by Aaron Klein
LIES
In Susan Rice’s initial Sunday show remarks on September 16, she told ABC News, “We believe that folks in Benghazi, a small number of people came to the embassy – or to the consulate, rather, to replicate the sort of challenge that was posed in Cairo.”5
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton used the word “consulate” several times during her testimony on Benghazi.
While many in the government have been careful not to use the word “consulate” in describing the U.S. facility attacked in Benghazi, some administration officials have indeed called the assaulted building a “consulate.” Government documents from the State Department’s ARB report into congressional and senatorial investigations of documents released by the State Department, White House, Pentagon, and Intelligence Community carefully label the facility a “U.S. Special Mission” and not a “consulate.” In fact, the ARB divulges that the mission was so special it possessed a “non-status” making security provisions to the facility difficult. The ARB also relates a decision “to treat Benghazi as a temporary, residential facility.”
LIES
The administration has claimed the Benghazi attacks were an extension of protests outside the U.S. embassy in Cairo, Egypt, that same day. We were told the Cairo protests were also about the anti-Islam film.
The protests were actually announced days in advance as part of a movement to free the so-called blind sheikh, Omar Abdel-Rahman, who is serving a life sentence in the United States for conspiracy in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. In July 2012, Rahman’s son, Abdallah Abdel Rahman, threatened to organize a protest at the U.S. embassy in Cairo and detain the employees inside.6 In fact, on the day of the September 11, 2012, protests in Cairo, CNN’s Nic Robertson interviewed Rahman’s son, who described the protest as being about freeing his father. No Muhammad film was mentioned. A big banner calling for Rahman’s release can be seen as Robertson walked to the embassy protests.7
LIES
Mike Morell, then acting CIA director, claimed references to terrorism were scrubbed from the White House talking points “to prevent compromising an ongoing criminal investigation” of the attack on the U.S. mission.
A Republican House Interim Progress Report on the events in Benghazi relates that lawmakers who penned the investigation were given access to classified e-mails and other communications that prove the talking points were not edited to protect classified information but instead to protect the State Department’s reputation, directly contradicting Morell’s claims.9
LIES
The State Department’s ARB report claims the armed February 17 Martyrs Brigade members hired to protect the U.S. special mission actually helped American personnel escape a roadblock when the compound came under attack. It paints a picture of Brigade members as helpful to American personnel during the attack.
A Senate report reveals the February 17 Martyrs Brigade militia refused to “provide cover” for the U.S. security team that was trapped inside the compound. Relates the report: “Outside the compound, the security team asked February 17 Martyrs Brigade members to ‘provide cover’ for them to advance to the gate of the Temporary Mission Facility with gun trucks. The February Brigade members refused, saying they preferred to negotiate with the attackers instead.”10
LIES
The State Department’s ARB report states security personnel inside the U.S. Benghazi compound were armed, even describing how the security officers retrieved their weapons.11
Representative Westmoreland, chairman of the House Intelligence Subcommittee, told Fox News that State Department employees inside the mission “were not armed, not kitted up and there hadn’t been any shots fired from our side as far as the testimony reveals.” Westmoreland was commenting on closed-door testimony given to his intelligence committee.12 In another interview with Fox News, Westmoreland stated that one of the U.S. security officers was barefoot during the attack, while another two were “riding around in a Land Cruiser.”13 If the witness testimony of unarmed security officers is accurate, it would mean the ARB details were fabricated out of whole cloth.
LIES
For months, Obama administration officials repeatedly denied supplying arms to rebels fighting the insurgency against Syrian president Bashar al-Assad amid reports the arms pipeline may have originated in part in Libya.
According to the New York Times, the CIA started helping Arab governments and Turkey to obtain and ship weapons to the rebels fighting the regime of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad. The Times reported this covert aid to the Syrian rebels started in early 2012.14 The Times later reported that the weapons airlifts to Syria began on a small scale and continued intermittently through the fall of 2012, expanding into a steady and much heavier flow later that year.15 (My own sources say the airlifts started several months before fall 2012.)
LIES
Multiple administration and Pentagon officials claimed they thought the attack in Benghazi was over after the initial assault, so therefore a rescue mission or air support would not have made a difference.
How could the Obama administration have known what the gunmen had planned or that the first wave was the only attack to be carried out? Second, witnesses on the ground, including CIA contractors who were inside the annex, said there was no lull in the fighting at all.16
LIES
Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, claimed there was not enough time for C-110 Special Forces to have made it to Benghazi from their temporary station base in Croatia. Dempsey was asked whether he agreed with a Fox News timeline that the C-110 could deploy in four to six hours. “No, I would not agree to that timeline,” he stated. “The travel time alone would have been more than that, and that is if they were sitting on the tarmac.”17
Dempsey’s remarks are inaccurate. Even a large passenger jet can travel from the farthest point of Croatia to Benghazi in about two and a half hours or less.
