by Damien Lewis
Rex Ubben is a twenty-four-year veteran of the U.S. Air Force, who retired in 1995 as a master sergeant. He said his son had described the events of the night of September 11, 2012, as “obviously an attack and not a riot.” Dave had sketched out what appeared to be a sophisticated mortar attack during the assault on the Annex, during which ex-SEALs Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods were killed.
“The first [mortar] dropped fifty yards short and the next two were right on target,” Rex Ubben explained. “This indicates to me that someone was either very, very good, highly trained and skilled, or that the mortar was already set up and pointed at the safe house and only minor adjustments were needed.”
Rex Ubben said he was bothered, too, that “people do not seem to realize that this was a much bigger disaster for the people of Libya than it was for us, that they were attacked just as we were.”
Of course, Rex Ubben is right. The attack on the Benghazi Mission was an assault on the wider movement for democracy, freedom, and the rule of law in Libya, and a victory for those who espouse fascistic Islamic control in Libya and the rule of Shariah law—as the Shariah Brigade does. As their name suggests, the Shariah Brigade are hard-line supporters of Shariah law.
Sadly, the expulsion of the militias from Benghazi hasn’t lasted. Today, the Shariah Brigade is back in Benghazi, and their black flags fly in many of the city’s southern areas. They dominate some areas and control city checkpoints. They are a force to be reckoned with. They are well trained, battle-hardened, and well armed—thanks largely to the weapons they seized from Gaddafi’s armed forces and the weapons provided to them by the Gulf Arab States.
For these reasons the new Libyan Army is reluctant to take them on, but they know they will have to, and before they consolidate their control, at which stage it will be too late. The Libyan Army was never particularly strong, and many argue it was kept deliberately weak by Gaddafi, to lessen the threat of regime change via military coup. The question remains, which will come out the stronger: the new Libyan ruling regime and its organs of law and order and defense (the police and the armed forces), or the heavily armed militias?
To assist Libya in disbanding such extremists groups, the Obama administration has rightly allocated $8 million to train an elite Libyan commando force. After the attack on the Benghazi Mission, President Obama ordered security to be increased at all such diplomatic missions worldwide, and in Libya itself a fifty-member Marine FAST team was deployed to bolster security.
The FBI was tasked to investigate the attack on the U.S. Mission, and U.S. officials announced that surveillance over Libya would be increased, including the use of unarmed drones to “hunt for the attackers.” The effectiveness of such measures remains to be proven: they certainly came too late for those who died and were injured during the Benghazi Mission siege.
• • •
On April 23, 2013—seven months after Benghazi 9/11—the French Embassy in Tripoli, the Libyan capital, was targeted by a car bomb. The blast destroyed the embassy’s ground floor reception area and perimeter wall, as well as damaging neighboring homes. One embassy guard was severely injured and another suffered light injuries. As with the United States, France would have had every right to consider herself a friend of the Libyan people: France was at the forefront of the NATO air strikes that helped topple Colonel Gaddafi.
Also in April 2013 a political action committee called Special Operations Speaks (SOS) called for the U.S. Congress to open a new investigation into the Benghazi 9/11 attacks. An SOS letter signed by seven hundred military Special Operations veterans urged support for House Resolution 36, a measure introduced by Virginia Republican representative Frank Wolf, calling for the appointment of a House Special Committee to determine what happened at the U.S. Mission in Benghazi.
“Additional information is now slowly surfacing in the media which makes a comprehensive bipartisan inquiry an imperative,” the letter from SOS states. “Many questions have not been answered thus far . . . It appears that many of the facts and details surrounding the terrorist attack which resulted in four American deaths and an undetermined number of American casualties have not yet been ascertained by previous hearing and inquiries.”
I hope the lessons from Benghazi 9/11 have been learned by America and her allies. It is important that they are: if the catastrophic failures at Benghazi are ever repeated at another U.S.—or allied—mission, more lives will very likely be lost. As a security expert with decades of experience I am in no doubt that the lives lost on that ill-fated night could have been saved, had the security measures recommended by me, as well as the RSOs and diplomats, been implemented.
If the same numbers of Shariah Brigade fighters had hit the Embassy, but it had had proper physical security measures in place, plus the weaponry and personnel along the lines that we had repeatedly requested, the attackers would have been repulsed, or at the very least held off until everyone was safely evacuated. That is the saddest part of this whole sorry and tragic tale.
Twelve U.S. Marines; one or two .50-caliber heavy machine guns; a team of German shepherd guard dogs with handlers; standard extra-physical security measures: Do the math—what would that have cost, compared to the tragic loss of life and injuries suffered, not to mention the humiliating and shaming of America in the eyes of her enemies?
For all our sakes I hope to God the lessons from Benghazi 9/11 have been learned.
AFTERWORD
Since completing the draft of this book, five House of Representatives committees have issued an Interim Report on the September 11, 2012, terrorist attacks in Benghazi. Those committees: Armed Services, Foreign Affairs, Judiciary, Oversight & Government Reform, and the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. Those committees are continuing to investigate the Benghazi 9/11 attacks, their aftermath, and their ramifications. As it stands the Interim Report makes for sobering reading, and it is well worthy of mention in this book, hence the points quoted from it below.
