16.

46
  http://travel.state.gov/travel/cis_pa_tw/tw/tw_5762.html.

47
  Richard A. Oppel, Jr., “11 Are Killed as U.S. Copter Goes Down in Afghanistan,”
New York Times
, Aug. 16, 2012. An earlier account, from the Associated Press, reported seven American deaths. See Fox News, “7 Americans among dead in crash of US military helicopter caught in Afghan firefight,” Aug. 16, 2012.

48
  October 2013 communication with a senior active-duty U.S. Special Forces officer. Under pressure from Congress, the administration canceled the final tranche of a $1.1 billion deal to purchase sixty-five Mi-17 helicopters for the Afghan Army on November 14, 2013. See Radio Voice of Russia, “US cancels purchase of Russian Mi-17 helicopters,” Nov. 14, 2013.

49
  Lee Foran, “American Killed in Libya Was on Intel Mission to Track Weapons,” ABC News, Sept. 13, 2012.

50
  Interview with Lieutenant Colonel Andy Wood, Sept. 23, 2013. Greg Hicks also described Stevens’ dilemma over renewing the SST without a Status of Forces Agreement. See Hicks, “Benghazi and the Smearing of Chris Stevens.”

51
  Nancy A. Youssef, “Ambassador Stevens twice said no to military offers of more security, U.S. officials say,” McClatchy Newspapers, May 15, 2013.

13. BAITING THE TRAP

  
1
  Sheeran Frenkel, “Syrian rebels squabble over weapons as biggest shipload arrives from Libya; Turkey,”
Times
(London), September 14, 2012, 23.

  
2
  Michael Kelley, “There’s a reason why all of the reports about Benghazi are so confusing,”
Business Insider
, Nov. 3, 2012.

  
3
  Jessica Donati, Ghaith Shennib, and Firas Bosalum, “The adventures of a Libyan weapons dealer in Syria,” Reuters, June 18, 2013.

  
4
  Harald Doornbos and Jenan Moussa, “Comrades in Arms: How Libya sends weapons to Syria’s rebels,”
Foreign Policy
, July 10, 2013.

  
5
  UN Experts Panel report, March 2013, ¶ 184–88.

  
6
  Interview with John Maguire, Nov. 5, 2013.

  
7
  Associated Press, “J. Christopher Stevens: Obituary,”
Boston Globe
, September 12, 2012.

  
8
  For Colonel Adams’ earlier public appearance, see Stimson Center, Remarks by Assistant Secretary of State Anthony Shapiro, “Addressing the Challenge of MANPADS Proliferation,” Stimson Center, Washington, D.C., Feb. 2, 2012.

  
9
  Jack Murphy and Brandon Webb, “Breaking: The Benghazi Diary, A Hero Ambassador’s Final Thoughts,” June 24, 2013,
SOFREP
, http://sofrep.com/22460/ambassador-chris-stevens-benghazi-diary/#ixzz2ler7kCqw.

10
  HOGR hearing transcript, May 8, 2013, 90.

11
  Ibid., 40.

12
  Ibid., 76.

13
  Associated Press, “US State Department blasts CNN report on Christopher Stevens’ diary,” Sept. 22, 2012.

14
  U.S. Embassy Tripoli, “Benghazi Weekly Report—September 4, 2012” (12 Tripoli 1078), Issa and Chafettz to Obama, 38.

15
  The security lapses were described in a draft letter from the U.S. Mission, Benghazi, to Mohammad Obeidi, the head of the Libyan Ministry of Foreign Affairs office in Benghazi, Sept. 11, 2012. A crumpled printout of the letter was found on the floor of the burned-out compound several weeks later by journalists and included in Issa to Clinton, Nov. 1, 2012.

16
  Many of the details of Stevens’ arrival, movements, and conversations on Sept. 10–11, 2012, are described in the State Department’s Accountability Review Board report. I have supplemented these with descriptions provided by eyewitnesses to various congressional committees; committee testimony; documents released by the State Department and the Department of Defense; other documents discovered in the burned-out Special Mission Compound by journalists; and Fred Burton and Samuel M. Katz’s account in
Under Fire
.

17
  Stevens’ conversation with the Blue Mountain guards is also mentioned in Burton and Katz,
Under Fire
, 93.

18
  Email from Alec Henderson to John B. Martinec, “RE: Benghazi QRF agreement” (Sep. 9, 2012, 11:31 PM), cited in “Interim Progress Report,” 7.