LIES
Clearly denying any existence of an order to wait or stand down, the State Department’s ARB says a response team one mile away in the CIA annex was “not delayed by orders from superiors.”18 Multiple Obama administration officials claimed rescue teams were not delayed by any orders.
CIA agents on the ground in Benghazi testified to law-makers that they were loaded into vehicles and ready to aid the besieged U.S. special mission on September 11, 2012, but were told by superiors to “wait.” Representative West-moreland, who again is head of the House intelligence subcommittee that interviewed the CIA employees, explained that while there was no “stand-down order,” there was a disagreement at the nearby CIA annex about how quickly to respond. Westmoreland revealed that some CIA agents wanted to storm the Benghazi compound immediately, but they were told to wait while the agency collected intelligence on the ongoing attack.19
LIES
The State Department’s ARB report claims “civilians” who were likely “good Samaritans” found Ambassador Chris Stevens’ body and transported him to the Benghazi Medical Center.
If this narrative is accurate, then we must believe that “good Samaritans” carrying the body of the most high-profile American in Libya made it past heavy roadblocks established by armed militants around the periphery of the U.S. compound.
LIES
Hillary Clinton testified on January 23, 2013, that no one within the government ever recommended the closure of the U.S. facility in Benghazi.20
Clinton’s testimony is contradicted by Lt. Col. Andrew Wood, who led the U.S. military’s efforts to supplement diplomatic security in Libya. Wood testified that he personally recommended the Benghazi mission be closed on security grounds.21
AND MORE LIES
During her Benghazi testimony, Clinton implied that she didn’t know about the procurement or transfer of weapons out of Libya to Turkey.
Clinton, it seems, was not only personally involved in the arms-to–Syrian jihadists scheme; she was reportedly a ringleader. The New York Times described Clinton as one of t
he driving forces behind advocating a plan to arm the Syrian rebels.22
APPENDIX B
QUESTIONS FOR THE HOUSE SELECT COMMITTEE ON BENGHAZI
The following is a list of suggested questions, based largely on the information documented in this book, for the House Select Committee on Benghazi to ask to members and former members of the Obama administration. Included are specific questions to be posed to former secretary of state Hillary Clinton.
SECURITY
• An eighty-five-page Senate report concluded that, according to the State Department, the Benghazi “Mission facility did not store classified information, and therefore no Marine contingent was present.”1 What then was the purpose of the U.S. special mission? What kinds of activities transpired at the mission? This is one of the most important questions that must be asked.
• A top official revealed the State Department refused a request to install guard towers at the doomed U.S. facility in Benghazi (see chapter 1). Why were the guard towers not installed? One reason initially provided is that the towers would attract too much attention to the facility. Why was the State Department so concerned about attracting too much attention to this particular facility? Other nations had a public presence in Benghazi.
• In an interview with CNN on November 18, 2013, Rep. Lynn Westmoreland (R-GA), chairman of the House Intelligence Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, disclosed that his committee had learned a directive was issued August 11 – one month before the attack – telling Benghazi staff they were on their own.2 Is this accurate? If so, who issued this directive?
• The mission’s entire external security depended on “unarmed, locally contracted Blue Mountain Libya guards,” the State-sponsored Accountability Review Board (ARB) report relates.3 Why were unarmed guards protecting a U.S. compound in one of the most dangerous cities in Libya?
• Another critical question: Why was internal security for the compound – the quick reaction force – provided by armed members of the February 17 Martyrs Brigade? The February 17 Brigade is part of the al-Qaeda–linked Ansar al-Sharia, a militia that advocates the strict implementation of Islamic law and that took credit for previous attacks against other diplomatic posts in Benghazi before the September 11 attacks. Ultimately, Ansar al-Sharia was implicated in the Benghazi attacks, as well. How could the State Department trust an al-Qaeda–tied Islamic extremist militia to serve as the armed quick reaction force within the U.S. special mission? Who within the State Department approved the February 17 Brigade force?
• According to the ARB report, the attackers appear to have used fuel that was stored next to uninstalled generators at the February 17 Martyrs Brigade living quarters to burn that building.4 Is there information indicating that the February 17 Brigade militia deliberately left the fuel cans there?
• The intruders were said to have inside knowledge of the layout of the compound, including the precise location of a secret safe room where Ambassador Chris Stevens was holed up. Is there information indicating that the February 17 Brigade militia provided the attackers with critical insider information? Were the militia members, and perhaps former guards at the compound, among the gunmen who carried out the actual assault that night?
• Libyan warlord Abdul Basit Haroun divulged to Reuters that he is behind some of the biggest shipments of weapons from Libya to Syria. Most of the weapons were sent to Turkey, he said, where they were in turn smuggled into neighboring Syria.5 Haroun was reportedly a former member of the February 17 Brigade militia. Did the militia aid the United States in procuring weapons for Mideast rebels? Is this why the militia worked from within the U.S. special mission?