1. Prior to the Benghazi attacks, State Department officials in Libya made repeated requests for additional security that were denied in Washington despite ample documentation of the threat posed by violent extremist militia.
2. The volatile security environment erupted on September 11, 2012, when militia composed of al Qa’ida-affiliated extremists attacked U.S. interests in Benghazi.
3. After the attacks, the Administration perpetuated a deliberately misleading and incomplete narrative that the violence grew out of a demonstration caused by a YouTube video. The Administration consciously decided not to discuss extremist involvement or previous attacks against Western interests in Benghazi.
4. After the U.S.-backed Libyan revolution ended the Gaddafi regime, the U.S. government did not deploy sufficient U.S. security elements to protect U.S. interests and personnel that remained on the ground.
5. Repeated requests for additional security were denied at the highest levels of the State Department.
6. The attacks were not the result of a failure by the Intelligence Community (IC) to recognize and communicate the threat. 7. On the evening of September 11, 2012, U.S. security teams on the ground in Benghazi exhibited extreme bravery responding to the attacks by al-Qa’ida-affiliated groups against the U.S.mission.
8. Senior Administration officials knowingly minimized the role played by al-Qa’ida-affiliated entities and other associated groups in the attacks, and decided to exclude from the discussion the previous attempts by extremists to attack U.S. persons or facilities in Libya.
9. This singular event (the Benghazi 9/11 attack) will be repeated unless the United States recognizes and responds to the threats we face around the world, and properly postures resources and security assets to counter and respond to those threats. Until that time the United States will remain in reactionary mode and should expect more catastrophes like Benghazi, in which U.S. personnel on the ground perform bravely, but are not provided with the resources for an effective response.
10. Congress must maint
ain pressure on the Administration to ensure the United States takes all necessary steps to find the Benghazi attackers. Active terrorist organizations and potential recruits will be emboldened to attack U.S. interests if the U.S. fails to hold those responsible for this attack accountable.
11. The decision by the British Embassy, United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross to withdraw their personnel from Benghazi after armed assailants launched directed attacks against each organization were additional major indicators of the increasingly threatening environment.
12. These developments caused Lieutenant Colonel Andrew Wood, who led U.S. military efforts to supplement diplomatic security in Libya, to recommend that the State Department consider pulling out of Benghazi altogether. Lt-Col Woods believed that after withdrawal of these organizations, “it was apparent to me that were the last [Western] flag flying in Benghazi. We were the last thing on their target list to remove from Benghazi.”
13. Despite mounting security concerns, for the most of 2012 the Benghazi Mission was forced to rely on fewer than the approved number of DS agents. Reports indicate the Benghazi Mission was typically staffed with only three DS agents, and sometimes as few as one DS agent.
14. The 17th February Martyrs Brigade was one of the militias that fought for Gaddafi’s overthrow. Numerous reports have indicated that the Brigade had extremist connections and it had been implicated in the kidnapping of American citizens as well as in the threats against U.S. military assets.
15. Due to security concerns and bureaucratic entanglements among the Department for Justice, State and Defense, the FBI team investigating the terrorist attacks did not access the crime scene until more than three weeks later, on October 4, 2012. During this time the site was not secured and curious locals and international media were able to pick through the burned-out remains of the U.S. facility.
16. The State Department’s Accountability Review Board (ARB) highlights “systematic failures” of Washington, D.C.–based decision-makers that left the Benghazi Mission with significant security shortfalls. Yet, the Board also fails to conduct an appropriately thorough and independent review of which officials bear responsibility for those decisions.
17. Despite repeated requests for further security by U.S. officials working in the high-risk, high-threat environment, requests were denied by senior leadership in the State Department . . . Thus, the Administration was willing to provide necessary force to expel Gaddafi in support of the Libyan opposition, yet it simply failed to provide sufficient protection for the U.S. personnel and interests that remained.
While I take no issue with all the points raised above—indeed, I commend the committees on their Interim Report and a set of findings that reflect my own empirical experiences on the ground in Benghazi—I find it strikingly odd that there is not one reference made in this report, or that of the Accountability Review Board, of the role played by any Blue Mountain personnel, namely, myself and my guards, in responding to the Benghazi 9/11 attacks. Under considerable risk to our own safety we located the Ambassador in the Benghazi Medical Center, verified his identity and that he had been killed, alerted U.S. authorities, and provided photographic proof of his death and whereabouts. No mention is made of that in either of the official U.S. reports. We alone returned to the Embassy in the direct aftermath of the attack—again at very real danger to ourselves—to check for any American dead, photograph and document the crime scene, and provide all of that evidence, augmented by my own verbal testimony, to U.S. authorities. Again, no mention is made of that in any official U.S.documents, or at least not ones that I have seen released to the American and world publics.