19
  See Diana West, “Benghazi: The Turkish Timeline,” blog post, Dec. 13, 2012, http://www.dianawest.net/Home/tabid/36/EntryId/2345/Benghazi-The-Turkish-Timeline.aspx.

20
  Senate Foreign Relations Committee, “Benghazi: The Attacks and the Lessons Learned,” Jan. 23, 2013, 34.

21
  Interview with Larry Johnson, Sept. 22, 2013.

22
  In an email exchange with me, Akin said he would no longer respond to questions from reporters by phone or by email.

23
  U.S. Embassy Tripoli, “Benghazi Weekly Report, September 11, 2012,” Issa and Chaffetz to Obama, 56–57. The State Department has not released
any
of the many classified cables that deal with the weapons collection effort, even though they have talked about it publicly when it suited their political needs. See Stimson Center remarks, Assistant Secretary of State Anthony Shapiro.

24
  The meeting between Wisam bin Hamed and al-Gharabi was described in “Benghazi Weekly Report, September 11, 2012,” 12TRIPOLI 1098. The other cites are from the Library of Congress report, “Al Qaeda in Libya,” 1, 12, 15, 36, etc. Henderson showed Stevens a draft of the new QRF agreement earlier that day. A copy of it was found by journalists in the charred ruins of the Special Mission Compound. See,
inter alia
, http://benghazipost.blogspot.fr/2012/10/qrf-security-agreement-benghazi.html.

14. THE ATTACKS

  
1
  The White House, “Readout of the President’s Meeting with Senior Administration Officials on Our Preparedness and Security Posture on the Eleventh Anniversary of September 11th,” Sept. 10, 2012.

  
2
  Senate Armed Services Committee, “Attack on U.S. Facilities in Benghazi, Libya,” Feb. 7, 2013, Exchange with Senator James Inhofe (R-OK), 22.

  
3
  “Prominent Shumoukh Member Calls To Burn Down U.S. Embassy In Egypt With All Staff Inside In Order To Pressure U.S. To Release Blind Sheikh,”
Global Jihad News
, MEMRI, Sept. 7, 2012.

  
4
  Raymond Ibrahim blog post, “New Evidence Ties Morsi top Zawahri and to al Qaeda,” Sept. 20, 2013, http://www.raymondibrahim.com/from-the-arab-world/new-evidence-ties-ousted-morsi-government-to-al-qaeda.

  
5
  Nic Robertson, “Exclusive: Al Qaeda leader’s brother offers peace plan,” CNN, Sept. 11, 2012, Online Reader’s Guide Extra.

  
6
  Raymond Ibrahim, “Jihadis Threaten to Burn U.S. Embassy in Cairo,”
PJ Tatler
, Sept. 10, 2012, http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2012/09/10/jihadis-threaten-to-burn-u-s-embassy-in-cairo.

  
7
  Andrew C. McCarthy, “‘Blame It On the Video’ Was a Fraud for the Cairo Rioting, Too,”
National Review Online
, May 13, 2013. I will come back to the talking points in the next chapter. See also an excellent analysis by Stephen Hayes, “The Benghazi Scandal Grows,”
Weekly Standard
, May 20, 2013.

  
8
  Several Marines posted her order on their blogs. The State Department quickly denied it although from all accounts, the Marines remained disarmed. See http://freebeacon.com/reports-marines-not-permitted-live-ammo.

  
9
  Discussion with RADM Richard Landolt, February 2014.

10
  Issa to Clinton, Nov. 1, 2012.

11
  Ibid. See also Harold Doornbos, Jenan Moussa, “Troubling Surveillance Before Benghazi Attack,”
Foreign Policy
, Nov. 1, 2012, where the letters first appeared.

12
  Sean Flynn, “Murder of an Idealist,”
GQ
, December 2012.

13
  Department of State, background conference call with senior State Department officials, Oct. 9, 2012, Online Reader’s Guide Extra.

14
  Burton and Katz,
Under Fire
, 93. See also the final entry of Stevens’ diary.

15
  Thomas Joscelyn, “Al Qaeda-linked jihadists helped incite 9/11 Cairo protest,”
Long War Journal
, Oct. 26, 2012.

16
  Interview with Lieutenant Colonel Andy Wood, Oct. 15, 2013.

17
  Jones and Lewis,
Embassy House
, 169.

18
  Nathan Max, “San Diegan slain in Libya attack ‘lived to serve,’ ”
San Diego Union Tribune
, Sept. 17, 2012.

19
  Alex “The Mittani” Gianturco, “RIP Vile Rat,” online tribute, Sept. 12, 2012, http://themittani.com/news/rip-vile-rat.