• In the months before the September 11, 2012, assault, the State Department pulled government Security Support Teams (SSTs), special U.S. forces trained for counterattacks on U.S. embassies or threats against diplomatic personnel. Why were these forces removed? Even after their removal, why wasn’t an SST temporarily redeployed to Libya ahead of the 9/11 anniversary to beef up security on the one day jihadists are known to be more motivated to attack?
• The State Department denied a request for the continued use of an aircraft to move personnel and security equipment in Libya. Such an aircraft could have aided in the evacuation of the victims after the attack. Ultimately, the U.S. special mission had to wait for a Libyan C-130 transport cargo aircraft and other planes to be secured to move the victims from Benghazi to Tripoli and then from Tripoli to Western hospitals. Who pulled the aircraft? Why was it removed?
• One month before the September 11, 2012, attack, a fifty-four-page Library of Congress report warned of al-Qaeda’s increasing presence in Libya, including inside Benghazi. What additional security precautions, if any, were taken in light of this alarming information?
• Key Pentagon officials, including the commander of U.S. forces in Africa, were not aware of the existence of the CIA annex that operated 1.2 miles away from the Benghazi mission and was the second target on the night of the attacks (see chapter 1). Why were these officials not briefed on the mission’s whereabouts and existence? How could the military protect the facility when top Pentagon brass, including Gen. Carter Ham, then commander of U.S. Africa Command, did not even know it existed?
• The State Department labeled the attacked Benghazi facility a “U.S. special mission.” Why was it given such an unusual designation?
SECRETIVE ACTIVITIES
• Were the U.S. special mission and/or the nearby CIA annex in Benghazi involved in any way in procuring and shipping weapons to the jihadist rebels fighting the regime of Bashar al-Assad of Syria or to any other rebels fighting in the Middle East or Africa?
• Ambassador Chris Stevens’ original role in Libya was to serve as the main interlocutor between the Obama administration and the rebels based in Benghazi. Was Stevens himself involved in recruiting and/or vetting jihadists or coordinating arms shipments to the gunmen fighting Assad’s regime in Syria or to any other rebels fighting in the Middle East or Africa?
• The New York Times reported that from offices at “secret locations,” American intelligence officers “helped the Arab governments shop for weapons” and vet rebel commanders and groups “to determine who should receive the weapons as they arrive.” The CIA declined to comment to the Times on the shipments to Syria or its role in them.6 Where were these purported secret offices located? Was this a reference to the secret CIA annex and obscure U.S. special mission in Benghazi where Stevens held his final meeting with a Turkish diplomat?
• The New York Times reported in December 2012 that Stevens himself facilitated an application to the State Department for the sale of weapons, filed by one Marc Turi, whom the Times describes as an “American arms merchant who had sought to provide weapons to Libya.”7 Why was Stevens aiding in an application for an arms merchant? Is this an ordinary activity for a U.S. ambassador? Was Stevens involved in activities in Libya beyond the diplomatic realm? If so, could these activities have any relation to the Benghazi attacks?
• Fox News reported that Stevens was in Benghazi the very night of the attacks “to negotiate a weapons transfer in an effort to get SA-7 missiles out of the hands of Libya-based extremists.”8 Is this accurate?
• In August 2013 there was speculation on Capitol Hill that U.S. agencies operating in Benghazi “were secretly helping to move surface-to-air missiles out of Libya, through Turkey, and into the hands of Syrian rebels.”9 Were these activities indeed taking place? Were such activities transpiring in the U.S. facilities in Benghazi? Could it be that the movement of these weapons provoked the Benghazi attacks?
• The New York Times reported that U.S. intelligence officers aided Arab governments in obtaining weapons, “including a large procurement from Croatia.”10 The C-110 forty-man special ops force was reportedly “training” in Croatia during the Benghazi attacks. The force was not deployed to help the embattled Benghazi facilities. Was the C-110 in Croatia to protect, collect, or ship the weapons reportedly procur
ed in that country?
NO REINFORCEMENTS
• The ARB report provided a timeline of the attacks, an accounting adopted by the Obama administration. The report claims the initial assault on the U.S. special mission in Benghazi started between 9:45 p.m. and 10:00 p.m. local time and lasted until about midnight, when all but two Americans were evacuated to the CIA annex about a mile away. According to the ARB report, at midnight the annex was attacked intermittently for an hour by gunfire and RPGs. The ARB report claims the next phase of the attack started at about 5:15 a.m. local time, describing the second wave of attacks as consisting of heavy mortar and RPG assaults.11
• However, witnesses on the ground, including CIA contractors inside the annex, said there was no lull in the fighting at all.12 The “lull” claim is central to the Obama administration’s explanation for why no air support or special forces were deployed to Benghazi. Was there a lull or not? If not, why didn’t the Obama administration immediately deploy reinforcements? If there was no lull, why did the State Department claim there was?