I have no interest in seeking official recognition for my own sake: it doesn’t interest me and is irrelevant. But if a full accounting of Benghazi 9/11 is to be reached, and the right lessons are to be learned, it needs to be truly a full accounting—which raises the question, why have we been written out of the equation? Has it somehow been made an “unmentionable” that a lone British security operator and a handful of Libyan guards managed to do what the FBI failed to do for weeks on end—if at all—and what the State Department made impossible on the night of the attack, by refusing to protect and garrison the Benghazi Mission properly, and if so, on whose orders and in whose interests has this been made an “unmentionable”? When the FBI originally interviewed me at my home, I was asked to go to the United States to tell my side of the story. I said I was willing, but it never happened. Too many people died or were horrifically injured, and America (and her allies) was too badly wounded by Benghazi 9/11 to play politics with the truth, or to suppress any aspects of what took place there. A full and open accounting should be just that, and nothing less.
SOURCES
Documents and publications that proved useful in writing the postscript, epilogue, and afterword of this book include the ebook Benghazi: The Definitive Report, written by former U.S. Army Ranger Jack Murphy and former Navy SEAL Brandon Webb; the official State Department Accountability Review Board report on the Benghazi 9/11 events; and the official House of Representatives Interim Report on the Benghazi 9/11 events.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We’d like to thank lead publisher Threshold Editions, and editor Mitchell Ivers, ably assisted by Natasha Simons. Also at Threshold, we thank publisher Louise Burke, publicity director Jen Robinson, production editor Al Madocs, managing editor Kevin McCahill, art director Lisa Litwack, design director Joy O’Meara, interior designer Claudia Martinez, and copyeditor Tom Pitoniak.
We would like to acknowledge a group of former U.S. Navy SEALs who wished to remain unnamed, for their assistance in our telling of the wider story of the night of the Embassy siege, and honoring the heroics of their teammates Ty Woods and Glen Doherty. Guys, your help and your insight were invaluable. Seasoned military veteran Mike Mawhinney carried out invaluable research on the ground in Benghazi and across Libya, including interviewing and facilitating our own interviews with the surgeon who treated Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens on the night of the attack, when he was first taken to the hospital in Benghazi, plus various other key players in Libya connected to the Benghazi Embassy siege. Mike, your work was of massive help to us, your contacts unrivaled, and we couldn’t have told the wider story so well without your help. As ever, greatly in your debt.
—Morgan Jones & Damien Lewis, England, June 2013
I’d like to say a big thank-you to my co-author, Damien Lewis, for his patience and understanding during a very dark time in my life. I couldn’t have done any of this without your continued support.
A special thank-you to my mates for standing by me, and listening over the past twelve months, ones that have proven extremely difficult for me: Glenn, Tom, John, Gwilym, Jason T, Cat, Steve T, Baz, Dave K, Ryan K, Nick F, Ty, Greg, Rhys, Paul T, Dan F, Jason P, Mac, Rouven, Calum, Ade, Fletch, Scotty, Chris W, Lee K, Richie, and Chris H.
Finally, very special love and gratitude to my family, for their ongoing support over the years: Laura, Lewis, Mam, Mogs, and Anna.
—Morgan Jones, England, June 2013
The team that I led on the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (U.S. ACE) security contract in northern Iraq, where I first learned to deal with threats posed by terrorists and insurgents. I am standing right on the nose cone of the Black Hawk helicopter. Morgan Jones
Briefing my team of twelve private operators, providing security on the U.S. ACE contract, in northern Iraq. This was such a dangerous posting that we would only ever move VIP clients in a four-vehicle convoy, sporting roof-mounted M240 7.62mm machine guns. Morgan Jones
Remains of one of our armored Ford Excursion SUVs after an IED strike on Route Tampa in Iraq. Morgan Jones
Ready for anything. The author is second from the left, with fellow private security operators in Iraq. The Iraq tasking was so dangerous that every man in our team was very heavily armed, carrying two thousand rounds of ammo each. Even so, we lost five men in one three-day period. Morgan Jones
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Our Iraq security team zero in their weapons on the ranges. This number of well-armed and experienced operators would have saved the Benghazi Mission on the night of the attack. Morgan Jones
A pressure-pad-activated IED— an improvised explosive device— in war-torn Helmand Province, Afghanistan, where the author learned to deal with such threats during repeated attacks. When the Benghazi Mission was hit by an IED, it blasted a hole through the perimeter wall large enough for an army of attackers to surge through. Morgan Jones
On security operations in Helmand Province, Afghanistan. For three years I ran a close protection team in Afghanistan for both the United States Marine Corps and the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Morgan Jones
Battle damage. IED strikes in Afghanistan and Iraq— remotely detonated roadside bombs—nearly always heralded a multistage attack, with further hidden IEDs and gunmen hitting our convoys. It was the ideal training ground for the kinds of threats we faced in Benghazi, if only we’d had the right defenses to repel the enemy. Morgan Jones
Blood trail left by an Afghan suicide bomber, one of the hardest of all threats to defend against. Yet at least in Afghanistan we had the weaponry, the right operators, and the means with which to do so. In Benghazi, sadly, we did not. Morgan Jones
The mangled remains of an armored SUV hit by an IED. In Iraq our team survived nine such IED strikes and we never lost a VIP client. My friend and fellow operator, Nick, walked away from this with a head injury, but is okay now. Morgan Jones