20
  The online gaming community eventually raised $125,000 to support Smith’s family. For more tribunes from his online gaming friends, see http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/09/vilerat/, http://community.eveonline.com/news/dev-blogs/73406, and http://www.somethingawful.com/news/sean-smith-vilerat.

21
  Cited in “Farewell to Vilerat,” http://www.somethingawful.com/news/sean-smith-vilerat.

22
  This chronology, unless otherwise noted, follows that of the State Department’s Accountability Review Board. They identify Alec Henderson as “TDY RSO,” Scott Wickland as “ARSO-1,” and David Ubben as “ARSO-2.” So far, the identities of the two African-American DS agents the ambassador brought with him from Tripoli have not been released. The ARB refers to them as “ARSO-3” and “ARSO-4.”

23
  Chris Stephens, “US consulate attack in Benghazi: A challenge to official version of events,”
Guardian
, Sept. 9, 2013.

24
  Burton and Katz,
Under Fire
, 102.

25
  The initial eyewitness accounts from the Libyan guards—both the 17th February militiamen and the Blue Mountain guards—were wildly contradictory and unreliable. By the time they met with reporters they had already been aggressively interviewed by the FBI, who accused them of failing the “fight to the death” to defend the compound. See Shashank Bengali, “Libyan Guards Speak Out on Attack That Killed U.S. Ambassador,”
Los Angeles Times
, Oct
.
13, 2012. In separate interviews with
Time
, the 17th February guards claimed they brought up reinforcements, one of many statements of bravura in this article that simply wasn’t true. See Steven Sotloff, “The Other 9/11: Libyan Guards Recount What Happened in Benghazi,”
Time
, Oct. 21, 2012.

26
  Conversation with Representative James Lankford, Feb. 5, 2014. Representative Lankford said he was pressing the administration to release the surveillance video and the drone footage “so the American people can see it.”

27
  Representative Lynn Westmoreland, interview with CNN, “New Day,” Nov. 18, 2013.

28
  “Radical Yemen Cleric: No Fatwa Needed to Kill Americans,” Voice of America, Nov. 7, 2010.

29
  Gretel C. Kovach, Debbi Baker, and Nathan Max, “Two SEAL vets from SD killed in Libya,”
San Diego Union Tribune
, Sept 13, 2012.

30
  Rowan Scarborough, “U.S. commandos fought in Benghazi,”
Washington Times
, Oct. 31, 2013.

31
  None of the official timelines for the events of this night match. In the CIA’s initial timeline, Ty Woods and his team departed the Annex at 10:02 PM. The State Department’s ARB report said they left at 10:05 PM. In a much later timeline developed by the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, they departed at 10:07 PM—and arrived simultaneously! See David Ignatius, “In Benghazi timeline, CIA errors but no evidence of conspiracy,”
Washington Post
, Nov. 1, 2012; and “HPSCI Update on Benghazi,” Nov. 14, 2013. The Senate Intelligence Committee cites surveillance video from the Annex showing that they departed at 10:03 PM, but then adds wiggle room that they departed “approximately 20–25 minutes after the first call came into the Annex,” Jan. 2014 SSCI report, 4.

32
  EMTs discovered the cyanide effect after a nightclub fire in West Warwick, Rhode Island, in 2003. See Michael E. Murphy, “Hydrogen Cyanide in Structure Fires,” July 2010, New York State Association of Fire Chiefs online magazine, http://inletemergencyservices.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/hydrogencyanide1.pdf.

33
  “Glasses of tea”: Burton and Katz,
Under Fire
, 162. The fiction of the forty militiamen was repeated in Steven Sotloff’s account in
Time
, cited above, where one of the 17th February militiamen claimed they had“jogged alongside” the cars of the arriving GRS team. That simply didn’t happen.

34
  Interview with RADM Richard Landolt, Feb. 4, 2014. As this book went to press, no congressional committee had yet asked Landolt or Leidig to testify.

35
  House Armed Services Committee, Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, Redacted Transcript of Executive Session (Top Secret), “AFRICOM and SOCAFRICA and the Terrorist Attacks in Benghazi,” 35. Hereafter, General Ham testimony.